Reichsluftschutzbund

Purpose

Organization

• RLB was led by a Präsidium, whose president, and vice president and chief of staff, were active duty general officers of the Luftwaffe. The presidium was in itself a department immediately subordinated to the Ministry of Aviation.
• Coterminous with each Luftgaukommando was a RLB-Gruppe under a leader aided by 46 full-time staff members.
• For each Regierungsbezirk, there was a RLB-Bezirksgruppe.
• The basic organization was the RLB-Revier, one for each police precinct in the cities, or the RLB-Gemeinde-Gruppe, one for each urban or rural municipality for the rest of the country. In the case of a city with several precincts, the citywide organization was called an RLB-Ortsgruppe. Several municipal groups formed an RLB-Ortskreisgruppe, one for each Landkreis. Each Ortsgruppe and Ortskreisgruppe had a leader and a staff of nine members, of which five where full-time salaried employees.
• The basic organizations had a varied number of Untergruppen divided into Blocke under Blockwarte which controlled and liaised with a number of Luftschutzgemeinschafte under Luftschutzwarte. Each community consisted of an apartment building or several smaller buildings, although a large apartment complex could have several communities. In addition to the warden, the community should have an assistant warden, house fire fighters, helpers and messengers as a first intervention squad. Duty in these squads were compulsory for the civilian population.