Hatching the Eagle

The birth of the Luftwaffe

The Luftwaffe, the air force of Nazi Germany, was one of the iconic military arms of World War II. Organized secretly in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles, it became the poster boy of the new, reinvigorated, technologically advanced German military once it was openly established on February 26, 1935. While the Luftwaffe became a potent weapon of the Nazi regime in World War II, it was far from perfect, suffering from a clear strategic vision. This article is about the birth of the air arm of Nazi Germany's military.

The German air force, originally named Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches ("The flying troops of the German Kaiser's Reich," usually translated "The Imperial German Air Service), was formed in 1910 as one of the first military aviation organizations in history. It became one of the major aerial combatants and a pioneer of air combat doctrine in World War I, and produced several aces who went on to influence its World War II successor, such as Hermann Göring and Ernst Udet. After defeat at the hands of the Entente nations, the air force was disbanded in 1920. The Treaty of Versailles ordered Germany to destroy all of its military aircraft and prohibited the formation of a new organization.

Germany was also under several other extremely strict limitations on its military power, and was never going to abide by them. Most people might not realize that the nation’s secret and illegal rearmament was actually started not by the Nazis, but by the Weimar Republic as soon as the Treaty of Versailles was signed in mid-1919.

One trick the rearmament process used was to openly train men in one thing but do it in such a way that they could easily transfer those skills to military use. The police force, for instance, was trained to also be capable of operating as an army reserve. Training pilots for the new air force followed the same ploy, by the men starting their training as civilian pilots flying light trainers. In order to get combat training, Germany turned to the Soviet Union, which was a fellow outcast from the international community due to the communist regime. The Treaty of Versailles did not forbid German citizens from receiving military training in other countries, so a secret air base, the Lipetsk fighter-pilot school, was established at Lipetsk in Russia in 1925 for German veterans to teach new German pilots. The arrangement was mutually beneficial: Soviet pilots could also use the facilities to develop new bomb targeting methods, and the Soviets also gained valuable insight into aircraft design. The school was eventually closed down in 1933, by when the Nazis had risen to power in Germany and the ideological differences between the two nations were just too great. (Germany also operated a tank school and a chemical weapons test site in the Soviet Union.)

Similar duplicity was used in hardware development. The Deutsche Luft Hansa, the ancestor of the modern Lufthansa airline, was Germany's flag carrier from 1926. It was never profitable, and for a good reason: passenger and cargo transportation were really just a cover for the company's true importance. The civilian planes it flew were very similar to military aircraft at the time, and most of the company's passenger aircraft were converted to military use in World War II.

Preparations for the new air force sped up once Hitler seized power in Germany. (Read our earlier article) World War I flying ace Hermann Göring became an early convert to Nazi ideology and marched with Hitler on the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. Once Hitler was at the head of Germany, he made Göring the National Commissar for Aviation, then soon after head of the Reich Aviation Ministry in 1933, with former Luft Hansa director Erhard Milch as his deputy. Milch was actually "mixed race" according to Nazi laws due to Jewish blood on his father's side. In 1935, the Gestapo investigated Milch's ancestry. Göring, unwilling to lose a useful man, stepped in and shut down the investigation by forcing Milch's mother to sign a false statement that Milch's biological father was a different man.

All local sports aviation associations were folded into the German Air Sports Association in March 1933; two months later, all military flying associations were merged into the new, still-secret Luftwaffe. The National Socialist Fliers Corps was established in 1937 to draw sports aviators closer to the military, and to offer pre-military training to youth fliers. Members of the organization had to be Nazi party members, and were drafted into the Luftwaffe when they reached the age of service. This made the Luftwaffe far more ideologically indoctrinated than the Heer, the Army, or the Kriegsmarine, the Navy.

Much to the benefit of the Luftwaffe, Göring preferred to stay away from the day-to-day business. Being close to Hitler meant he could easily secure funding for the air force, but at the same time he hadn't flown since 1922, was uninformed about recent developments in aviation, and understood neither doctrine nor technical matters. Fortunately for Germany, he was happy to delegate other, more competent people into the relevant positions.

Once such man was Helmuth Wilberg, one of the first German military aviators before World War I, who played a large part in developing Germany's new air doctrine. Göring even considered making him Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe, but Wilberg turned out to have a Jewish mother. As with Milch, Göring intervened and had him reclassified as Aryan. He could not become the chief of staff, but remained on the staff under the new chief of staff, Walther Wever.

Like many other interwar air doctrine planners, Wever based his thinking on the lessons of World War I. One of the lessons many commanders took away from that war was that a deadlock between ground forces had to be avoided at all costs. Aerial bombardment, which cannot be stopped by ground units, and was, at time, believed to be very unlikely to be intercepted in the air, was believed to be the solution. Strategic bombing could reduce the enemy's ability to make weapons by destroying factories in the hinterlands, or it could be turned into terror bombing by hitting enemy cities. At the time, some theorists believed that terror bombing, possibly with chemical weapons, was actually more humane than regular warfare. The idea was that such bombings would cause so much damage to the population that the receiving nation would be forced to surrender quickly, avoiding much bloodier combat in the trenches. (You might notice that the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945 had a similar logic behind it, as it avoided a costly invasion.) While Wever agreed with strategic bombing, he rejected terror bombing on the grounds that German cities might fall prey to the same in retaliation, and that it would only harden, rather than demoralize, the enemy.

