*on the eastern front*

Fallschirmjägers were used on the ground actively in several theaters, including the east with only a handful of significant jumps like Crete.

However the 41-42 time on the eastern front they could have been used to great success. Destruction of infrastructure that was needed for the reinforcement of Stalingrad, Moscow and Leningrad could have been achieved.

The Luftwaffe still had control of the skies during those periods. Even during the barbarossa offensive the use of the airborne to jump behind lines and secure avenues of retreat would have netted larger gains.

There's alot more information i could post about this, id like to hear others thoughts

Crete losses on the airborne operation was deemed too high. Hitler I believe said the cost was too high. 20,000 assaulters 3600 dead or MIA. The US in the Normandy airborne landings landed 17.037 men.  Casualties through June 30 were reported by VII Corps as 4,670 for the 101st (546 killed, 2217 wounded, and 1,907 missing), and 4,480 for the 82nd (457 killed, 1440 wounded, and 2583 missing)  Link

I was just reading about this.   Hitler decided the losses in the Crete drop were too great, even though they ultimately prevailed.   It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, except when you consider that the Luftwaffe never had enough transport aircraft to even support normal the ground troops properly.  

The Germans had good tactics, leadership and moral.  What they lacked, was logistics.

There was a great deal of inter-service rivalry in the Nazi hierarchy.   I bet it simply came down to who won favor.

I had a great response typed and my phone closed the page....

Seems its a typical case of hitler getting in the way. Crete was a completely different action than the ones they could have done in the east which would have been more like market garden. Crete really required alot from the paras to secure their own reinforcement. Whereas it would have taken some days at most for the ground forces to reach forward drop points.

In the early 40s even with the crete issue they still could have dropped 10 to 12k paratroopers across the front in the east to either seize supplies, routes or destroy infrastructure resulting in the russians losing many more men in the big retreat....who ended up forming a force later on.

It will be one of those issues where we will never know but its a very valid debate point of something that could have affected the war. They could have even dropped men behind the lines to destroy the railways heading east. The Soviets required 10k to 12k train cars to move one factory...there was no other way to move those factories east but rail....those factories won the war for them

What boltedsafe said.  Crete made Hitler turn against large paratrooper drops.  The only signficant drop after Crete was Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine) paratroopers were dropped behind American lines.

Crete really was a bloodbath for the Fallschirmjager, but they also suffered heavily in Greece (at Corinth) and in 1940 in Holland.  Eben Emael and Oslo were the only really successful airborne operations, and both benefited by being launched before war was even declared.  By 1941 it was obvious that surprise wasn't likely to be achieved anywhere important, and realistically, there simply weren't very many scenarios where an airborne assault would be all that useful.  Maybe in the Perekop/Kerch in 1941, and maybe they could have prevented some demolition at Maikop in 42, but realistically in 1941/42 the 7th flieger had only a handful of squeeze bore anti-tank guns and unlike Crete, the Soviets had lots of tanks.  

Malta was probably the last chance the Germans had to use their airborne forces for a decisive operation, but fortunately for the Allies Rommel wanted nothing to do with it.

Rommel wanted Malta taken.   He mentions it in the Rommel Papers.

He wanted it taken...but not if it took a drop of fuel or a single pound of cargo from his forces.  He repeatedly vetoed withdrawing enough Luftwaffe assets from NA or ships from the Tripoli route to prepare an invasion.  Hitler of course also had a hand in denying the Italians enough fuel to support the operation, but without Rommel's direct  support it was a non-starter, and whatever he may have said post-facto, both the German and Italian records indicate he was all for invading Malta, so long as he didn't have to contribute at all.

It doesn't help that he (correctly) observed that if Alexandria fell, Malta would automatically as well.  Mussolini and Hitler were neither one keen on the project it seems, and the Luftwaffe was ambivalent.

As mentioned previously, they were mauled on Crete.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOYimtKfDso