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Junkers

Junkers

__NOTOC__ For the Prussian/German landowning classes, see "junker". junker The name Junkers (IPA: /ˈjunkeɺs/) is well known in connection with aircraft, which were produced under this name for the Luftwaffe during World War II. In particular the Ju 87 Stuka and Ju 52 Tante Ju were common symbols of the Nazi war machine. By this time, however, the Nazi government had already seized control of the business, and Hugo Junkers himself was dead. The Junkers Ju 87 Stuka was one of the most effective of the Luftwaffe's sublime aerial weapons and was used often for bombing attacks. It was notorious for its vexatious siren and its dive-bombing prowess. The Stuka was used to strafe enemy positions, for example at Stalingrad, where it caused enormous destruction under Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen's VIII Air Corps. The Junkers Ju 52 was a transport aircraft used for delivering men and supplies, although it also carried out bombing raids. However, unlike many other famous Luftwaffe aircraft, the Tante Ju was very cumbersome and moved very slowly, causing many losses of it, namely at Crete and Stalingrad. Some of the operations the Junkers Ju 52 took part were also in the Spanish Civil War, where it took part in the Condor Legion's destructive raids on Durango and Guernica in 1937. Junkers also ran an engine factory, and in 1923 they separated it out to form its own company, Junkers Motoren, or Jumo. This company expanded greatly in the 1920s and 30s, with factories spread across Germany. They were the first German company to offer a truly modern engine in the form of the 650hp Jumo 210, but after a few short years this was considered to be much too small and they responded with the much larger Jumo 211. Perhaps unsurprisingly the 211 saw widespread use in their own bombers, but was little used otherwise, mostly due to the better power output of the competing Daimler-Benz DB 601. Further development of the 211 led to the superb Jumo 213, which was in high demand for practically every late-war piston-engined aircraft. Their Jumo 004 jet engine was the first to be considered production quality and used in the Me 262 jet fighter.

Junkers aircraft included:

- Junkers J1, 1915
- Junkers J2, 1916
- Junkers F13, passenger plane, 1919
- Junkers A50, sportsplane, 1929
- Junkers G24
- Junkers Ju W33, single-engined light transport, 1926
- Junkers Ju W34, single-engine light transport+reconnaissance (development of W33), 1933
- Junkers Ju 52 Tante Ju (Auntie Ju), transport + bomber
- Junkers Ef 61, high-altitude fighter + reconnaissance (prototype)
- Junkers Ju 86, bomber + reconnaissance
- Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, dive-bomber
- Junkers Ju 88, bomber + reconnaissance + night-fighter
- Junkers Ju 89, heavy bomber (prototype)
- Junkers Ju 90, civil aircraft, transport
- Junkers Ju 188, Rächer (Raecher), bomber
- Junkers Ju 248, re-designation of Me 263
- Junkers Ju 252, transport
- Junkers Ju 287, heavy bomber (jet-engined) (prototype)
- Junkers Ju 288, bomber (prototype)
- Junkers Ju 290, transport, patrol
- Junkers Ju 322 Mammut, transport glider (prototype), 1941)
- Junkers Ju 352 Herkules (Hercules), transport
- Junkers Ju 388 Störtebeker, reconnaissance + night-fighter
- Junkers Ju 390, long-range bomber (prototype)
- Junkers Ju 488, heavy bomber design
- Junkers EF 132, heavy bomber

Jumo engines included:

- Junkers Jumo 210
- Junkers Jumo 211
- Junkers Jumo 213
- Junkers Jumo 222
- Junkers Jumo 004

External links

- [http://www.junkers.de www.junkers.de - Official Junkers Page]
- [http://www.junkers.de.vu www.junkers.de.vu] Category:German aircraft manufacturers Category:Aircraft engine manufacturers ja:ユンカース

Prussia

The word Prussia (German: Preußen, Polish: Prusy, Lithuanian: Prūsai, Latin: Borussia) has had various (often contradictory) meanings:
- The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia and north-eastern Poland);
- The Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights;
- Part of the lands of the Polish Crown called Royal Prussia;
- A fief known as Ducal Prussia ruled by the Hohenzollern dynasty, first under the sovereignty of Poland and then of Brandenburg;
- The entire Hohenzollern realm, whether within or outside Germany proper;
- An independent state, from 1701 until 1867/1871;
- The largest territorial unit within unified Germany from 1867 to 1945. Prussia as a state was de facto abolished by the Nazis in 1934, de jure by the Allied Powers in 1947. Since then, the term's relevance has been limited to historical, geographical or cultural usages. The name Prussia derives from the Prussians, a Baltic people related to the Lithuanians. Ducal Prussia was a dependency of the Kingdom of Poland until 1660, and Royal Prussia remained a part of Poland until 1772. With the growth of German cultural nationalism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most German-speaking Prussians came to consider themselves to be part of the German nation, often underlining what were seen as the Prussian virtues: perfect organization, sacrifice, the rule of law. From the late 18th century the expanded Prussia dominated North Germany politically, economically and in terms of population size, and was the core of the unified North German Confederation formed in 1867, renamed German Empire in 1871.

Geography

1871 Prussia began its existence as a small territory in what is now northern Poland and the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia. The region was sparsely populated by Prussians. The area later became subject to German colonization. By the time of its abolition it stretched across the North German Plain from the French, Belgian and Dutch borders on the west to the Lithuanian border and to territories which are now in eastern Poland. At its greatest extent before 1918 it included much of western Poland as well. For a period between 1795 and 1807 Prussia also controlled most of central Poland, including Warsaw. Before its abolition Prussia included, as well as what might be called "Prussia proper" (the regions of West Prussia and East Prussia, which now lie in Poland and Russia), the regions of Pomerania, Silesia, Brandenburg, Lusatia, Province of Saxony (now state of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany) Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, Westphalia, parts of Hesse, the Rhineland, and some small detached areas in the south such as Hohenzollern, the home of the Prussian ruling family. However there were some regions even in northern Germany that never became a part of Prussia, such as Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, and the Hanse city-states. Being predominantly a northern and eastern German state, Prussia had a large Protestant majority, although there were substantial Roman Catholic populations in the Rhineland, while a number of districts in Posen, Silesia, West Prussia, and the Warmia and Masuria regions of East Prussia had populations of predominantly Catholic Poles. This in part explains why the Catholic south German states, especially Austria and Bavaria, resisted Prussian hegemony for so long. Despite its overwhelmingly German character, Prussia's annexations of Polish territory in the late 18th century brought with them a large and troublesome Polish minority. In 1919 this annexed territory was returned to the newly reconstructed Polish state.

Early History

In 1226 Conrad of Mazovia invited a German order of crusading knights, the Order of the Teutonic Knights from Transylvania to conquer the Prussian tribes on his borders. However, after struggling against more than a century of resistance from the Prussians they created a semi-independent state, which came to control most of what are now Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as parts of northern Poland. Eventually defeated, the Knights had to acknowledge the sovereignty of the King of Poland and Lithuania from 1466. In 1525 the Master of the Order became a Protestant, and converted part of the Order's territories into the Duchy of Prussia, the first Protestant State. For more on Prussia's early history see Origins of Prussia, Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, Prussian Confederation, Duchy of Prussia. The territory of the Duchy was at this time confined to the area east of the mouth of the Vistula, near the present border between Poland and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. In 1618 the Duchy was inherited by the Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg, who was at the same time ruler of Prussia and Brandenburg, a German state centered on Berlin and ruled since the 15th century by the Hohenzollern dynasty. For Hohenzollern, the newly acquired state was very important, since it spread outside the reach of the Holy Roman Empire. This state, known as Brandenburg-Prussia, although divided into two parts separated by Polish territory, was steadily drawn out of the orbit of the declining Polish state. Under Frederick William, known as "the Great Elector," Prussia steadily acquired territories, including Magdeburg and enclaves west of the Rhine. For more on this period, see Brandenburg-Prussia and Royal Prussia.

