Schmid was the head of Luftwaffe intelligence. He played a large part in the formation of the Germans’ official view of the RAF in their attempt to wipe out Fighter Command in the summer of 1940.

It was on July 16th, the day that Hitler issued his Directive No. 16 promising the ultimate invasion of Britain, that Schmid delivered an assessment of the RAF and the likely tenor of the battle which was about to begin. His conclusions were that the RAF was inferior to the Luftwaffe in almost every department with regard to the fighting qualities of the Hurricane and Spitfire. Both, he asserted, were inferior to the Me109, particularly the Hurricane. Many of these assertions were included in order to please Goering. With regard to the numbers he was not far out, crediting the RAF with a fighter strength of 900 aircraft, of which 675 were fit for operations.

The yawning gap in Schmid’s assessment was the failure to take account of the innovative system of control adopted by Fighter Command. He completely underestimated the effectiveness of this radar based system. This was the most serious omission of his intelligence assessment. But above all else, in July the Luftwaffe was suffering from a massive overdose of confidence bred from its impressive performance up until that time. That summer, the RAF, in German eyes, was just another enemy, which, like Poland, Norway and France, was there to be overwhelmed. The only question was how long it would take. Goering wondered whether it would be one or two or even three weeks. For Goering, the outcome was never in doubt.

In truth, the fact was that the German High Command never had a clear or proper appreciation of the RAF’s real strength. Schmid’s prolific output of work, which was often based on what the commanders wanted to hear, did nothing to dispel the idea that the Luftwaffe was vastly superior to the RAF.