* 1937 – Spanish Civil War: Guernica ( or Gernika in Basque ), Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.

The Luftwaffe, the German air force, was established, and development begun on ground-attack aircraft and doctrines.

German successes are closely related to the extent to which the German Luftwaffe was able to control the air war in early campaigns in Europe and the Soviet Union.

While early German tanks, Stuka dive-bombers and concentrated forces were used in the Polish campaign, the majority of the battle was conventional infantry and artillery based warfare and most Luftwaffe action was independent of the ground campaign.

The Luftwaffe did end up with an air force consisting mainly of relatively short-range aircraft, but this does not prove that the German air force was solely interested in ’ tactical ’ bombing.

In Des Teufels General ( The Devil's General ) of 1954, a Luftwaffe general named Harras loosely modeled after Ernst Udet, appears at first to be cynical fool, but turns out to an anti-Nazi who is secretly sabotaging the German war effort by designing faulty planes.

This was just the opportunity the German Luftwaffe, Italian Regia Aeronautica, and the Soviet Union's Red Air Force needed to test their latest aircraft.

During the invasion of Poland and the Battle of France, Luftwaffe fighters — primarily the Messerschmitt Bf 109 — held air superiority, and the Luftwaffe played a major role in German victories in these campaigns.

Allied fighters, by gaining air superiority over the European battlefield, played a crucial role in the eventual defeat of the Axis, which Reichmarshal Hermann Göring, commander of the German Luftwaffe summed up when he said: " When I saw Mustangs over Berlin, I knew the jig was up.

With Hitler preoccupied with the war, Himmler focusing on the " final solution to the Jewish question " in eastern Europe, and with Hermann Göring ’ s position declining with the failure of the German Air Force ( Luftwaffe ), Goebbels sensed a power vacuum in domestic policy and moved to fill it.

His proposal had a certain logic, as Göring – despite the failures of the Luftwaffe and his own corruption – was still very popular among the German people, whose morale was waning since Hitler barely appeared in public since the defeat at Stalingrad.

* 1940 – World War II: Battle of Britain – The German Luftwaffe begins attacking British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle ( this start date is contested, though ).

* 1994 – Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte, German Luftwaffe officer ( b. 1907 )

The Luftwaffe was the aerial warfare branch of the German Wehrmacht during World War II.

After the German Empire's World War I-era army air force, the Luftstreitkräfte, and naval air units had been disbanded under the term of the Treaty of Versailles the Luftwaffe was reformed in 1935 and grew to become one of the strongest, most doctrinally advanced, and most battle-experienced air forces in the world when World War II started in Europe in September 1939.

Luftwaffe is also the generic term in German speaking countries for any national military aviation service, and the names of air forces in other countries are usually translated into German as " Luftwaffe " ( e. g. Royal Air Force is often translated as britische Luftwaffe ).

The forerunner of the Luftwaffe, the Imperial German Army Air Service, was founded in 1910 with the name Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches.

As all such prior NSFK members were also Nazi Party members ; this gave the new Luftwaffe a strong Nazi ideological base in contrast to the other branches of the German military.

While Allied Air Forces were tied to the support of the Army, the Luftwaffe deployed its resources in a more general, operational way.

The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918 – 1940.

The Soviets increasingly were able to challenge the Luftwaffe, and while the Luftwaffe maintained a qualitative edge over the Red Air Force for much of the war, the increasing numbers and efficacy of the Soviet Air Force were critical to the Red Army's efforts at turning back and eventually annihilating the Wehrmacht.

And because Luft means " air " and Waffe may be translated into English as either " weapon " or " arm ", " Air Arm " may be considered the most literal English translation of Luftwaffe ( cf.

In 1935, " Luftwaffe Regulation 16: The Conduct of the Air War " was drawn up.

When the Second World War began, the Luftwaffe was one of most technologically advanced Air Forces in the world.

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe continued to defend German – occupied Europe against the growing offensive power of RAF Bomber Command and the United States Army Air Forces.

Inevitably, both the Bomber B and Amerika Bomber programs were victims of the continued emphasis of the Wehrmacht's insistence for the Luftwaffe to support the Army as its primary mission, as well as the increasingly devastating results of the RAF Bomber Command at night, and by 1943 the USAAF's Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces ' heavy bomber raids by daylight on the German aviation industry, which catastrophically diminished the Third Reich's overall aviation production capacity later in World War II.

The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918 – 1940.

The Luftwaffe: A Study in Air Power, 1933 – 1945.

The Luftwaffe and the Battle for Air Superiority PDF-File

* 1945 – World War II: Ratification in Berlin-Karlshorst of the German unconditional surrender of May 8 in Rheims, France, with the signatures of Marshal Georgy Zhukov for the Soviet Union, and for the Western Headquarters Sir Arthur Tedder, British Air Marshal and Eisenhower's deputy, and for the German side of Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff as the representative of the Luftwaffe, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as the Chief of Staff of OKW, and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine.

* 1940 – World War II: in response to the leveling of Coventry, England by Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.

In December 1939, the German Army issued its own study paper ( designated Nordwest ) and solicited opinions and input from both the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe ( German Air Force ).

Beginning in August 1940, the German Luftwaffe began a series of concentrated aerial attacks ( designated Unternehmen Adlerangriff or Operation Eagle Attack ) on targets throughout the United Kingdom in an attempt to destroy the RAF ( Royal Air Force ) and establish air superiority over Great Britain.

The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918-1940.

The Soviet Air Force, though equipped with relatively modern aircraft, initially performed poorly against the Luftwaffe.

* 1940 – World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Royal Air Force shoots down large numbers of Luftwaffe aircraft.

The German Air Force ( Luftwaffe ) bombed Belgrade and other major Yugoslav cities.

Starting on April 6, the German Air Force ( Luftwaffe ) bombed Belgrade for three days and nights.

At the outset of World War II, the few G. 1s and D. XXIs of the Dutch Air Force were able to score a respectable number of victories against the Luftwaffe but many were destroyed on the ground before they could be used.

Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, told Hitler that they were simply dummies ; the Red Air Force could not possibly have that many aircraft.

In theory, the OKW served as the military general staff for the Third Reich, coordinating the efforts of the Army, Navy, and Air Force ( Heer, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe ).

Early experiments using rockets to boost gliders into the air were conducted in Germany in the 1920s ( Lippisch Ente ), and later both the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe introduced such systems in World War II.

The situation wasn't helped by Churchill's refusal to commit the Royal Air Force to the counter-attack, leaving ground forces vulnerable to the Luftwaffe.

After World War II it was claimed by German SS general Gottlob Berger that there was a plan, proposed by the Luftwaffe and approved by Adolf Hitler, to set up special POW camps for captured airmen of the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force in large German cities, to act as human shields against their bombing raids.

The Luftwaffe were unable to destroy the Allied armies, however, and the halt allowed the British Expeditionary Force and many French troops to be evacuated from Dunkirk.

The first turbojet aircraft to fly was the Heinkel He 178 prototype of the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, on August 27, 1939 in Rostock ( Germany ).