Luftwaffe: A History

At the beginning of WWII the German Air Force was considered the finest in the world. But was it? The Treaty of Versailles had condemned the German Air Force to a clandestine, embryonic life until 1933. But in 1935 the Nazi propaganda machine publicly acknowledged the Luftwaffe's existence. And in only six years the charismatic Hermann Goering organized an officer corps and equipped an air force which managed to terrorize the other nations of Europe. Germany's bloodless conquest at Munich was achieved largely through fear of Goering's bombers, and the Luftwaffe's triumphs in Poland, Norway, Holland and even against the French were scored against feeble opposition. Advancing into Russia, the Germans made the critical discovery that their air force had no reach. They had created a tactical, not a strategic, air force that could do little to interrupt their enemies production and recovery. Deficiencies in equipment and leadership on the Western Front brought disaster to the Luftwaffe, and turned its short-lived glory into a precipitous decline. The historic irony in the Allies' miscalculation was that the Luftwaffe had reached its peak of effectiveness before WWII began.