FROM THE ASHES OF A SHATTERED
nation in 1918, the German Air Force rose
again. The climax of the campaign in the west
1940 - when the Lufitwaffe was to play a vital
to role - can now be seen as the zenith of its fort-
unes and strengths. But the victories won during
1939-40 were as nothing to those won over the
previous twenty years, as Germany overcame the
as restrictions that had been imposed by the Treaty
of Versailles.
This book, the product of much new
research in military archives in Germany, France
and Britain, tells the story of how Germany came
to develop the Luftwaffe. Here are the secret years
of German aviation up to 1935, when even the
German government was misled as to the exist-
ence of training programmes, while barely any
effort was made to meet the Armistice demands.
Edward Hooton demonstrates just how well
informed Allied intelligence agencies were of
Luftwaffe development, but of the failure to use
that intelligence failed to
correctly; how the Luftwaffe's
training organization
improve upon the
flawed system of World War One; and of the
existence of a genuine strategic role for the Luft-
waffe and plans to fulfil it.
Other facts that emerge from this study are
the extent to which later Luftwaffe strength and
quality relied on a few far-sighted individuals U
its arly days; the contribution of Milch, in
organizingthe aircraft industry; of Wever, in
shaping operational doctrines and concepts until
an untimely early death; and of Blomberg, in
allowing the Luftwaffe to exist as an autonomous
to
organization
The story of the Luftwaffe from creation to
victorious justification in war is vividly told here
for the first time in detail and in one volume. It is
a fascinating insight into a unique period of mili-
of
a
tary aviation, as tactics and technology raced each
other, set against the background of rearmament
and resurgent German militarism in the years
before and during the initial campaigns of World
War Two.