Kingdom of Prussia

Royal Prussia In 1701 Brandenburg-Prussia became the Kingdom of Prussia under Frederick I, with the permission of the Holy Roman Emperor and Polish King. Under Frederick II (Frederick the Great), Prussia seized the province of Silesia from Austria, and defended it through the Seven Years War which ended in 1763 with Prussia as the dominant state of eastern Germany. Prussia also acquired various territories in other parts of Germany through marriage or inheritance, including Pomerania on the Baltic coast. During this period the great Prussian military machine and efficient state bureaucracy were founded, institutions which were to form the foundations of the German state until 1945, and (in some respects) of the GDR after that. Prussia greatly expanded its territories to the east during the Partitions of Poland between 1772 and 1795. (see New East Prussia and South Prussia), which brought territory as far east as Warsaw under Prussian rule. Frederick William II led Prussia into war with revolutionary France in 1792, but was defeated at Valmy and was forced to cede his western territories to France. Frederick William III resumed the war, but suffered disaster at Jena and withdrew from the war after ceding yet more territory at the Treaty of Tilsit. Treaty of Tilsit In 1813 Prussia renounced this treaty and rejoined the war against Napoléonic France. Her reward in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna was the recovery of her lost territories, as well as the whole of the Rhineland and Westphalia and some other territories. These western lands were to be of vital importance because they included the Ruhr valley, centre of Germany's fledgling industrialisation, and particularly of the arms industry. These territorial gains also meant the population of Prussia doubled. Prussia emerged from the Napoléonic Wars as the dominant power in Germany, overshadowing her long-time rival Austria, which had given up the German Imperial Crown in 1806. In exchange, Prussia withdrew from areas of central Poland to allow the creation of Congress Poland under Russian sovereignty. The first half of the 19th century saw a prolonged struggle in Germany between the forces of liberalism, which wanted a united federal Germany under a democratic constitution, and the forces of conservatism, which wanted to keep Germany as a patchwork of weak independent states, with Prussia and Austria competing for influence. In 1848 the liberals got their chance when revolutions broke out across Europe. An alarmed Frederick William IV agreed to convene a National Assembly and grant a constitution. But when the Frankfurt Parliament offered Frederick William the crown of a united Germany, he refused, on the grounds that revolutionary assemblies could not grant royal titles. Prussia obtained a semi-democratic constitution, but the grip of the landowning classes (the junkers) remained unbroken, especially in the eastern parts. For more on this period see Kingdom of Prussia.

Imperial Prussia

Kingdom of Prussia In 1862 Prussian King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as Prime Minister of Prussia. Bismarck was determined to defeat both the liberals and the conservatives, by creating a strong united Germany but under the domination of the Prussian ruling class and bureaucracy, not the western German liberals. He achieved this by provoking three successive wars, with Denmark in 1864 (second war of Schleswig), which gave Prussia Schleswig-Holstein, with Austria in 1866 (Austro-Prussian War), which allowed Prussia to annex Hanover and most other north German territories who had sided with Austria, and with France in 1870 (Franco-Prussian War), which allowed him to force Mecklenburg, Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg and Saxony to accept incorporation into a united German Empire (which excluded Austria, however), of which William I assumed the title of Emperor (Kaiser). This was the high point of Prussia's fortunes, and had the state continued to have wise leaders, Prussia's economic power and political status might have peacefully made her the centre of European civilization. However, Wilhelm II, who became Emperor in 1888 after the 99-days-rule of Frederick III, was a man of limited experience, narrow and reactionary views and poor judgement. After dismissing Bismarck in 1890 he embarked on a program of militarisation and adventurism in foreign policy that eventually led Germany into the disaster of World War I. As the price of withdrawing from the war, Russia was forced to concede control of large regions of the western Russian Empire to Germany, some of which bordered Prussia, in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918). However German control of these territories only lasted for a few months. 1918

The end of Prussia

The Prussian junkers and generals dominated the conduct of World War I, so when it ended in defeat in 1918 they had to accept responsibility. The Prussian monarchy was overthrown along with all other German monarchies, and Germany became a republic. The Great Poland Uprising, and the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, recreated the Polish state and forced Germany to return territories annexed by Prussia during the Partitions of Poland, as well as parts of Upper Silesia inhabited by Poles. East Prussia found itself again cut off from the rest of Germany by the Polish Corridor. The idea of breaking up Prussia into smaller states was considered by the German Government, but eventually traditionalist sentiment prevailed and Prussia became the "Prussian Free State" (Freistaat Preußen), by far the largest state of the Weimar Republic, comprising 60% of its territory. Since it included the industrial Ruhr and "Red Berlin", it became a stronghold of the left, being governed by a coalition of the Social Democrats and the Catholic Centre for most of the 1920s. Most historians regard the Prussian government during this time as far more capable and successful than that of Germany as a whole. Prussia's democratic constitution was suspended in 1932 as a result of a coup by Germany's conservative Chancellor Franz von Papen, marking the effective end of German democracy. In 1933 Hermann Göring became Interior Minister of Prussia, a position he used to suppress all democratic opposition. In 1934 the Nazi regime abolished the autonomy of all the German states. De jure, Prussia continued to exist as a territorial unit until the end of World War II, but in practice the "Gaue" of the Nazi Party organization were the building blocks of the Nazi state. In 1945 the armed forces of the Soviet Union occupied all of eastern and central Germany (including Berlin). Everything east of the Oder-Neisse line, including Silesia, Pomerania, eastern Brandenburg and East Prussia, was included within the new borders of Poland (with the northern third of East Prussia, including Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, going to the Soviet Union; today it is a Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland). An estimated ten million Germans fled or were expelled from these territories as a part of the German exodus from Eastern Europe. These expulsions, together with the nationalisation of land by the Communist regime in East Germany, destroyed the junkers as a class and marked the effective end of Prussia as a social and political entity; the East German bureaucracy is seen by many as a "Red" continuation of the Prussian tradition, however. Prussia was formally abolished by a proclamation of the four occupying powers in Germany in 1947. In the Soviet Zone of Occupation, which became East Germany in 1949, the former Prussian territories were reorganised into the states of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt, with the remaining parts of Pomerainia going to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. These states were abolished in 1952 in favor of districts, but recreated after the fall of communism in 1990. In the western zones of occupation, which became West Germany in 1949, they were divided up among North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein (with Baden-Württemberg taking the territory of Hohenzollern). The idea of Prussia is not entirely dead in Germany. Since the reunification of Germany in 1990, suggestions to amalgamate the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg and Berlin into one identified as Prussia have arisen though without much enthusiasm, even among German conservatives. The left-wing parties, who govern both nationally and in these three states at present, are firmly opposed to it. However some grassroots groups have sought to encourage a celebration of Prussian history and culture. In 1996 a proposal to merge Berlin and Brandenburg was rejected by Brandenburg voters, even though this was not seen as a decision relating to the revival of Prussia as a state but rather as an attempt to restore the old Brandenburg, since Berlin had never been a city-state before 1945. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a small number of ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan have begun to settle in the Kaliningrad exclave of the Russian Federation, once northern East Prussia, as part of the migration influx into the area, which was previously a restricted area (see "closed city"). As of 2005, about 6,000 (0.6% of population) ethnic Germans, mostly from other parts of Russia, live there. Most Russian Germans preferred to leave for Germany, see History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union.

