Though Germany only started to become interested in the raising of airborne forces in the mid-1930s, under the auspices of the Nazis the foundations were established upon which an entire airborne division could be created. But first an air force and air industry had to be created from scratch following defeat in World War I.

The development of the German Fallschirmjäger (parachutists) formations can be traced back to the years preceding World War I. During the years between 1900 and 1914, two major revolutionary military developments emerged. The first was the submersible; the second, and more junior, was powered flight. All Europe was fascinated by the latter, being beguiled by the fantasies and hysteria that surrounded it. In Germany in particular there was much interest shown in powered flight, although in Great Britain the relevant authorities were sceptical. In 1909, for example, the British Committee of Imperial Defence reported that "it had yet to be shown whether aeroplanes are sufficiently reliable to be used under unfavourable weather conditions. The committee has been unable to obtain any trustworthy evidence to show whether any great improvement was to be expected in the immediate future". The high cost of an aeroplane, £1000, was noted and the committee concluded that £45,000 should be invested in airship research instead. The War Office soon announced that aeroplane experiments had ceased "as the cost has proved too great: £2500". Meanwhile, by 1909 the French had expended the equivalent of £47,000 on aeroplanes for the army. The Germans, wishing to dominate the fledgling science, spent the equivalent of £400,000 on aeroplane research alone.

In Germany an aviation test project was set up, overseen by Captain de le Roi of the German War Ministry, and a technical section was established under a staff officer, Major Hesse. To link the efforts of the army with those of private industry, an inspectorate was established under the command of Lieutenant-General Freiherr von Lyncker. The result of this unification between government and industry was the establishment of an aircraft design agency. In 1909, aircraft were used by the military for the first time during manoeuvres watched by Kaiser Wilhelm II. The following year saw the establishment of the first flying schools, and on 8 July 1910 Captain de le Roi assumed command of the provisional flying school at Döberitz. The Flying Command Döberitz consisted of Captain de le Roi, together with Lieutenant Geerdtz, and Second Lieutenants Mackenthun and von Tarnoczy. A week later the four began their flying instruction, and by the middle of December the next six officers had completed their course of instruction. The German War Ministry, impressed by the promising results of the flying school, allocated a sum of 110,000 Marks for the purchase of aircraft - the first step towards a German air force had been taken. A system of pilots' licences had also been introduced in 1910, administered by the German Aviation Association and the Inspectorate of Transport for Military Troops and Civilian Pilots. The first to gain one was August Euler on 1 February 1910. To reward military pilots and to give an outward recognition of their prowess, the Kaiser introduced the Military Pilots' Badge on 27 January 1913.

World War I

With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 the importance of aerial warfare was initially overlooked. The general staffs of the combatant nations considered it a toy of dubious use, and those in the infant air services were looked upon as "backsliders" who had found a way of avoiding "real" action. Speaking as Commander-in-Chief, Aldershot, just one month before the outbreak of war, for example, Sir Douglas Haig, later commander of the British Expeditionary Force, told a military gathering: "I hope none of you gentlemen is so foolish as to think that aeroplanes will be able to be usefully employed for reconnaissance in the air. There is only one way for a commander to get information by reconnaissance and that is by the use of cavalry."

First faltering steps

The British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) went to war with just 197 pilots. Two weeks later Sefton Brancker, Director General of Military Aeronautics, compiled a list of all those left in the country able to fly, and discovered that only 862 men held the Royal Aero Club's certificate. Of these, just 55 were sufficiently advanced to undertake active service immediately. Such meagre resources were considered no great handicap, however, as each side discounted aerial combat (no aircraft mounted any guns) and thus any losses were expected to be small. By the summer of 1915, there were only 200 pilots undergoing training in Great Britain and so it was assumed that weekend gentlemen aviators would top up the supply. In its wisdom the War Office decreed that "members of the RFC who own their own aeroplanes should be encouraged to bring them to the Central Flying School when they undergo their training". In addition, before RFC acceptance all the candidates had to obtain the necessary Aero Club certificate of competence, and had to pay the £75 fee. Entry qualifications to the RFC were eccentric: individuals were asked if they could ride a horse, a motorcycle or sail a boat. Then, after picking out strands of differently coloured wools, individuals were pronounced medically fit to fly.

During the course of the war the "knights of the air" of the fledgling air forces were to prove their military worth, especially after the introduction of synchronised machine guns, which enabled them to fire through the propellers of their aircraft. Aerial dogfights became common, and a disturbing degree of visibility often accompanied death in the air. On the ground, among thousands of other men in a vortex of deafening noise, a shot infantryman would fall unnoticed, and a few lumps of red meat would be all that remained following a direct hit by an artillery shell. High in the sky, however, encased in canvas and wood, the dying airman seem to amplify his death by falling in slow motion and often in flames, a sight watching pilots never forgot. Later in the war, it was always made worse in the minds of British pilots by the fact that the enemy had a better chance of surviving a jump. They used parachutes of British design, modified only by a cord attached to the fuselage which ripped open the 'chute when needed. Many German pilots survived, such as the aces Ernst Udet (jumped once) and Josef Jacobs (jumped twice). Nevertheless, neither the RFC nor the later Royal Air Force (RAF) were ever issued with parachutes. The fact that they weighed as much as a machine gun might have had some bearing on the matter.