Wever wanted to build a fleet of heavy strategic bombers, but his efforts were stymied by the wider military establishment. Germany was a continental power rather than an overseas one, and therefore expected that most of the fighting in the coming war would be done by the army. This notion was also supported by many high-ranking officers inside the Luftwaffe, who used to be infantry or artillerymen in World War I. There was a strong push to "relegate" the Luftwaffe to providing the army with close air support during ground offensives. Such support, however, doesn't need heavy bombers or their long range; it needs light, medium and dive bombers which are cheaper and can be built in larger numbers, and whose lack of long-range capability will never come into play in this role.

Nevertheless, Wever initiated a seven-year project in 1934 to develop the "Ural bomber," a heavy bomber that could strike at factories deep in the Soviet Union. The project eventually led to the development of the Heinkel He 177 Greif ("Griffin"), Germany's only operation strategic bomber in the war. The He 177 had potential: it had a range of 3,700 miles (6,000 km) and could carry 20,500 lb. (9,300 kg) of ordnance (for comparison, the B-17G Flying Fortress had a range of 2,000 mi (3,200 km) and a maximum bomb load of 17,66 lb. (7,800)). The plane, however, greatly suffered from technical problems that were never fixed, such a tendency for the engines to burst into flame mid-flight.

Wever died in an accident in June 1936. Interestingly, his death was caused by the same mistake that also destroyed the first prototype of the B-17 Flying Fortress (Read our earlier article) and killed all men onboard. Wever forgot to remove a gust lock, a device used to keep the tail's control surfaces in place, before takeoff. As soon as he got airborne, he lost control of the plane due to not having any tail control and crashed into the ground.

Wevel's death left the Luftwaffe without a purpose. It didn't have a clear strategic goal (since Wevel was no longer around to push the strategic bombing idea), but it wasn't fully subordinate to the Army and its needs, either. There was a vague general idea that it should eschew a narrow mission and instead provide general support to other branches of the military. Though many planners called for a strong emphasis on close air support, only 15% of the Luftwaffe's planes were actually employed in that role when World War II broke out.

Göring appointed Albert Kesselring as the new chief of staff, and World War I flying ace Ernst Udet as head of the Air Ministry's Technical Office. Kesselring was an artillery veteran, and was, in fact, originally transferred to air force development against his will. He knew he would impress neither the veteran pilots nor the new recruits, but he still learned to fly at the age of 48, believing that an officer should not ask his men to do something he himself couldn't, and kept practicing diligently until late in the war. Kesselring did not get along with Udet, who was more of a political animal and was trying to extend his power over the Luftwaffe. He also had a problem with the many "yes men" Göring appointed to various positions. 

The development of a significant strategic bomber force was no longer on the table, even though the He 177 project went ahead. Luftwaffe command considered Czechoslovakia, Poland and France to be their main enemies, countries that could be reached by shorter-range medium bombers. The matter of the United Kingdom was conveniently overlooked. It was believed that once Britain got involved, it would be rapidly cowed into submission by the morale bombing of population centers, something Wevel was previously trying to avoid in his own plans. Of course, today we know what happened: British morale proved far more resilient than the Germans anticipated, and while German medium bombers could reach British targets, the lack of long-range escort fighters meant that many bombers were lost to the Royal Air Force and innovative air defense system developed by Hugh Dowding. (Read our earlier article)

To be fair to the Germans, the lack of a strategic bomber fleet was not solely due to a lack of foresight; it also had to do with industrial limitations. Germany greatly relied in imports for its aluminum, rubber and various petroleum products, and even steel was not available in the desired quantities. Under such limitations, building two medium bombers (which would be needed during land offensives anyway) instead of a single heavy one was a compelling idea. As Göring once remarked, "the Führer will not ask how big the bombers are, but only how many there are."

The Luftwaffe also had weaknesses in training. Since it was considered a primarily offensive arm of the military, the most promising pilots were all trained as bomber crew, with fighter units only getting second pick until the second half of 1943. This meant that the fighter arm constantly struggled to replace losses, especially during and after the Battle of Britain, when a shot-down pilot, even if he managed to bail or land, would do so in England and would be unable to return home.

As a point of interest, it should also be noted that the Luftwaffe had some organizational choices that differed from its best-known contemporaries. For one, the Fallschirmjäger, the German paratroopers, were a part of the Luftwaffe rather than the army (or a separate branch), as it was common. Also, most German flak units were operated by the air force, which was markedly different from the practice of other nations. (The army and the navy did have their own smaller units, but these were usually restricted to protected army and naval facilities.) These Flakkorps, equipped with the famous 8.8 cm flak gun, often doubled as anti-tank support units in ground battles.

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