Erhard Milch

Erhard Milch (30 March 1892 – 25 January 1972) was a German Generalfeldmarschall of the Luftwaffe who oversaw its founding and development during the rearmament of Germany and most of World War II. Milch served as State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Aviation from May 1933 to June 1944 and as Inspector General of the Luftwaffe from February 1939 to January 1945. Milch was an early member of the Luftstreitkräfte during World War I and worked as an airline director in the German civil aviation industry after the war. Milch was appointed deputy of Hermann Göring in the Aviation Ministry in 1933, heading the organisation and development of the Luftwaffe from 1936. Milch led Nazi Germany's aircraft production and supply from 1941, adopting a policy of mass production, and utilising the forced labour of foreign workers under inhumane conditions to supply the Luftwaffe. Milch was removed from his important Aviation Ministry positions after supporting a failed attempt to remove Göring in June 1944 and sidelined until his capture by Allied forces in May 1945. Milch was tried at the Milch Trial in 1947, convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his exploitation of forced labour for the Luftwaffe, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Milch's sentence was commuted to 15 years by John J. McCloy, the U. S. High Commissioner for Germany, in 1951. Milch was paroled in 1954 and died in West Germany in 1972.