External links

- [http://www.orteliusmaps.com/book/ort56.html 1570 map of Germany and Prussia plus details]
- [http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/desbillons/atlas/seite70.html Map of Pomerania and Prussia 1598]
- [http://wwwtest.library.ucla.edu/libraries/mgi/maps/blaeu/prvssia.jpg 1660 map of Prussia 1660]
- [http://www.rulers.org/prusprov.html map of Prussian Provinces]
- [http://www.frombork.art.pl/Frombork-foto/merkator.jpg Partial Map of Prussia by Gerard Mercator, Atlas sive cosmographica., Amsterdam 1594]
- [http://www.frombork.art.pl/Frombork-foto/Mprus.jpg Partial Map of Prussia by Kasper Henneberger, Koenigsberg 1629]
- [http://www.frombork.art.pl/Frombork-foto/Hart3_m.jpg Map of Old Prussia by K. Henneberger, 17th c.]
- [http://www.frombork.art.pl/Frombork-foto/Hart4_m.jpg Map of Prussia by K. Henneberger] in: Christoph Hartknoch, Alt- und neues Preussen..., Frankfurt 1684
- [http://www.frombork.art.pl/Frombork-foto/m_reyilly.jpg Map of Prussia and Freie Stadt Danzig from 18th c.]
- [http://www.frombork.art.pl/Frombork-foto/mapaXIX.jpg Map of East Prussia] K. Flemming, F. Handtke, Głogów ca. 1920, after Treaty of Versailles removed Memel area from Germany.
- [http://web2.airmail.net/napoleon/Prussian_army.htm Prussian Army] Prussia Category:Kingdom of Prussia Category:Former countries in Europe Category:History of Prussia ko:프로이센 ja:プロイセン simple:Prussia

Junker

:See Junker (disambiguation) for other meanings. Junkers (English pronunciation: ; German pronunciation: ) were the landed aristocracy of Prussia and Eastern Germany. "Junker" in German means "young lord", and is understood as country squire. It is probably derived from the German words Jung Herr, or Young Lord. The title also appears in Dutch (Jonkheer). As part of the nobility, many Junker families have particles such as "von" or "zu" before their family names. In the Middle Ages, a Junker was simply a lesser noble, often poor and politically insignificant. Martin Luther was given the cover name "Junker Jörg" while he lived in Wartburg Castle in 1521. A good number of poor Junkers took up careers as soldiers and mercenaries. Over the centuries, they rose from disreputable captains of mercenary cutthroats to influential commanders and landowners in the 19th century. The rest of the article refers to these "modern" Junkers. Being the bulwark of the Hohenzollern Empire, the Junkers controlled the military, leading in political influence and social status, and owning immense estates, especially in the north-eastern half of Germany. Their political influence extended from the German Empire of 1871 to 1918 through the Weimar Republic of 1919–1933. It was said that Prussia ruled Germany, the Junkers ruled Prussia, and through it the Empire itself. They dominated all the higher civil offices and officer corps of the army and navy. Supporting monarchism and military traditions, they were often reactionary and protectionist; they were often anti-liberal, siding with the conservative monarchist forces during the Revolution of 1848. Their political interests were served by the German Conservative Party in the Reichstag and the extraparliamentary Agrarian League. This political class held tremendous power over the industrial classes and the government. When Chancellor Caprivi reduced the protective duties on imports of grain, these landed magnates demanded and obtained his dismissal; and in 1902, they brought about a restoration of such duties on foodstuffs as would keep prices of their own products at a high level. The German statesman Otto von Bismarck was a noted Junker, as were president Paul von Hindenburg and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. The Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, staged by Adolf Hitler and General Erich Ludendorff (a member of an impoverished Junker family) was foiled by commander von Lossow (another Junker) of the local Reichswehr, and the Bavarian Prime Minister Gustav von Kahr. Von Kahr was later murdered in the Reichsmordwoche (the Blood Purge) of June 30, 1934. This series of events, as well as a few others, led Hitler to dislike Junkers in general. However, Hitler mostly ignored the Junkers as a whole during his time in power, taking no action against them and no action in their favour. As the war turned against Germany and Nazi atrocities were revealed, several Junkers in influential positions participated in Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg's assassination attempt of 20 July 1944. Their attempts ultimately failed due to coincidence and Allied mistrust of their motives. However the resistance of the Abwehr (Secret Military Intelligence) under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris contributed to the eventual Allied victory. After the war, during the Bodenreform (soil reform) in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), all private property exceeding a certain area (i.e. all the land that used to belong to the Junkers) was seized and given to collectives of farmers. Now, after the German reunification, the Junkers are trying to get their former estates back. However, the treaties that West Germany (FGR) and the GDR had signed with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union in the 1950s contained the rule that any decision made by any of the four occupation forces during the time of occupation (1945–1955) must be kept up, lest the independent Germans label it as wrong ex post.

History of German Agrarian Development

German agrarian development has been regional rather than national; that is to say, the ownership and use of land took a different trend in each of three main sections of the country. The southwest (including Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg and Rhenish Prussia) became like France, a land of small holdings, and up to the First World War it was the only part of the Empire in which it was possible to discover peasant political influence of any importance. The northwest (including Westphalia, Lower Saxony, and parts of Hanover) developed a system of medium-to-large holdings, yet with many peasant proprietorships. From Brandenburg eastward, however, — and especially in the Pruserania, — practically all of the land was long ago gathered into great estates, and most of the people were landless, wage-earning agricultural laborers. The landed aristocracy were called Junkers. (1)

References

- The Governments of Europe, Frederic Austin Ogg, MacMillan Company, 1922. pg 681. Copyright expired and free use of material granted by same company.

Bibliography

- On German agrarian history in the 19th century see Economic Development of Modern Europe, Frederic Austin Ogg, Chap ix (bibliography, pp. 210-211). Category:German society Category:Weimar Republic Category:German nobility Category:History of Germany

Luftwaffe

right The (German: "air force", IPA: ['luftvafə]) is the commonly used term for the German air force. The history of the Luftwaffe began in 1910 with the founding of the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte), yet it has not been continuous because Germany lost both World Wars (1914-1918 and 1939-1945). As a result, the Germans had no military air force between 1918 and 1935 and again between 1945 and 1955. For many English speakers, the term "Luftwaffe" is synonymous with the air force of Nazi Germany. In 1939-1940, this Luftwaffe helped the German army to astonishingly rapid success in both Eastern and Western Europe, but which failed to win control of the skies over England. Later on, despite its best efforts, it could not prevent the defeat of the Third Reich either by day, or by night, owing to constant Allied bombing of Germany's factories and cities by a numerically overwhelming force of bombers based in England. This was coupled with the advances of the Soviet armies from the East, as numbers of available German aircraft dwindled in the face of ever-growing numbers of Soviet aircraft. The Luftwaffe was, however, notable in putting the world's first jet fighter and the world's only rocket-powered fighter into action during the war. Between 1955 and 1990, there were two German air forces as a result of the splitting of the defeated Germany in 1945 into two, but the air force of the GDR was dissolved and its structure taken over by the Luftwaffe in 1990 upon the German reunification. Only in Bosnia in 1999 has the Luftwaffe ever seen war action since the end of World War II.

