During World War II, aviation was among the largest industrial branches of the Third Reich. About 40 percent of total German war production, and two million people, were involved in the manufacture of aircraft and air force equipment. Based on German records, Allied intelligence reports, and eyewitness accounts, this study explores the military, political, scientific and social aspects of Germany's wartime aviation industry: production, research and development, Allied attacks, foreign workers and slave labor, and daily life and working conditions in the factories. Testimony from Holocaust survivors who worked in the factories provides a compelling new perspective on the history of the Third Reich.

A study of the resurrection of Germany's air force during the period, providing an account of the evolution of German military aviation theory, doctrine, war games, and operations between the two world wars. Draws on archival material to reveal debates with the General Staff about the future role of airpower and the problems of aligning aviation technology with air doctrine. Also examines the early WWII period and the Luftwaffe's effectiveness in Poland and France. Includes bandw photos. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the fighting *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "My Luftwaffe is invincible...And so now we turn to England. How long will this one last - two, three weeks?" - Hermann Goering, June 1940 The first aircraft to appear in the skies over the battlefields of World War I showed few signs of the dominant future of airplanes in warfare. Small, fragile, and slow, they provided no hint of the sleek jet fighters that would one day slash across the skies of Earth faster than sound to unleash the lethal blast and fire of sophisticated missiles, or the bombers able to level an entire city with one nuclear bomb. That said, they did not represent a complete novelty in warfare either, at least not during the early months of World War I. At first, airplane improvements occurred in an ad hoc, almost accidental manner during the war. However, when pilots' mounting of armaments on airplanes proved a successful means of defeating other aircraft and even attacking men on the ground, a much more active and systematic development of warplanes began across the continent. Each advance prompted a countermeasure, as the two sides strove for primacy in a deadly, unforgiving environment which rewarded real advances in equipment and tactics with survival and punished poor ideas with death. But before long, relatively powerful, heavily armed aircraft buzzed through the skies over battle-stained Europe, tearing each other apart with furious gusts of machine gun fire and sending many of the vaunted dirigibles plunging, burning, to the ground. The new era of fighting aircraft arrived in dramatic fashion, raising successful pilots to celebrity or heroic status, and laying the groundwork for the tremendous potential of airpower to achieve its next logical expansion in World War II and beyond. The Germans produced cutting edge aerial technology during World War I, along with revolutionary dogfighting tactics and some of history's first flying aces, including the most famous, the Red Baron. But ultimately, economic shortages and lack of manpower hampered the Germans in the air, even when their men and machinery proved superior at critical periods of the war. The story would not turn out the same a generation later. The Third Reich's Luftwaffe began World War II with significant advantages over other European air forces, playing a critical role in the German war machine's swift, powerful advance. By war's end, however, the Luftwaffe had been decimated by combat losses and crippled by poor decisions at the highest levels of military decision-making, and it proved unable to challenge Allied air superiority despite a last-minute upsurge in German aircraft production. Given its unique strengths and distinctive weaknesses by the personal quirks of the men who developed it, the Luftwaffe initially overwhelmed the more conservative, outdated military aviation of other countries. Its leaders embraced such concepts as the dive-bomber, which proved both utterly devastating and extremely useful for supporting the sweeping, powerful movements of Blitzkrieg, while other martial establishments rejected dive-bombers as impractical or even impossible. The Luftwaffe's eventual loss of aerial domination exposed the Germans to precisely the same misfortunes on the ground as they had once relentlessly inflicted on the Poles and Russians. During its heyday, however, the Luftwaffe amply proved the leading role played by air power in the modern combined arms formula. It also produced a remarkable number of aces, whose exploits overshadowed the finest pilots of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, or the United States. The German Air Force during the World Wars: The History of the Imperial German Air Service and the Luftwaffe looks at the roles the German air force played during the wars, from their origins to their demise.

