Download or read book Lufthansa to Luftwaffe Hitlers Secret Air Force written by Peter Dancey and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a complete history of the clandestine WW II Luftwaffe and its origins under the patronage of Lufthansa, secret training of its personel in Russia and Italy. Combat proving of its airplanes with the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. Units, deployments, personel, airplanes and sub-types, thw 'secret weapons' and the world's first combat jets. Hitler's less than cordial relations with Goring, the RLM and German Aviation industry

Download or read book American Raiders written by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2009-09-18 with total page 693 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the close of World War II, Allied forces faced frightening new German secret weapons—buzz bombs, V-2's, and the first jet fighters. When Hitler's war machine began to collapse, the race was on to snatch these secrets before the Soviet Red Army found them. The last battle of World War II, then, was not for military victory but for the technology of the Third Reich. In American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe's Secrets, Wolfgang W. E. Samuel assembles from official Air Force records and survivors' interviews the largely untold stories of the disarmament of the once mighty Luftwaffe and of Operation Lusty—the hunt for Nazi technologies. In April 1945 American armies were on the brink of winning their greatest military victory, yet America's technological backwardness was shocking when measured against that of the retreating enemy. Senior officers, including the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry Harley “Hap” Arnold, knew all too well the seemingly overwhelming victory was less than it appeared. There was just too much luck involved in its outcome. Two intrepid American Army Air Forces colonels set out to regain America's technological edge. One, Harold E. Watson, went after the German jets; the other, Donald L. Putt, went after the Nazis' intellectual capital—their world-class scientists. With the help of German and American pilots, Watson brought the jets to America; Putt persevered as well and succeeded in bringing the German scientists to the Army Air Forces' aircraft test and evaluation center at Wright Field. A young P-38 fighter pilot, Lloyd Wenzel, a Texan of German descent, then turned these enemy aliens into productive American citizens—men who built the rockets that took America to the moon, conquered the sound barrier, and laid the foundation for America's civil and military aviation of the future. American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe's Secrets details the contest won, a triumph that shaped America's victories in the Cold War.

Download or read book The Rise of the Luftwaffe Forging the Secret German Air Weapon 1918 1940 written by Herbert Molloy Mason and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Luftwaffe written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of fighting between the Luftwaffe and the Allies *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "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 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. Though the superb fighting qualities of highly trained and motivated German soldiers, and the Third Reich's technological superiority in tank and weapon design, also had crucial roles to play, the Luftwaffe represented the key element making the successes of all other branches possible. While the Luftwaffe enjoyed air superiority, the combat fortunes of the Third Reich continued to ride high. When control of the air passed decisively to the Allies, Germany's hopes of victory began accelerating into a spiral of defeat. Early in the war, prowling masses of Luftwaffe aircraft fatally hampered the attempts of hostile forces to maneuver. The omnipresent Stuka dive-bombers crisscrossing the skies pounced on any infantry or vehicles incautious enough to emerge from hiding during the day, except in foul weather that kept the airplanes grounded. The German forces, meanwhile, moved freely and rapidly, surrounding or bypassing their enemies again and again and thus compelling their surrender. 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. In the Falaise Pocket in Normandy, for example, the splendidly lethal Panthers, Tigers, and Tiger II tanks of the Nazi Panzer Divisions never had the opportunity to destroy the flimsily-armored, outgunned Sherman tanks of their American opponents. Instead, American fighter-bombers systematically annihilated them and their supporting infantry formations from the air, leaving the landscape strewn with flipped-over tank hulks and in places literally carpeted with the flesh of dead men. Some 10,000 Germans died and 50,000 surrendered to the western Allies at Falaise, due to Hitler's order to counterattack without air support. 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 Luftwaffe: The History of Nazi Germany's Air Force during World War II looks at the role the German air force played during the war, from its origins to its near demise. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Luftwaffe like never before, in no time at all.

