Why did the Fallschirmjäger have such terrible parachutes?

Question

German Fallschirmjäger had pretty bad parachutes. They used the RZ rig which has the parachutist hanging, dangling actually, from his back on one line. It was dangerous to use, and prevented the man carrying any meaningful weaponry. Usually just a pistol and a pocket knife. The man was hanging face forward in his harness and would land on hands and knees, with great of risk of injuries. The jolt of the opening often caused injuries too.

The only advantage I can see was a very low drop height.

The German army was good at re-evaluating and after action reports to rectify previous performance. The performance of Fallschirmjäger were mixed: they suffered severe casualties in Oslo and in The Hague the operation mostly failed. Why did they keep that parachute? Even Luftwaffe parachutes were better.

I have been searching on parachutes, but I'm directed to Fallschirmjäger, not to the parachutes they uses. I was able to find they just the RZ20 parachute, but no reasons why they used that one.

Answer 1

The use of the RZ20 parachute was deliberate; the Luftwaffe, who controlled the Fallschirmjäger, seem to have regarded it as the most suitable for paratroops, as opposed to escaping aircrew, which is a somewhat different requirement.

The ability of the RZ20 to open quickly, allowing very low drops, had two advantages:

• The troops spent less time exposed to enemy fire while descending.
• The troops weren't widely scattered and could form up quickly.

The second point is important: paratroops need time after their landing to get organised, and are very vulnerable during that time. Reducing it would have been attractive to planners, especially if they didn't fully appreciate the rate of injuries the RZ20 caused.

Once the war was underway, replacing all the parachutes and re-training all the paratroopers would have been hard to justify within the Nazi view of organization, where telling your boss bad news is hard, and potentially dangerous. The Führerprinzip says you owe him total loyalty, and while this should include telling him unpleasant truths, a lot of people interpret this as hostility.

After Crete, Fallschirmjäger were normally used as elite infantry, without air drops, removing any incentive to replace their parachutes.