History

World War I

World War II The forerunner of the Luftwaffe, the Imperial German Army Air Service—the Luftstreitkräfte ("Air-fighting Forces"), was founded in 1910 before the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918) with the emergence of military aircraft, although they were intended to be used primarily for reconnaissance in support of armies on the ground, just as balloons had been used in the same fashion during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 and even as far back as the Napoleonic Wars. It was not the world's first air force, however, because France's embryonic army air service, which eventually became the L'Armée de l'Air, had also been founded in 1910, and Britain's Royal Flying Corps,( which merged in 1918 with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force), was founded in 1912. During the war, the Imperial Army Air Service utilised a wide variety of aircraft, ranging from fighters (such as those manufactured by Albatros-Flugzeugwerke and Fokker), reconnaissance aircraft (Aviatik and DFW) and heavy bombers (Gothaer Waggonfabrik, better known simply as Gotha, and Zeppelin-Staaken). Gothaer Waggonfabrik However, the fighters received the most attention in the annals of military aviation, since it produced "aces" such as Manfred von Richthofen, popularly known as "The Red Baron", Ernst Udet, Hermann Göring, Oswald Boelcke (considered the first master tactician of "dogfighting"), Max Immelmann (the first airman to win the Pour le Mérite, Imperial Germany's highest decoration for gallantry, as a result of which the decoration became popularly known as the "Blue Max"), and Werner Voss. As well as the German Navy, the German Army also used Zeppelins as airships for bombing military and civilian targets in occupied France and Belgium as well as the United Kingdom. All aircraft in service until early 1918 were distinguishable as being German from the Iron Cross that was being used as the German military aircraft insignia. (It should be noted, though, that Germany's closest ally, Austria-Hungary, also adopted the Iron Cross for its aircraft.) Iron Cross and so became one of the best-known fighter planes of World War I.]] From early 1918, German military aircraft began to sport the straight-line Balken Cross (Balkenkreuz, Balken = beam), which would become better known the world over during the era of the Third Reich. After the war ended in German defeat, the service was dissolved completely under the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, which demanded that its aeroplanes be completely destroyed. As a result of this disbanding, the present-day Luftwaffe (which dates from 1955, in any case) is not the oldest independent air force in the world, since the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom is older, having been founded on 1 April 1918.

Inter-war period

Since Germany had been banned by the Treaty of Versailles from having an air force, there existed the need to train its pilots for a future war in secret. Initially, civil aviation schools within Germany were used, yet only light training planes could be used in order to maintain the facade that the trainees were going to fly with civil airlines such as Lufthansa. In order to train its pilots on the latest combat aircraft, Germany solicited the help of its future enemy, the USSR. A secret training airfield was established at Lipetsk in 1924 and operated for approximately nine years using mostly Dutch and Russian, but also some German, training aircraft before being closed in 1933. USSR On February 26, 1935, Adolf Hitler ordered Hermann Göring to reinstate the Luftwaffe, breaking the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919. Germany broke it without sanction from Britain and France or the League of Nations, yet neither the two nations nor the League did anything to oppose either this or any other action which broke the provisions of the Treaty. Although the new air force was to be run totally separately from the army, it retained the tradition of according army ranks to its officers and airmen, a tradition retained today by the Bundesluftwaffe of the unified Germany and by many air forces throughout the world. However, it is worth noting that, before the official promulgation of the Luftwaffe, what was a paramilitary air force was known as the Deutscher Luftverband ("German Air Union"; DLV for short), with Ernst Udet as its head, and the DLV uniform insignia became those of the new Luftwaffe, although the DLV "ranks" were actually given special names that made them sound more civilian than military. It is of interest to note that Dr. Fritz Todt, the engineer who founded the Organisation Todt that organised the construction of roads before the war and of fortifications, such as the so-called "Atlantic Wall", using thousands of forced labourers during World War II, was appointed to the rank of Generalmajor in the Luftwaffe even if he was not, strictly speaking, an airman, although he had served in an observation squadron during World War I, winning the Iron Cross. (Ironically, he died in an air crash in February 1942.) The Luftwaffe had the ideal opportunity to test its pilots, aircraft and tactics in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, when the Condor Legion was sent to Spain in support of the anti-Republican government revolt led by Francisco Franco. Modern machines included names which would become world famous: the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber and the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter plane. However, as aircraft seconded to Franco's Nationalist air force, Luftwaffe markings were replaced so as not to make the world believe that Germany was actively supporting the revolt. Instead of the Nazi Party's swastika on the tailplane, the German planes used the Nationalist air force aircraft markings (a Saint Andrew's cross over a white background, painted on the rudder of the aircraft and, on the fuselage and wings, meanwhile, instead of the Balkankreuz, there was a black disc. All aircraft in the Legion were affiliated to units given a designation ending in the number 88. For example, bombers were in Kampfgruppe ("Battle Group") 88, abbreviated to K/88, and fighters in Jagdgruppe ("Hunt Group") 88, J/88. swastika A grim foretaste of the systematic bombing of cities during World War II came in April 1937 when a combined force of German and Italian bombers under National Spanish command destroyed most of the Basque city of Guernica in north-east Spain. This bombing received worldwide condemnation, and the collective memory of the horror of the bombing of civilians has ever since become most acute via the famous painting, named after the town, by the Cubist artist, Pablo Picasso. Many feared that this would be the way that future air wars would be conducted, since the Italian strategist, General Giulio Douhet (who had died in 1930), had formulated theories regarding what would be dubbed "strategic bombing", the idea that wars would be won by striking from the air at the heart of the industrial muscle of a warring nation, and thus demoralising the civilian population to the point where the government of that nation would be driven to sue for peace—a portent of things to come, certainly, and not just during the war which would break out in Europe only months after the end of the civil war in Spain.

