Losses and the Luftwaffe after the Battle of Britain   In the Aftermath section it is noted  In losses of aircraft and experienced aircrew the battle was a blow from which the Luftwaffe never fully recovered It had significantly fewer bombers at the start of Operation Barbarossa some  machines because of losses sustained over BritainBergstrm  p   I am not sure if that is what Bergstrm who is being referenced here actually writes as I do not have access to his books I doubt it however The Luftwaffe frontline strenght certainly did not decrease as a result of the Battle of Britain as reinforcements and production was more than sufficient to replace losses and to replace the existing types with more modern type of aircraft withdrawing the older models ie by the start of Barbarossa much of the E fleet was now replaced by the new F  It is also contestable on grounds of Luftwaffe reported strenghts Olaf Groehler in  for example reports the LW frontline strenght not including a lot of aux and noncombat oriented units gives the LW strenght as  on  April  before the Western Campaigns of which  were SE fighters  being bombers and  being dive bombers A day before Barbarossa  June  he reports  aircraft ie some  aircraft increase including  SE fighters another  in a new category the nightfighters  bombers and  dive bombers Therefore the claim that only  bombers were in the Luftwaffe which I suspect is a misunderstanding of the original text is wrong as is the conclusion that this was due to some irreversible blow suffered during the BoB It may well be that  or so bombers were employed against Russia while the others elsewhere in the West and in the Med In any case the claim that the BoB was some sort of a death blow to the LW lacks solid foundation It certainly suffered considerable losses as did the RAF which lost apprx  of the fighter and bomber force it started the Battle with but even in absolute terms those losses were not irrecoverable the LW already lost about the same number of aircraft during the two months of the Battle of France as it did during the four months of the Battle of Britain yet it was was capable of launching the BoB offensive just a month later as it was capable of seizing complete air dominance over the Eastern front in  Therefore I think that particular sentence is contenstable and should be removed