The Air War, 1939-1945 was first written in the late 1970s when there was very little academic interest in the history of air power. What there was focused largely on combat. The book was intended to provide a global history of the air war by looking at combat, but also the broader context of technology, production, intelligence and leadership. The book sought to address the question of why the Allies in the end won decisively the war in the air, and concluded that Axis air forces were too tied to a narrow conception of air power attached to surface forces, rather than air power exercised in a broader framework of air defense, logistics, strategic bombing and technological development. The book has been assigned reading in military and air force academies for the past forty years. “The Air War, 1939-1945... immediately and permanently altered the way that historians have examined the nature of aerial warfare during World War II. Overy’s ingenious examination of the global nature of planning, building, deploying, and utilizing air forces remains the finest overall study of the topic more than a quarter-century after its first publication... conclusions drawn in this work... are even today an integral part of U.S. Air Force doctrine.” — Dik A. Daso, US Air Force Chief of Staff’s Reading List “This is an outstanding book on a subject in which past controversy has often generated more heat than light... The strength of the book is... Overy’s masterly discussion of the economic problems of sustaining air forces in war and of hitting the right balance between quantity production of current models and diversion of resources to research and technical innovation... Truly this is a book that deserves attention from all those who wish to study, and learn from, the history of warfare.” — G. C. Peden, Naval War College Review “[T]ightly written... The Air War, 1939-1945 is essential reading for all military historians.” — James J. Hudson, Military Affairs “[O]ne of the best books on aviation in World War II.” — Kenneth P. Werrell, Air Power History “An important and successful book.” — The Economist “Highly effective. The result, as so often with sound scholarship, is the ruthless dispelling of myths.” — A. J. P. Taylor, author of The Origins of the Second World War “The Air War is... an excellent and stimulating book which both needs and deserves slow and careful reading. It is an ambitious book, too, and Dr. Overy should be congratulated for breaking down national histories in writing his history of air power during the Second World War.” — Malcolm Smith, The International History Review “[A] recognized classic.” — Richard B. Frank, The Journal of American History “Originally published in 1980 and still the best one-volume aerial history of World War II, Richard Overy’s classic work remains profound and highly original... [it] deepens our understanding not only of World War II but of military history in general.” — The SHAFR Guide Online “[A]n outstanding book... The Air War is a serious and profound treatise that analyses those various military and civilian themes which, in combination, determined the nature of the struggle in the air during the Second World War... The Air War is something of a novelty in aeronautical literature. It is to be hoped that it will serve as a model for other books to come in this important field.” — Alfred Gollin, The English Historical Review “Overy provides operational accounts of the air-forces’ role in Europe... and in the Pacific. Then, and most exceptionally, he deals separately with all facets of the air war: planning, organization, manpower, equipment, and doctrine... honest... broadly informed, and... well-stocked with useful data.“ — Kirkus “R. J. Overy examines the whole war period from the point of view of each of the warring powers and gives us not only a study of military campaigns but also a highly successful examination of aerial doctrine, economic and scientific mobilization, and the political, diplomatic, and military aspects of the management of hostilities. This fine study analyzes the achievements and the failures of the aerial component of the war... This good analysis of many studies done on this subject... makes possible a new, balanced synthesis from an objective point of view.” — Sam H. Frank, The American Historical Review

Includes the Aerial Warfare In Europe During World War II illustrations pack with over 200 maps, plans, and photos. This book is a comprehensive analysis of an air force, the Luftwaffe, in World War II. It follows the Germans from their prewar preparations to their final defeat. There are many disturbing parallels with our current situation. I urge every student of military science to read it carefully. The lessons of the nature of warfare and the application of airpower can provide the guidance to develop our fighting forces and employment concepts to meet the significant challenges we are certain to face in the future.

Germany’s imaginative employment of transport aircraft in World War II produced as many innovations as Germany’s use of tanks. Indeed, like the tank, the transport aircraft was closely associated with the Blitzkrieg concept. This relationship was advantageous at the outset of the war, but it became dangerous as the war dragged on and German armies outran their surface supply lines in North Africa and Russia. Then ground commanders began to think of air transport as the means of supply. The history of this trend is one of the main themes of this study, which was first published in its English translation in 1961. Some of the questions embodied in this theme—How much air transport is enough? Under what conditions is an air-supply operation feasible? What are the prerequisites for a successful airlift to encircled ground forces? What are the advantages and limitations of the glider?—are as vital and controversial today as they were during World War II. Generalmajor a. D. Fritz Morzik, who began his military career as a non-commissioned officer in the German Air Service in World War I and ended it as Armed Forces Chief of Air Transport in World War II, is especially well-qualified to write the present study. His long career, spanning two world wars, and his experience with both civilian and military transport aircraft testify to the breadth of his practical knowledge.

Major Georg Paul Neumann was a former German Air Force officer who had served in the Great War. He produced his outstanding survey of the German Air Force in 1920 while the events were still recent history. He was able to draw on his own experience and his contacts to compile a large number of personal accounts from officers and men who had so recently fought in the cause. The result is an accurate, faithful and comprehensive review of the aircraft, personnel and organisation of the force which began life in 1910 as the Imperial German Army Air Service and ended the war as the Luftstreitkrfte.This comprehensive and compelling review includes a series of primary sources dealing with some of the unusual and lesser known aspects of the Luftstreitkrfte including a gripping account of defending a Zeppelin against attack by British fighters.Major Neumann's indispensable work has never been surpassed and this English language translation is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the realities of the war in the air in the Great War.