Download or read book Luftwaffe KG 200 written by Geoffrey J. Thomas and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shrouded in secrecy during World War II and obscured by myth ever since, Kampfgeschwader 200 (200th Bomb Wing) remains one of the Luftwaffe's most fascinating formations. Considered a special-operations unit, KG 200 delivered spies while flying captured Allied aircraft, conducted clandestine reconnaissance missions, and tested Germany's newest weapons--such as a piloted version of the V-1 rocket (essentially a German kamikaze). Covers some of the KG 200's more sinister operations, including suicide missions and the unit's role in defeating a French Resistance insurrection in June-July 1944 Includes information on aircraft used and known personnel losses Features rare photos and color illustrations of KG 200 aircraft

Download or read book The Life and Death of the Luftwaffe written by Werner Baumbach and published by New York : Ballantine Books. This book was released on 1960 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal narrative of the German air force told by a bomber pilot.

Download or read book Hitler s Squadron written by C. G. Sweeting and published by Potomac Books. This book was released on 2001 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details the aircraft and missions of Adolf Hitler's personal aircraft transportation squadron; An unparalleled reference guide to some of the legendary aircraft of the era, including the Junkers Ju 52/3m, the Focke-Wulf FW 200 Condor, and the Junkers Ju 290; Contains rare photographs of Hitler's personal planes and of life inside the inner circle of the Third Reich; Adolf Hitler was the first head of state to have his own personal pilot and airplane. His interest in aviation as a propaganda weapon as well as transportation led him to order the establishment of a special air squadron, the Fliegerstaffel des Fuehrers. To command this unique unit, he chose Hans Baur, veteran World War I combat ace and pioneering airline pilot. During the 1930s and World War II, the Fuehrer's own pilot and special aircraft flew the famous and the infamous. Baur flew Hitler, his inner circle, and visiting dignitaries throughout Europe, to Hitler's secret headquarters and to the far-flung battlefields of the Eastern Front.. The aircraft used in the squadron were the Junkers Ju 52/3m, D-2600; the Focke-Wulf FW 200 Condor; and the Junkers Ju 290, a true flying fortress. Sweeting also discusses the remark

Download or read book Hitler s Air Bridges written by Dmitry Degtev and published by Air World. This book was released on 2022-12-29 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much has been written about the famous fighters and bombers of the Luftwaffe which proved so successful in the invasion of Poland, the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain and in the early operations in Eastern Europe. Little attention, however, has been focused on the Luftwaffe’s transport aircraft which played a vital role in supplying German forces in every theatre. In early May 1940, the battle of Norway was nearing its climax, but General Eduard Dietl’s 3rd Jäger division was blocked by the Allies in the Narvik area. Only the Luftwaffe could provide effective assistance to the encircled troops. The special purpose groups KGr.zbV107 and KGr.zbV108 were ordered to supply the division by air. Transports delivered ammunition, food, and even boots for German sailors who found themselves on land. This was the first of a number of occasions in which the Luftwaffe’s transport Gruppen, often equipped with the slow, but reliable Junkers 52, created an ‘air bridge’ to supply troops cut off or surrounded by the enemy. The transport Gruppen had previously been involved in supporting the advance of German forces during the Polish campaign, this being followed by the capture of Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Greece. During Operation Barbarossa, German troops were dispersed over the vast expanses of Russia. It was a country without roads where the normal supply by trucks and trains to the troops was difficult and sometimes impossible. Often, it was only the Luftwaffe’s transport aircraft that kept the Germans fighting. But with Hitler’s insistence that there should be no retreat despite the overwhelming strength of the Soviet forces, his Germans armies found themselves surrounded and the Luftwaffe had to create air bridges to supply the beleaguered troops. Nowhere was this more evident than the Battle of Stalingrad, Göring having convinced Hitler that the Luftwaffe was capable of keeping the Sixth Army supplied. As the war increasingly turned against the Third Reich, air bridges were vital in supporting and maintaining its garrisons in places such as Demyansk, Holm, Korsun, Budapest, Breslau, and many others. Hitler’s Air Bridges presents the story of the Luftwaffe’s transport Gruppen more extensively and in greater detail than ever before.

Download or read book Hitler s Luftwaffe written by Tony Wood and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a pictorial history and technical encyclopedia of Hitler's air power in W W 11.