Early parachute experiments

In Great Britain it was not until 1935 that serious parachute testing took place under official Air Ministry supervision, although a demonstration jump from an airship, using this design of parachute, had taken place in 1913. In addition, an unauthorised jump from the parapet of Tower Bridge in London, by Major Orde-Lees in 1917, showed that parachutes could open successfully from a height of only 46.6m (153ft).

As well as saving lives, parachutes could be put to a more offensive use. To break the deadlock of the Western Front, Brigadier-General Billy Mitchell, commander of the US Air Corps in France in 1918, proposed that parachute battalions should be raised and dropped behind the German lines at Metz. The Allied High Command concluded that such unique operations would take at least six months to plan, organise and equip. In addition, there were insufficient aircraft to transport the paratroop battalions in a single lift, combined with the problem of the immediate availability of parachutes. The idea was therefore abandoned, and the cessation of hostilities in the West in November 1918 brought the war to an end.

German aviation after World War I

By 1918 aircraft had changed the nature and conduct of war (by the Armistice, the original 197 British pilots had become 26,000), even if conservative elements within military hierarchies chose to believe otherwise. Haig, for example, saw no reason to change his general opinion on the military value of aircraft. In his personal draft for a final despatch, just two sentences were given to the air: "Though aircraft and tanks proved of enormous value, their true value is as ancillaries of infantry, artillery and cavalry." The reason he gave for this poor rating was that "the killing power of the aeroplane is still very limited as compared to the three principal arms". However, the architects of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919 acknowledged the potential of military aircraft, and its clauses stated that the German Air Force was to be dissolved, its aircraft confiscated or broken up. Furthermore, the production of aircraft and aero engines in Germany was forbidden. However, these measures failed to halt developments in military aviation in Germany.

Sports clubs sprang up all over Germany after the war, which undertook to teach aeronautically minded Germans the art of flying. In addition, the Reichswehr (the 100,000-strong army allowed to the new Weimar Republic by the Treaty of Versailles), fearing that it was being left behind in military developments, secretly negotiated with the Soviet Red Army in early 1923 regarding training facilities. It finally signed an agreement in April 1925 which made Lipezk Airfield in Russia available for German military training. In 1926, besides the fighter pilot training that was already underway there, observer training began. Added to this, a special unit for testing new aircraft, weapons and equipment was also included.

Hitler boosts the aviation arm

Between 1925 and 1933 approximately 120 officers returned from this flying school in Russia, having been fully trained as fighter pilots. Those who returned during this period maintained their skills by being incorporated as civilian pilots flying for the fledgling Lufthansa airline. The airline also employed the best veteran pilots from World War I, and so the two sets of pilots flew together and gained experience from each another.

Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party) - NSDAP or Nazi Party - became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Within months he had assumed absolute power within Germany, and began a ruthless campaign to transform Germany into a military machine to implement his expansionist policies. In the same year he created the Deutscher Luftsport-Verband (DLV), an organisation designed to stimulate interest in aviation. The club offered its members, most of whom had previously been in the armed forces, the active disciplined life for which they yearned, to such an extent that on 10 November 1933 Hitler granted the DLV its own uniform with rank and trade insignia. Under the direction of this organisation the members learned three main aeronautical skills: ballooning, glider-powered flight and parachuting. In 1933 Hitler also abandoned the school at Lipezk, and thus placed reliance on the DLV to train new personnel for his clandestine Luftwaffe (Air Force).

The Luftwaffe flexes its wings

As the Nazi Party assumed an iron grip over Germany Hitler became more confident on the international stage, and on 26 February 1935 he announced the official formation of the Luftwaffe. All the secrecy that had surrounded it was blown away. The DLV was disbanded and all its former members encouraged to join the new National Sozialistische Flieger Korps (National Socialist Flying Corps) - NSFK - which was introduced in its place. In this manner the Nazi Party brought together under its control all of the country's flying clubs into one, essentially paramilitary, organisation. The NSFK could thus operate side-by-side with the fledgling Luftwaffe, and both were able to grow and gather strength together.

In April 1935, the first German fighter squadron emerged under the command of Major Ritter von Greim, bearing the title Jagdgeschwader Richthofen 2. The fighters made their first public display during the occupation of the Rhineland (which had been demilitarised under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles) on 7 March 1936. The first Luftwaffe fighter school was established at the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegeschule (German Commercial Pilots' School) at Schlelssheim, thus completing the formation of the new Luftwaffe and the NSFK. Through skilful propaganda and deception it appeared that Hitler had created a force as technically advanced as the Luftwaffe virtually out of thin air. This feat tended to add to Hitler's international diplomatic aura, the more so during the Luftwaffe's involvement in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), where its reputation as a "terror machine" was confirmed during such incidents as the bombing of Guernica in April 1937.