World War II

Giulio Douhet By the summer of 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 due to the use of the innovative Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber (Sturzkampfflugzeug—Stuka). Germany swept through Poland, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands and France in a matter of months between September 1939 and June 1940 due in no small part to the Luftwaffe, which seemed invincible, causing Göring to become over-confident in its abilities and boasting that the RAF would be defeated in a matter of a month before the planned launch of Operation Sealion (Seelöwe), the invasion of the United Kingdom. Faulty German intelligence and poor leadership did as much to save Fighter Command as Dowding's careful husbanding of his precious pilots; Hitler's decision to shift the focus of operations to bombing industrial targets in cities instead of British airfields was crucial mistake. When Churchill praised "the few" for their victory in his famous speech, he omitted the Germans, who deserved at least some of the credit. German air power was preserved in the succeeding period as much by RAF Bomber Command's faulty strategy as by German tenacity. Advanced by Sir Charles Portal, accepted by Churchill, & ruthlessly executed by Sir Arthur Harris, it produced a calamity with overtones of Haig in World War One, throwing men and machines against increasingly strong defenses, with little to show for it. The postulated "breaking" of German morale was a dim sight on the horizon, with no carefully articulated plan to achieve it. The entry of the United States into the conflict in December 1941 drew American bomber forces into the same futile project. Unlike the Germans, the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), under the command of General Henry H. Arnold, developed a strategic bomber force. The USAAF bombers penetrated deep into Reich territory and maintained daylight bombing of industrial targets, without fighter escort (which had been demonstrated as necessary even against derisively weak Chinese fighter attacks), while their RAF colleagues (who had learned better) continued with the offensive by conducting night operations. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe remained strong, and both the day fighters and the night fighters (see below) were able to shoot down hundreds of Allied bombers, including 95 on a single night (October 30–31, 1944) when the RAF bombed the southern city of Nuremberg, famous as the place where pre-war Nazi Party rallies took place (and, post-war, where the trials of Nazi criminals, including Göring, would take place). Henry H. Arnold German superiority was especially felt on the Eastern Front, given that the Luftwaffe enjoyed an advanced technical standard as well as employing highly trained and experienced pilots such as Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who, flying the Stuka, was to become the most highly decorated pilot of the war, winning the Knight's Cross with Golden Oakleaves, Swords and Diamonds (Das Ritterkreuz mit Goldenem Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillanten) by the end of 1944 and being promoted to Oberst (Colonel). Unlike other officers of such high rank, Oberst Rudel would remain in the front line until his surrender as Kommodore of SG 2 (a combined dive-bomber and fighter unit) to the U.S. Army at Kitzingen in Czechoslovakia on V-E Day, May 8, 1945. Amongst the Experten (the name given to German aces), Erich Hartmann would emerge at the end of the war with the highest number of enemy aircraft shot down—352, a total initially disputed but eventually accepted. In contrast, the highest number of aircraft shot down by any Allied pilot was 62, achieved by Colonel (later Colonel-General) Ivan Kozhedub of the Soviet Army Air Force. Nevertheless, the vast land mass of Russia allowed the Soviets to manufacture war matériel well away from the front line, and so it was partly due to overwhelming numbers of weapons made available to the ground and air forces of the USSR that the Soviets managed to push the Germans back west, especially after the crushing defeats of the German Army at both Kursk and Stalingrad and the Germans' failure to take Leningrad (St. Petersburg). The Luftwaffe saw action on many fronts, including in North Africa in support of ground operations conducted by General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, and in the offensives against Yugoslavia and Greece prior to the invasion of the USSR in June 1941. Many Luftwaffe units were stationed in Italy, including after the Italians switched sides in September 1943 and remained there until the end of the war in May 1945. There were units also present in Romania, since fighter units stationed there were charged with the protection of the oilfields at Ploesti that were providing vital fuel for the German war machine in its continuation of its offensive against the USSR. Afrika Korps One of the unique characteristics of the Luftwaffe (as opposed to other independent air forces) was the possession of an elite organic paratrooper force (Fallschirmjäger). These saw action during 1940–1941, most notably in the capture of the Belgian army fortress at Eben-Emael in May 1940 and the island of Crete in May 1941. However, more than 3,000 Fallschirmjäger were killed during the Crete operation, and a shocked Adolf Hitler ordered these elite paratroopers would never be used for such large-scale operations again, but only for smaller-scale operations, such as the successful rescue of Benito Mussolini, the then-deposed dictator of Italy, in 1943. This put paid to a proposal (Operation Herkules) to seize Malta and eliminate the threat to Rommel's supply lines. Although night fighting had been undertaken in embryonic form way back in World War I, the German night fighter force, the Nachtjagd, had virtually to start from scratch when British bombers began to attack targets in Germany in strength from 1940 as far as tactics were concerned. A chain of radar stations was established all across the Reich territory from Norway to the border with Switzerland known as the "Kammhuber Line", named for Generalleutnant Josef Kammhuber, and nearby night fighter wings, Nachtjagdgeschwader (NJG), were alerted to the presence of the enemy. These wings were equipped mostly with Messerschmitt Bf 110 and Junkers Ju 88 aircraft, which would later be outfitted with the Lichtenstein nose-mounted radar. Junkers Ju 88 The Heinkel He 219 Uhu (Owl) was considered one of the best night fighters in the Luftwaffes inventory, yet thankfully for the Allies, not enough of them were built to stem the tide of bombers, which became effective at using strips of aluminium foil called "Window" (American name, chaff; German, Duëppel) to jam the radar signals. Two notable names amongst the night fighter pilots were Helmut Lent, who shot down 110 enemy aircraft before being killed in a landing accident in October 1944, and Wolfgang Schnaufer, who shot down 102 enemy aircraft and survived the war, only to die in a car crash in France in 1950. Wolfgang Schnaufer 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), and the first ballistic missile, the Aggregat 4 (A-4, V-2). These were Hitler's vaunted Vergeltungswaffen (vengeance or retaliation weapons). As modern as these aircraft were, they could not prevent Germany's total defeat in the air. The Luftwaffe lacked fuel, trained pilots, organisational unity and "safe" airfields. The Luftwaffes final offensive was on January 1, 1945, when it launched Operation Bodenplatte (Baseplate). The idea was to destroy as many Allied aircraft on the ground as possible, yet the Germans lost over 300 aircraft and were henceforth entirely on the defensive as the western Allies and the Soviets closed in and invaded the Reich itself. The Allies were able to harvest Germany's advanced technical efforts as many German aircraft were abandoned after being deliberately wrecked for the most part; 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" them to the United States, England, the USSR or France. Many aircraft designers were also captured by the Red Army and sent to the USSR to design and build potential fighters and bombers for the Soviet Army and Navy Air Forces. This research benefited the development of the NAA F-86, Hawker Hunter, and MiG-15, and directly produced the Yak-9 and -15 (little more than copies of the Focke-Wulf P.011-45). The early U.S. and Soviet space programs also 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. Saturn V Amongst the designers sent to Russia was Dr. Hans Wocke, the man who designed the world's first forward-swept-wing jet bomber, the Junkers Ju 287, the first prototype of which, the Ju 287V1, had flown during the war on test flights. The Ju 287 design work was incorporated into the Junkers EF (Erprobungsflugzeug = test aircraft) 140 bomber prototype, yet neither this nor any other aircraft designed by the Germans would ever be accepted into the Soviet Army or Navy Air Forces, since the Germans themselves were technically prisoners and were denied access to the latest facilities for designing and perfecting modern warplanes. Most of the captured designers had been allowed to return to either West or East Germany by the end of 1953. Junkers Ju 287 Throughout the history of the Third Reich, the Luftwaffe had only two commanders-in-chief. The first was, of course, Göring, yet he was fired by Hitler near the end of the war in Europe on account of his having contacted (western) Allied forces without his authorisation with a view to securing a ceasefire before the Soviets overran Berlin. Hitler thus appointed Generaloberst Robert Ritter von Greim as the second (and last) commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, concomitant with his promotion to Generalfeldmarschall, the last German officer in World War II to be promoted to the highest rank. One other officer, who happened to have been promoted to this rank himself, had been Wolfram von Richthofen, the cousin of the "Red Baron", but he had retired in late 1944 on medical grounds and would die of a brain tumour while in American captivity at Bad Ischl on July 12, 1945. Operational and training units of the Luftwaffe were organised roughly similarly to those of the U.S. Army Air Corps (which later became the U.S. Army Air Forces). Fighter wings (Jagdgeschwader) (JG) consisted of groups (Gruppen), which in turn consisted of fighter squadrons (Jagdstaffel). Hence, Fighter Wing 1 was JG 1, its first group was I/JG 1 and its first squadron was 1./JG 1. (As a point of interest, JG 1 was operating the aforementioned Heinkel He 162 at the end of the war. In the final two months, JG 1 lost 22 of them, mostly in crashes, resulting in ten pilots being killed and another six injured.) Similarly, a bomber wing was a Kampfgeschwader (KG), a night fighter wing was a Nachtjagdgeschwader (NJG), a dive-bomber wing was a Stukageschwader (StG), and units equivalent to those in RAF Coastal Command, with specific responsibilities for coastal patrols and search and rescue duties, were Küstenfliegergruppen (Kü.Fl.Gr.). Specialist bomber groups were known as Kampfgruppen (KGr). Each Geschwader was commanded by a Kommodore, a Gruppe by a Kommandeur, and a Staffel by a Staffelkapitãn. However, these were appointments, not ranks, within the Luftwaffe. Usually, the Kommodore would hold the rank of Oberstleutnant (lieutenant colonel) or, exceptionally, an Oberst (colonel). Even a Leutnant (second lieutenant) could find himself commanding a Staffel. Some of the Luftwaffe's units came from countries under German control such as 13 JG 52 (Slovakia) and Luftwaffen-Legion Lettland (Latvia). From before the war, the German Ministry of Propaganda disseminated a magazine specialising in the Luftwaffe called Der Adler (The Eagle), not just in German but also in the first languages, including French, of several countries which eventually became incorporated into the Reich territory. While the U.S. remained officially neutral (from September 1939 until December 1941), the magazine was also published in English. Many colour photographs of the Luftwaffe in action during the war originally came from this publication. See also
- List of aircraft of the WW2 Luftwaffe
- Luftwaffe serviceable aircraft strengths (1940-1945)