Download or read book The German Air Force 1933 1945 written by Matthew Cooper and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Race for Hitler s X Planes written by John Christopher and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War 2, Hitler’s engineers had pioneered an incredible array of futuristic secret weapons, from the Me 262, the first operational jet fighter, to the deadly V2 inter continental ballistic missile. With the Third Reich shattered and lying in ruins, in the summer of 1945, the Allies launched a frantic race to grab what they saw as the justifiable spoils of war. The Americans and Russians in particular were anxious to secure not only the aircraft and the research and production facilities, but also the key German scientists and engineers. This Nazi technology would define the balance of power in the phoney peace of the Cold War era, launching an arms race that shaped our modern world for decades to come. But what of Britain’s role in this supermarket sweep? The Race for Hitler’s X-Planes tells the untold story of the British mission to Germany.

Download or read book The Luftwaffe s Secret WWII Missions written by Dmitry Degtev and published by Air World. This book was released on 2020-12-28 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Full of mystery and intrigue surrounding the Abwehr and the Luftwaffe secret missions supporting the insertion and less frequent extraction of agents.” —Aviation News There are many vivid episodes in the operational service of the Luftwaffe’s special and secret units which engaged in the delivery of agents and saboteurs in the rear of the enemy throughout the Second World War—not just on the Eastern Front but across Asia and Europe. The activities of the pilots and crews of these squadrons, even in the Luftwaffe itself, were closed and secret. Information on the operations and missions of these units was known only to a limited number of people. It was common practice for the crew of one aircraft in these units to know nothing about the assignments of their fellow airmen. The area of activity of such units and aircraft covered the whole of Europe, North Africa, the Arctic circle, the Urals, the Caucasus, and Central Asia including Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The Luftwaffe not only flew to these remote regions, but also created secret bases for their aircraft. Drawn from German and Russian sources, much of the latter only recently declassified, the authors expose for the very first time the Luftwaffe’s secret operations and reveal the fate of many of the pilots, agents and saboteurs in a story as breathtakingly dramatic as any blockbuster novel. “A most interesting account of the special Luftwaffe units that flew agents into enemy territory during WWII . . .What may surprise many readers is the extent of these operations that stretched deep into the Soviet Union and also into the Middle East and Afghanistan.” —Firetrench

Download or read book The Luftwaffe Its Rise and Fall written by Hauptmann Hermann (pseud.) and published by New York : G.P. Putnam's sons. This book was released on 1943 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tysk militærhistorie, krigshistorie, 2. Verdenskrig, om det tyske flyvevåben: der Luftwaffe - amerikansk bog som udkom i 1943. Bogen angives at være skrevet af en tysk flyverofficer, som forlod Tyskland lige inden 2. Verdenskrig, og hvis navn - rimeligt nok - ikke kunne offentliggøres på udgivelsestidspunktet. Bogen beskriver det tyske flyvevåbens storhed og fald - udviklingen fra 1. Verdenskrig, og i Mellemkrigsårene under Nazityskland og i de første år af 2. Verdenskrig, som først var sejrrige og siden bestemt ikke var det - altsammen betragtet gennem en tysk pilot og flyverofficers øjne. Bogen har forord af Curt Riess.

Download or read book Captured Eagles written by Frederick A. Johnsen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The growth in size, lethality, and technology of the German Luftwaffe was of concern to some defense planners in the United States before American entry into the war. Learning about the Luftwaffe became a significant effort once the conflict broke out in Europe. From defectors with German aircraft to battlefield trophies and combat crew reports, the race to understand German aero technology took on sometimes heroic proportions. After the war, German technology infused American aerospace developments in many ways: German ribbon parachutes were evaluated for high-speed bailouts; sweptwing leading edge slat technology benefited the F-86 Sabre; overall comprehension of sweptwing benefits to fast jet aircraft was validated; pulse jet V1s and supersonic V2 rockets boosted American drone weapon, ballistic missile, and space exploration efforts. In this volume, Frederick A. Johnsen traces that path of discovery.