As mentioned previously, the idea of placing a large body of troops inside enemy territory was first mooted during World War I. In the interwar period Germany was a late starter in the development of airborne forces, though far in front of Britain, the United States and Japan. The potential of airborne forces was, perhaps surprisingly, first recognised in Italy and the recently created Soviet Union. The first effective static-line parachute was developed in Italy during the 1920s. Static-line parachuting, whereby parachutes are attached to the inside of an aircraft and are opened automatically when troops leave the aircraft, was essential for massed paratroop operations. Individual rip-cord opening would have required drops from higher altitudes, with the inevitable higher casualties and worse scattering. Training would also have been more complex and dangerous. The Soviet Union demonstrated the military potential of airborne forces in the early 1930s, though its methods were crude. The troops had to leave their slow-moving ANT-6 aircraft through a hole in the fuselage roof, then gingerly edge their way out along the wings, before jumping together and immediately pulling their rip-cords. This was hardly a safe arrangement, though it did result in a very tight grouping on the drop zone, especially when one considers that the aircraft had to slow to a speed of 96km/h (60mph), not much above stall, in order to make the operation feasible! At such a speed surprise was hardly possible, and the aircraft themselves would have been especially vulnerable to ground fire, even from small arms.

German military thinkers also appreciated the flexibility in attack which airborne forces could provide, and turned their thoughts to what could be accomplished "at home". Perhaps they were thinking of the smiling remark which Red Air Force Marshal Michal Schutscherbakov had made to the French Marshal Pétain during a tour of the Maginot Line defences along the Franco-German border: "Fortresses like this may well be superfluous in the future if your potential adversary parachutes over them." Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, was among the German observers to the Russian manoeuvres in 1935 and 1936, and had witnessed parachuting onto an objective by a regiment of 1000 troops, followed by the airlandings of transport aircraft carrying reinforcements of another 2500 fully armed men together with their heavy weapons. These two types of airborne soldiers had then carried out conventional infantry attacks covered by fire from machine guns, mortars and light artillery.

Parachuting and airlanding

All the invited observers were undeniably impressed. One of the British Army's highly experienced and much-decorated soldiers of World War I, Major-General Archibald Wavell, wrote at the end of those exercises: "If I had not seen it for myself, I should not have believed such a thing to be possible." However, Wavell also expressed reservations as to their tactical value: how would lightly armed, sparsely supplied paratroops hold out against forces deployed to repel them, especially tanks? Nevertheless, the Red Army had demonstrated that conflagrations of the future would have a new dimension. It is axiomatic that in times of war a nation will deploy its land forces to counter perceived threats - along borders, coastlines and the like - and will leave its heartland relatively lightly guarded. The means had been developed to attack an opponent's vulnerable rear areas in strength: height would now be added to those of width and depth (the concept of "vertical envelopment").

At this point a distinction must be drawn between the two main types of airborne soldier. Parachute troops are trained to jump from aircraft, whereas airlanding troops are flown into the drop zone in aircraft and disembark once on the ground. On the eve of World War II, for example, the Luftwaffe possessed the 7th Flieger (Airborne) Division, composed primarily of paratroopers, whereas the army possessed the 22nd Infantry Division, which had been trained and equipped to operate with aircraft. Designated "Airlanding Division", none of its men were parachute trained. Their specialist training consisted of being able to disembark from aircraft on the ground at speed.

Blitzkrieg and the use of airborne forces

By the late 1930s, Germany's armed forces were trained and equipped for the tactical and strategic concept of the Blitzkrieg (Lightning War). This theory of attack was based on the premise that it is simpler, easier and cheaper to destroy an opponent's armed forces by cutting off its supplies or by severing its lines of communications and control than by frontal assaults. Allied to this premise were the elements of speed and shock.

On the ground armoured spearheads, supported by artillery and dive-bombers, would smash through the points of least resistance, fan out, bypass enemy strongpoints, and sweep around road and rail junctions, paralysing enemy supply, reserve and command elements. Follow-on units would capture or encircle defenders as the spearheads plunged deeper into enemy territory towards towns and cities. Surprise and large-scale attacks on the enemy's air force and airfields at the beginning of the campaign would ensure total German air superiority throughout the Blitzkrieg attack. The use of airborne troops to seize key points ahead of the armoured spearheads fitted well into this strategy. They could take and hold key points until the attacking ground forces arrived. During the war German airborne forces also proved that they could capture islands and hold them independently of ground forces. But such airborne missions required special training, equipment and personnel, as well as commanders and junior leaders with vision and drive.