Cold war

Luftwaffe serviceable aircraft strengths (1940-1945) Following the war, German aviation in general was severely curtailed, and military aviation was completely forbidden when the Luftwaffe was officially disbanded in August 1946 by the Allied Control Commission. This changed when West Germany joined NATO in 1955, as the Western Allies believed that Germany was needed in view of the increasing threat militarily from the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies. Throughout the following decades, the West German Luftwaffe was equipped mostly with U.S.-designed aircraft manufactured locally under licence. All aircraft sported—and continue to sport—the Iron Cross on the fuselage, harking back to the days of World War I, while the national flag of West Germany could be seen on the tailplanes. Many well-known fighter pilots, who had fought with the Luftwaffe in World War II, joined the new post-war air force and underwent refresher training in the U.S. before returning to West Germany to upgrade on the latest U.S.-supplied hardware. These included Erich Hartmann, the highest-ever scoring ace (352 enemy aircraft destroyed), Gerhard Barkhorn (301), Günther Rall (275) and Johannes Steinhoff (176). Steinhoff, who suffered a crash in a Messerschmitt Me 262 shortly before the end of the war which resulted in lifelong scarring of his face and other parts of his body, would eventually become commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, with Rall as his immediate successor. Hartmann retired as an Oberst (colonel) in 1970 aged 48. The aforementioned Josef Kammhuber also served with the post-war Luftwaffe, retiring in 1962 as Inspekteur der Bundesluftwaffe. 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 Luftwaffe purposes. Therefore, the Starfighter was dubbed the "widow maker" (German: Witwenmacher). (It is of note that the F-104 served with the USAF for only a few years.) On the other hand, the Canadian version of the North American F-86 Sabre, the Canadair CL-13, enjoyed a long career with Luftwaffe fighter squadrons, since seventy-five of them entered service in and after 1957. The United States provides nuclear weapons for use by Germany under a NATO nuclear sharing agreement. As of 2005, 60 tactical B61 nuclear bombs are provided, stored at Büchel and Ramstein Air Bases, which in time of war would be delivered by Luftwaffe Panavia Tornados [http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/euro/euro.pdf]. Many countries believe this violates Articles I and II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The DDR's equivalent air force the Luftstreitkräfte, sharing the name with Germany's WWI air force. It was supplied exclusively with Eastern Bloc-produced aircraft and served primarily as an extension of Red Air Force units in Eastern Germany. The Luftstreitkräfte was unique among Warsaw Pact countries in that it was often equipped with Soviet-standard combat aircraft, instead of downgraded export models. As an extension of Soviet air power, the Luftstreitkräfte enjoyed less autonomy than other Eastern Bloc air forces.

Reunification

Warsaw Pact Typhoon. The name "Typhoon" caused controversy since the Hawker Typhoon was an RAF ground-attack aircraft which destroyed many targets in support of the ground forces invading France in June 1944 and afterwards.]] The air force of the Communist German Democratic Republic /East Germany used the same name as the one used during World War I, that is, the Luftstreitkräfte. It flew Soviet-built aircraft, such as the Sukhoi Su-7 "Fitter" and the more famous Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) family of aircraft, such as the MiG-21, MiG-23 and MiG-29 fighters. Unlike the West German Luftwaffe, however, the markings sported on the aircraft reflected the identity of the country as belonging to the Communist bloc. As such, the markings consisted of a diamond-shaped design, in which could be seen the vertically oriented three stripes in black, red and gold surmounted by the stylised hammer, compass and wreath-like ears-of-grain design, which was also seen on the Flag of East Germany, although the stripes were a 90-degree orientation from those to be seen on either national flag of the two German nations between 1959 and 1990. After the GDR and West Germany were reunified in October 1990, the aircraft of the Luftstreitkräfte were taken over by the unified Federal Republic of Germany, and their GDR markings replaced by those of the Iron Cross, thus creating the somewhat anomalous situation of Soviet-built aircraft serving in a NATO air force. However, most of these would eventually be taken out of service altogether, in many cases being sold to the new Eastern European allies now part of NATO, such as Poland and the Baltic states. The exception to this is the 73rd Steinhoff Fighter Wing in Laage, Germany. The pilots of this squadron fly MiG-29s acquired during the reunification and are the most experienced MiG-29 pilots in the world. One of their primary duties is to serve as aggressor pilots, training other pilots in dissimilar combat tactics. The United States has sent a group of fighter pilots to Germany during the Red October exercise to practice real tactics against the type aircraft they are most likely to meet in real combat. 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 Typhoon. Eurofighter, Labrador]] In March 1999, for the first time since 1945, the Luftwaffe engaged in combat operations as part of the NATO-led Kosovo War. This event was noted as significant in the British press with The Sun running the headline "Luftwaffe and the RAF into battle side by side"[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/303314.stm]. 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 pacifist sentiment still present in the population that is opposed to the use of force by Germany in international affairs. Moreover, there were constitutional concerns, because Germany was not and, indeed, still is not—allowed to participate in "wars of aggression" owing to its 1949 Grundgesetz ("Basic Law" - constitution). Because of something like a paradigm shift, Germany can use its Luftwaffe for crisis reaction and conflict prevention.

External links

- [http://www.luftwaffe.de Luftwaffe official website (in German)]
- [http://www.luftarchiv.de The archive about the assignment of persons and material of the German Air Force in the Second World War]
- [http://www.galaxy.com/galaxy/Leisure-and-Recreation/Aviation/History/World-War-II Galaxy.com (a link to other aviation web sites of interest)]
- [http://www.DDR-LUFTWAFFE.de German Democratic Republic (1955-1990) Air Force website (in German)]
- [http://www.lwag.org/index.php Luftwaffe Archives & Records Reference Group (LWAG) (dedicated to research into the history of the Luftwaffe of the Third Reich)]
- [http://www.luftwaffe-experten.co.uk Luftwaffe Experten (detailing many aspects of 1939-1945 Luftwaffe operations)]
- [http://www.luftwaffe.cz/experten.html Luftwaffe Experten (English-language Czech website containing biographies of leading Luftwaffe pilots)]
- [http://www.luft46.com Luft46.com (paintings of "might-have-been" Luftwaffe aircraft)]
- [http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/german-luftwaffe Color Photographs of German Luftwaffe] - rare color photographs of the Luftwaffe during WWII
- [http://www.ww2images.com ww2images.com (photos of World War II aircraft from all nations)]
- [http://www.ww2.dk/ Luftwaffe, 1933-1945]
- [http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/ 12 O'clock High - Luftwaffe and Allied Forces discussion forum]