Download or read book Operation Lusty written by Graham M. Simons and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-07-31 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating overview of the Allies’ post-WWII program to gain access to advanced Nazi war machines and the technology they ultimately recovered. Prior to the Allied D-Day assault on Normandy, France, rumors had already been circulating that high-tech Nazi super-weapons (wunderwaffe) had reached or were near completion. At the war’s end, a mad scramble ensued to discover the enemy’s secrets, fueled in large part by a US desire to regain its technological edge and to keep these weapons out of Soviet hands. Operation Lusty (LUftwaffe Secret TechnologY) was in full swing. In Operation Lusty, aviation historian Graham M. Simons delivers a comprehensive and detailed history of the program while cataloging the advanced war equipment that was ultimately discovered—from U-boats, carriers, and battleships to radar equipment and operating systems, to fighters, bombers, rockets, and other V-weapons. With access to previously unreleased documentation and wide-ranging archival materials, Simons distinguishes what was fact in the Nazi arsenal from what was pure fantasy, dreamed up by Joseph Goebbels’s powerful propaganda machine. Operation Lusty sheds new light on the furious race for postwar technological superiority, and offers an insider’s look at the full spectrum of military spoils that were gained.

Download or read book In Furious Skies written by Tim Heath and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2022-09-21 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a proud Adolf Hitler revealed his new Luftwaffe to the world in March 1935, it was the largest, most modern military air arm the world had seen. Equipped with the latest monoplane fighter and bomber aircraft manned by well-trained and motivated crews, it soon became evident that the Luftwaffe also possessed a high degree of technical superiority over Germany’s future enemies. Yet within just nine years the once-mightiest air force in the world had reached total collapse, destroyed in part by the very people responsible for creating it. By 1944, the Luftwaffe, wearied by aerial battles on multiple fronts combined with tactical mismanagement from the highest levels of command, were unable to match their enemies in both production and manpower. By this time the Luftwaffe was fighting for its survival, and for the survival of Germany itself, above the burning cities of the Third Reich, facing odds sometimes as high as ten-to-one in the air. Told through the eyes of the fighter and bomber crews themselves, this book explores previously unpublished first-hand accounts of the rise and fall of one of the most formidable air forces in twentieth-century military history. It paints a haunting picture of the excitement, fear, romance intertwined with the brutality, futility and wastefulness that is war.

Download or read book The Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-03-16 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the fighting *Includes online resource 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 Göring, June 1940 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. Though the superb fighting qualities of highly trained and motivated German soldiers, and the Third Reich's technological superiority in tank and weapon design, also had crucial roles to play, the Luftwaffe represented the key element making the successes of all other branches possible. While the Luftwaffe enjoyed air superiority, the combat fortunes of the Third Reich continued to ride high. When control of the air passed decisively to the Allies, Germany's hopes of victory began accelerating into a spiral of defeat. 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. In the Falaise Pocket in Normandy, for example, the splendidly lethal Panthers, Tigers, and Tiger II tanks of the Nazi Panzer Divisions never had the opportunity to destroy the flimsily-armored, outgunned Sherman tanks of their American opponents. Instead, American fighter-bombers systematically annihilated them and their supporting infantry formations from the air, leaving the landscape strewn with flipped-over tank hulks and in places literally carpeted with the flesh of dead men. Some 10,000 Germans died and 50,000 surrendered to the Western Allies at Falaise, due to Hitler's order to counterattack without air support. Of course, the loss of that domination was due in most part to the efforts of Britain's Royal Air Force, which prevented Nazi Germany from conquering Britain on their own. The Battle of Britain, fought throughout the summer and early autumn of 1940, was unquestionably epic in scope. The largest air campaign in history at the time, the vaunted Nazi Luftwaffe sought to smash the RAF as a prelude to German invasion, leaving the British public and its pilots engaged in what they believed was a desperate fight for national survival. The fate of the free world, at least as Europe knew it, hung in the balance over the skies of Britain. Of course, the RAF was instrumental in other ways during the war. The RAF supported Allied forces all over the world, from Norway to Burma to Tunisia, and the RAF conducted devastating bombing campaigns against German industry and cities. In the end, the Allies emerged victorious, even as Britain fell behind other leading nations in air technology. World War II witnessed the birth of the jet age, a future glimpsed briefly in the spectacular but doomed appearance of the Messerschmitt Me 262 near the war's end, and Britain would be the only nation other than Germany with a jet fighter in combat by the time World War II was through. The Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force: The History and Legacy of Nazi Germany and Great Britain's Air Forces in World War II