Luftwaffe


right The Luftwaffe (literally, "air weapon", prounounced looft-vaaf-fa) is the air force of Germany.

World War I

The Luftwaffe was founded during the First World War with the emergence of military aircraft. It was the World's first air force. During the war, the Luftwaffe utilised a wide variety of aircraft. After the war ended in German defeat, the Luftwaffe was dissolved under the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. As a result of this disbanding, the present-day Luftwaffe is not the oldest air force in the World, since the Royal Air Force is older. On February 26, 1935, Adolf Hitler ordered First World War flying ace Hermann Göring to re-instate the Luftwaffe, breaking the Treaty. Germany broke it without sanction from Britain and France or the League of Nations.

World War II

By 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, the Luftwaffe had become the most powerful air force in the world. As such it played a major role in Germany's early successes in the war, and formed a key part of the Blitzkrieg concept, much thanks to the use of the innovative Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber (''Sturzkampfflugzeug'' - "Stuka"). A contingent from the Luftwaffe (The Legion Condor) had been sent to support Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War with planes (notably the Ju 87) and personnel. The inability of the Luftwaffe to control the skies in the Battle of Britain after the tactical mistake of shifting the focus of operations to bombing industrial targets in cities instead of British airfields formed a key point in the war. German air power, which suffered increasingly from a shortage of aviation fuels and frequently flawed leadership, diminished further with the entry of the United States in the conflict, though it remained strong, especially on the Eastern Front, and enjoyed an advanced technical standard. One of the unique characteristics of the Luftwaffe (as opposed to other independent air forces) was the possession of an organic paratrooper elite force, termed Fallschirmjäger. After playing a pioneering role in the development of aircraft powered by jet engines ("TL Triebwerke") with prototypes such as the Heinkel He 178 and Heinkel He 280, the Luftwaffe became the first air force in the world to press an operational jet fighter into service - the twin-engine Messerschmitt Me 262. The aircraft was still plagued by reliability problems of its powerplants, however: while the Junkers Jumo 004 engines were of the advanced axial-flow design, they suffered from a lack of high-quality strategic materials required during the manufacturing process, a result of the Allied bombing offensive and the turn of war fortunes for Germany. The Me 262 was soon joined by other highly advanced aircraft designs, such as the Arado Ar 234 twin and four-engine jet bomber/reconnaissance aircraft, the Heinkel He 162 single-engine jet fighter (powered by a BMW jet engine), the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket fighter and others. A variety of further highly advanced aircraft designs, such as the Horten Ho 229 flying wing (originally designated Horten Ho IX and later to be manufactured by the Gothaer Waggonfabrik aircraft factory), were either at the testing stage or even ordered into production by the time the war ended. The German aviation industry also developed the first cruise missile used operationally on large scale, the Fieseler Fi 103 V-1 flying bomb, and the first ballistic missile, the V-2. As modern as these aircraft were, they could not prevent Germany's total defeat in the air. The Luftwaffe lacked fuel, trained pilots, organizational unity and safe airfields. The Allies, however, were able to harvest Germany's advanced technical efforts: Operation Paperclip, for example, was one of many designed in 1944/45 to obtain either technical specimens, data, or the design personnel themselves and "evacuate" it to the United States, England, Russia or France. The early US and Soviet space programs employed German hardware and were staffed with many German scientists and engineers, the most famous of which was Wernher von Braun, subsequently the head of the design team of the American Saturn V moon rocket.

See also

Postwar

Following the war, German aviation in general was severely curtailed, and military aviation completely forbidden until West Germany joined the NATO in the 1950s. Throughout the following decades, the West German Luftwaffe was equipped mostly with US-designed aircraft manufactured locally under licence. During the 1960s, the Starfighter crisis was a big problem for German politics, as many of these Lockheed F-104 fighters crashed after being modified to serve for the Luftwaffe purposes. Therefore the Starfighter was called "widow-maker" (German: Witwenmacher). Chancellor [[Gerhard Schröder with a new Luftwaffe Eurofighter]] The Luftwaffe of East Germany flew Soviet-built aircraft, like the MiG-29. After reunification they were taken over by unified Germany but will be taken out of service, in many cases being sold to the new Eastern European allies. Since the 1970s, the Luftwaffe of West Germany and later the reunited Germany has actively pursued the construction of European combat aircraft such as the Panavia Tornado and more recently, the Eurofighter. In 1999, for the first time since 1945, the Luftwaffe engaged in combat operations as part of the NATO-led Kosovo War. No strike sorties were flown and the role of the Luftwaffe was restricted to providing support, for example with suppression of enemy air defence (SEAD) sorties. No Luftwaffe aircraft were lost during the campaign, but the force's role proved to be controversial in Germany because of the strong sentiment still present in the population that is opposed to the use of force by Germany in international affairs.

See also

Category:Air forces Category:Military of Germany de:Luftwaffe es:Luftwaffe fr:Luftwaffe it:Luftwaffe nl:Luftwaffe no:Luftwaffe pl:Luftwaffe sl:Luftwaffe sr:Луфтвафе fi:Luftwaffe sv:Luftwaffe

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