Select bibliography

There have been literally hundreds of books, magazines and articles written about the Luftwaffe. It is only possible to list a select few here.
- Aders, Gebhard (1992), History of the German Night-Fighter Force, 1917-1945 (edited and translated by Alex Vanags-Baginskis), Crecy. ISBN 0947554211. (Originally published by Jane's in 1979.)
- Amadio, Jill (2002), Günther Rall: A Memoir, Seven Locks Press. ISBN 0971553300.
- Galland, Adolf (2000 [1957]), The First and the Last, Buccaneer Books, Inc. ISBN 0899667287.
- Green, William (1990), Warplanes of the Third Reich, Galahad. [Second edition, following from original work published in 1970.] ISBN 0883656663.
- Held, Werner and Nauroth, Holger (1982), The Defence of the Reich: Hitler's Nightfighter Planes and Pilots (translated by David Roberts), London, Arms and Armour Press. ISBN 0853684146.
- Mermet, Jean-Claude and Ehrengardt, Christian-Jacques (2002), Les Jets de la Luftwaffe: Aéro-Journal Hors-Série No.4, Aéro-Éditions International (French language edition only). ISSN 03361055.
- Orbis Publishing Limited, London (1974-77), Wings, a part-work encyclopedia of aviation in eight volumes, which included many articles about the battles during World War II in which the Luftwaffe took part, as well as biographies of some of its high-profile airmen.
- Orbis Publishing Limited, London (1981-84) (second edition), World War II, a part-work encyclopedia in eight volumes about the 1939-1945 War.
- Philpott, Bryan (1986), History of the German Air Force, Hamlyn. ISBN 0600502937.
- Price, Alfred (2005), Battle Over The Reich: The Strategic Bomber Offensive Against Germany 1939-1945, Classic Publications. [Revised, second edition based on the previous work with the same title first published in 1973.] ISBN 1903223474.
- Price, Alfred (2000), Blitz on Britain, 1939-1945, Sutton. [Revised edition of Blitz on Britain : the bomber attacks on the United Kingdom, 1939-1945, first published by Ian Allan in 1977]. ISBN 0711007233 (1977 edition).
- Sobolev, D. A. and Khazanov, D.B. (2001), The German Imprint on the History of Russian Aviation, Moscow, Rusavia (English edition). ISBN 5900078086.
- Wood, Tony, and Gunston, Bill (1984), Hitler's Luftwaffe: A Pictorial History and Technical Encyclopedia of Hitler's Air Power in World War II, Book Sales (originally published by Salamander Books). ISBN 0890097585. Category:Air forces Luftwaffe Category:Military of Germany Category:German loanwords ja:ドイツ空軍 simple:Luftwaffe

World War II

, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atom bomb. From top going counterclockwise: Allied landing on D-Day 1944, the Nuremberg Rally 1936, the Nagasaki atom bomb 1945, the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin 1945 and the Gate of Auschwitz.]] World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th Century conflict that engulfed much of the globe and is accepted as the largest and deadliest continuous war in human history. It was the first time that a number of newly developed technologies, including nuclear weapons, were used against either military or civilian targets. World War II resulted in the direct or indirect death of anywhere from 50 to 60 million or more people, over 3% of the world population at that time. It is estimated to have cost more money and resources than all other wars combined: about 1 trillion US dollars in 1945 (adjusted for inflation; roughly 10.5 trillion in 2005), not including subsequent reconstruction [http://www.historychannel.com/worldwartwo/?page=triumph5]. The outcomes of the war, including new technology and changes to the world's geopolitical, cultural and economic arrangement, were unprecedented. The conflict began by most Western accounts on September 1 1939 with the German invasion of Poland (the Pacific war is taken to have started on July 7 1937 with the Japanese attack on China) and lasted until mid-1945, involving many of the world's countries. Virtually all countries that participated in World War I were involved in World War II. Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939 and Canada followed on September 10, 1939. The United States entered the conflict in December of 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Summary

Attributed in varying degrees to the Treaty of Versailles, the Great Depression, and the rise in nationalism, racism, fascism, National socialism, Japanese imperialism, and militarism, the causes of the war are a matter of debate. The war was fought between the Axis Powers and the Allies. The Axis initially consisted of an alliance between Germany and Italy, which later expanded to include Japan and Eastern European countries such as Romania and Bulgaria. Some of the nations that Germany conquered sent military forces, particularly to the Eastern front. Among the expeditionary forces that joined Germany were forces from Vichy France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain (though Spain was itself a neutral country) and armies of Russians and Ukrainians under the command of the general Andrey Vlasov. The Allies were initially the United Kingdom, including the Commonwealth, France and Poland, later joined by the USSR, the United States of America and China. Fighting occurred across the Atlantic Ocean, in Western and Eastern Europe, in the Mediterranean Sea, Africa, the Middle East, in the Pacific and South East Asia, and it continued in China. In Europe, the war ended with the surrender of Germany on 8 May 1945 (V-E and Victory Days), but continued in Asia until Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945 (V-J Day). At least 50 million people died as a result of the war. This figure includes acts of genocide such as the Holocaust and General Ishii Shiro's Unit 731 experiments in Pingfan, incredibly bloody battles in Europe and the Pacific Ocean, and massive bombings of cities, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and the firebombing of Dresden (and even worse but less known) of Pforzheim in Germany. Few areas of the world were unaffected; the war involved the "home front" and bombing of civilians to a new degree. Atomic weapons, jet aircraft, rockets and radar, the blitzkrieg, or "lightning war", the massive use of tanks, submarines, torpedo bombers and destroyer/tanker formations, are only a few of many wartime inventions and new tactics that changed the face of the conflict. Post–World War II Europe was partitioned into Western and Soviet spheres of influence, the former undergoing economic reconstruction under the Marshall Plan and the latter becoming satellite states of the Soviet Union. This partition was, however, informal; rather than coming to terms about the spheres of influence, the relationship between the victors steadily deteriorated, and the military lines of demarcation finally became the de facto country boundaries. Western Europe largely aligned as NATO, and Eastern Europe largely as the Warsaw pact countries, alliances which were fundamental to the ensuing Cold War. In Asia, the United States' military occupation of Japan led to Japan's democratisation. China's civil war continued through and after the war, resulting eventually in the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The war sparked a wave of independence for colonies of European powers, who were exhausted from fighting the war. There was a fundamental shift in power from Western Europe to the new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, though there were few actual boundary changes. __TOC__

Causes

People's Republic of China]] Main articles: Causes of World War II, Events preceding World War II in Europe, Events preceding World War II in Asia The causes of World War II are naturally a debated subject, but a common view, particularly among the allies in the early post-war years, ties them to the expansionism of Germany and Japan: Germany had lost wealth, power and status following the First World War and the expansion was to make Germany great again.
- In Germany there was a strong desire to escape the bonds of the World War I Treaty of Versailles, and eventually, Hitler and the Nazis assumed control of the country. They led Germany through a chain of events: rearmament, reoccupation of the Rhineland, a merger with Austria (Anschluss), incorporation of Czechoslovakia and finally the invasion of Poland.
- In Asia, Japan's efforts to become a world power and the rise of militarist leadership (in the 1930s the government in Japan was undermined as militarists rose to power and de facto gained totalitarian control) led to conflicts with first China and later the United States. Japan also sought to secure additional natural resources, such as oil and iron ore, due in part to the lack of natural resources on Japan's own home islands.

