For the Defence of the Reich

any though not all OKL hopes were vested in the He 162 Volksjager from the summer of 1944. This new machine was meant to transform Germany’s fortunes in the air from 1945. Together with the Me 262 this jet fighter of the simplest construction would, in the eyes of the Luftwaffe chiefs, re-establish the Luftwaffe in the skies above the Reich.

The available fighter Geschwader equipped with Bf 109 G-14 and K-4, and the Fw 190 A-9 and D-9, were no longer able to make inroads into the enemy’s aerial hordes. Fuel shortages limited operational opportunities for the daylight units over the Reich itself. The solution for the future was to be quality instead of quantity. Only aircraft superior to the Allied machines could win significant victories and so seize back, at least for a time, the initiative. What was necessary here was not only a Luftwaffe with more powerful aircraft, but the fanaticism of its younger pilots. This was the thinking behind the creation of the so-called Volksjager Geschwader equipped mainly with the He 162 A-l or A-2.