German Home Defense Squadrons?

Seeing as how England and France had their respective Home Defense squadrons, I had to wonder whether Germany organized a similar squadron of their own, expressly for the defense of the Vaterland. I know of no designations for such units but have to assume that once the English and French carried the war into Germany (via bombing raids) that the Huns certainly must have at least set up a token force to defend Berlin and other potential targets. Undoubtedly they were confident in their frontline units in France to head off such formations but history seems to indicate that the English were having their way in 1918 with breaking through and dropping their eggs on various German targets. Was air combat over Germany even common or did the majority of engagements occur even before the allies were able to get into German air space? If any of you folks are aware of any literature on this subject, do reply. Thanks.

There where units for the protection against strategical bombing. From memory I only remember that at one time they where called the Kesta (KampfEinsitzerStaffel).
At the end of the war they got many of the planes with good climbing rate, eg. some of the new the Siemens Schuckert III and IV.

[rammjaeger]

Yes Chris,

the "Huns" had Home Defense Squadrons. You can find ifo about these units e.g. in
"Die Königlich Bayerischen Fliegertruppen",
"Die deutschen Militärflugzeuge 1910-1918"
(deals with 407 German aircraft types) and in
"Die Geschichte des Luftkrieges" by Gröhler
but I guess this literature is not available in English therefore some short hints:

Allied aircraft attacked especially the industrial areas around Didenhofen and near the rivers Mosel and Saaar. Freiburg, Mannheim and Cologne were targets too. 729 persons were killed and 1754 wounded during these attacks. Damage was estimated to be 23.5 mill. Reichsmark - very low compared with daily German war costs of 180 million RM.

Number of attacks against the Heimat:
1915: 42
1916: 100
1917: 193
1918: 279

The German Heimatluftschutz had 20000 soldiers
with 896 Flak, 454 search lights, 170 fighters,
327 balloons and 209 Drachen.

A lot of the used fighters were obsolete because the front got higher priority. Additional during the last month the lack of fuel was hampering activities.

[Vigilant]

Chris, the Brits certainly did not have it all their own way over the Heimat: the "Independant Force" of the RAF (the strategic bit) suffered almost 300% loss in aircraft in the 3 months of its existance up to Nov.1918!

Official History figure.