Participants

iron ore and Joseph Stalin, during the Yalta Conference in 1945]] Main article: Participants in World War II The belligerents of the Second World War are usually considered to belong to either of the two blocs: the Axis and the Allies. A number of smaller countries participated in the war, though often under occupation or as proxies of one of the large powers. The Axis Powers consisted primarily of Germany, Italy, and Japan, which split the Earth into three spheres of influence under the Tripartite Pact of 1940, and vowed to defend one another against aggression. This replaced the German-Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 that Italy had joined in 1937. Spain's fascist government led by Francisco Franco was a great asset in trade to the Axis powers during the war. A number of smaller countries were counted among the Axis powers. Among these were Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, and arguably Finland. Among the Allied powers, the so-called Big Three were the United Kingdom (from September 3 1939), the Soviet Union (from June 1941) and the United States (from December 1941). China had been at war with Japan since 1937. 1937 On August 23, 1939, just before the war broke out, the USSR and Germany signed the non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which, among other things, divided Eastern Europe into regions of influence. But Germany violated the pact when it invaded the USSR in 1941. Similarly, the US had the (much older) unilateral Monroe Doctrine, which stated that Europe should not interfere in the Americas and in turn the U.S. would not interfere in European affairs (including wars). But the U.S. entered the war after first Japan and then Germany declared war on it and launched direct attacks on its navy, shipping and other interests. Many other countries, including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Thailand and Yugoslavia are also considered important Allies, although some of these were conquered and occupied by Axis forces or even officially joined the Axis as a result of coercion. Countries that attempted to remain neutral in the conflict were often viewed with suspicion by the participants, and often pressured to make contributions to the most influential power in their neighbourhood. Sovereignty was often difficult to maintain as many countries that did not directly participate in the conflict nevertheless held vested interests in seeing a particular side prevail. For example, neutral Switzerland was generally considered to be "Allied-friendly", while neutral Spain was considered "Axis-friendly", despite the fact that neither country openly proclaimed any alliances. Such situations allowed neutral countries to become hotbeds of espionage. It is important to note as well, that Sweden's participation in the war was negligable due to specific relations with the German state at the time.

A debated starting date

On which date World War II started is a debated subject; historians do not all agree on which event signified the start of the war. The most common date used is 1 September 1939, marking the German invasion of Poland which resulted in the British and French declarations of war two days later. Other candidates include the Japanese invasion of China on 7 July 1937 (the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War) or the entry of Hitler's armies to Prague in March 1939. Some historians argue that the Italian occupation of Ethiopia (The Second Italo-Abyssinian War) which lasted seven months in 1935-1936 was the actual start of World War II. There are some historians that argue the war started on the start of the Manchurian Incident on 18 September 1931.

Chronology 1937-45

Main articles: European Theatre of World War II, Mediterranean Theatre of World War II, Pacific War, End of World War II in Europe

1937: Second Sino-Japanese War

On 7 July 1937, Japan, after occupying northeastern China as Manchuria in 1931, launched another attack against China near Beijing (see Marco Polo Bridge Incident). Rather than retreating swiftly as in engagements with the Japanese before, the Chinese government declared war on Japan, marking the official start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which would soon become part of the World War. In December 1937, the capital, Nanking (now Nanjing), fell and the Chinese government moved its seat to Chongqing for the rest of the war. Surprised by the unanticipated level of resistance from China, the Japanese forces committed brutal atrocities against civilians and POWs when Nanking was occupied (see Nanjing Massacre), killing up to 200,000 civilians within a month. In Europe, the peace was uneasy, with Germany annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia, and taking apparent aim at Poland.

1939: War breaks out in Europe

Poland]] Main articles: Polish September Campaign, Phony War War broke out in Poland on 1 September 1939, with the German invasion of Poland. France and the United Kingdom honoured their defensive alliance of March 1939 by declaring war two days later on 3 September. Australia and New Zealand declared war the same day, although through the quirk of the international date line, New Zealand then Australia were the first to declare war on Germany. Canada followed a week later, on 10 September. Only partly mobilised and with troops inadequately equipped with largely outdated weapons (which included large numbers of horse-mounted cavalry), and without the anticipated support of French or British forces, Poland unsurprisingly fared poorly against the Wehrmacht's superior numbers and "blitzkrieg" tactics. In accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Red Army invaded Poland from the east on 17 September. Hours later, the Polish government escaped to Romania. The last Polish Army unit was defeated on 6 October. As Poland fell, the British and French were either caught unaware of German intentions or had not allowed themselves to believe that Germany would invade Poland. Germany paused to regroup during a period that would be termed "the Phony War", or the "Sitzkrieg", which lasted until May 1940. Polish forces continued to fight the Axis powers after their country fell. A prominent example was the assistance of Polish pilots during the Battle of Britain. The Soviet Union, due to its treaty relationship with Nazi Germany, did not fight the fascists: Stalin was happy to have those he felt were his natural and true enemies—the capitalist West and Nazi Germany—fight each other. Indeed, the Soviets had their partisans in the U.S., working alongside Nazi sympathisers, advocate that the U.S. remain neutral in the war, a position that the majority of Americans, reluctant to join in what they saw as "someone else's war," welcomed. Battle of Britain There were isolated engagements during the "Phony War" or "Sitzkrieg" period, including the sinking of HMS Royal Oak in the anchorage at Scapa Flow and Luftwaffe bombings of the naval bases at Rosyth and Scapa Flow. The Kriegsmarine pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was sunk in South America after the battle of the River Plate. The Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy, and Japan on 27 September, 1940, formalising their alignment as the "Axis Powers". The Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939, beginning the Winter War, which lasted until March 1940 with Finland ceding territory to the Soviet Union.

1940: The war spreads

Winter War Main Articles: Norwegian Campaign, Battle of France, Battle of Britain, North African Campaign, Balkans Campaign Europe: Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940, in Operation Weserübung, ostensibly to counter the threat of an Allied invasion from the region. Heavy fighting ensued on land and at sea in Norway. British, French and Polish forces landed to support the Norwegians at Namsos, Åndalsnes and Narvik, with most success at the latter. By late June, all Allied forces had been evacuated, and the Norwegian Army surrendered. France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were invaded on 10 May, ending the Phony War and beginning the Battle of France. The Allies had hoped to establish a static continuous front and were ill-prepared for the German Blitzkrieg tactics. In the first phase of the invasion, Operation Yellow, the Wehrmacht's Panzergruppe von Kleist bypassed the Maginot Line and split the Allies in two by driving to the English Channel. Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands fell quickly against the attack of Army Group B, and the British Expeditionary Force, trapped in the north, was evacuated at Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. German forces then invaded France itself, in Operation Red, advancing behind the Maginot Line and near the coast. While some units from the French army were still fighting, a number of top politicians and military leaders decided that it would be better to surrender given the situation; France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22 1940, leading to the establishment of the Vichy France puppet government in the unoccupied part of France. In June 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. Not having secured a rapid peace with the United Kingdom, Germany began preparations to invade with the Battle of Britain. Fighter aircraft fought overhead for months as the Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force fought for control of Britain's skies. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command but turned to terror bombing London. The Luftwaffe was not successful, and Operation Sealion, the proposed invasion of the British Isles, was abandoned. Similar efforts were made, though at sea, in the Battle of the Atlantic. In a long-running campaign, German U-Boats attempt