Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

AIR SUPERIORITY
Eighth Military History Symposium, USAF Academy, (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1979). Two recent works on the Luftwaffe from different perspectives
have appeared in English and are important sources for their coverage of the
early war years: Williamson Murray, Strategy for Defeat, The Luftwaffe, 1933-1945
(Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 1983); and Matthew Cooper, The German Air
Force, 1933-1945, An Anatomy of Failure (New York: Jane’s 1981). Richard Overy’s
The Air War, 1939-1945 (London: Europa Publications, 1980) represents a significant
departure point; while it contains several small errors, it puts the air war into a
much larger perspective than is generally true of airpower histories. For a general
background on the military, political, and strategic history of the late 1930s, see
Williamson Murray, The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939
(Princeton: University Press, 1984). On the development of German air doctrine
before World War 11, see Williamson Murray, “The Luftwaffe before the Second
World War: A Mission, A Strategy?” Journal of Strategic Studies, September 1981.
The most important work on the prewar plans and development of an industrial base
is Edward L. Homze’s Arming the Luftwaffe, The Reich Air Ministry and the German
Aircraft Industry, 1919-1939 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976).
Homze’s excellent article “The Luftwaffe’s Failure to Develop a Heavy Bomber
Before World War 11,” Aerospace Historian, March 1977, makes clear the technological
and conceptual failure in the German attempt to design a four-engine bomber.
These are a number of historians whose works are still of considerable importance
and have not been entirely dated by newer studies. The best general work on
the air conflict during the Second World War is the brilliant and careful examination
of Bomber Command’s operations: Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, The
Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, vols 1-111 (London: HMSO, 1981). While
their story is obviously that of Bomber Command, their discussion of doctrinal,
technological, and strategic issues is of enormous importance to any airpower historian.
David Irving’s The Rise and Fall of the Luftwujfe, The Life of Field Marshal
Erhard Milch (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973) is overly favorable to its
subject but contains interesting points of view on the Luftwaffe. Denis Richards,
The Royal Air Force, 1939-1945 (London: HMSO, 1953) is somewhat dated but still
useful. An early in-house study of the Luftwaffe by the RAF’s Air Historical
Branch, The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force (London: HMSO, 1948) has just
been issued publicly by the AHB and is most valuable. Cajus Bekker, Luftwaffe War
Diaries (London: MacDonald and Co., 1968) adds little to our understanding of the
subject. Richard Suchenwirths Historical Turning Points in the German Air Force
War Effort [USAF Historical Study No. 1891 (Maxwell AFB: Air University, USAF
Historical Research Center, 1968) contains some interesting information as does
that author’s Command and Leadership in the Air Force [USAF Historical Study,
No. 1741 (Maxwell AFB: Air University, USAF Historical Research Center, 1969).
There are numerous works on the Luftwaffe’s preparations for the coming war.
The best of these in German are Karl Heinz Volker, “Die Entwicklung der militarischen
Luftfahrt in Deutschland, 1920-1933,” in Beitruge zur Militur-und Kriegsqeschichte,
vol 111 (Stuttgart: Deutsch Verlags, 1962) and that author’s Die deutsche
Luftwaffe, 1933-1939: Aufbau, Fuhrung und Riistung der Luftwaffe sowie die
Entwicklung der deutschen Luftkriegsfuhrung. For the early development of the
Nazi rearmament effort, see Edward W. Bennett’s German Rearmument and the
West, 1932-1933 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). Wilhelm Deist’s The
Wehrmacht and German Rearmament (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981)
has an excellent section on the Luftwaffe’s place in Germany’s preparations for war.
On early strategic thinking in the Luftwaffe see particularly: Bernard Heimann and
Joachim Scunke, “Eine geheime Denkschrift zur Luftkriegskonzeption Hitler-
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