National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

e t w e e n “do u h e t I s m” A n d “cl o s e AIr su p p o rt”. th e ge r m A n AIr wA r do c t r I n e In wo r l d wA r II 93
port to friendly ground and naval forces. This is the reason why the air force continued
to be assigned to the US Army, and the US Air Force as an independent Service
was not established until after the end of World War II, on 18 September 1947.
In addition to the unwillingness of Army, Navy and Marine Corps to wage a strategic
air war, there also was the moral abhorrence of major parts of the US population
towards breaking the will of resistance of the enemy population by bombing them.
Hence, it is true that the operational principles developed at the US Army Air Corps
Tactical School since 1938 – a sort of official American air war doctrine – provided for
the destruction of vital facilities of the adversary. Precision attacks – this meant bomb
releases on specially selected and limited trade and industry targets – were to hit the
adversary’s warfaring capabilities. Shattering the morale of the population by conducting
bombing raids against the civilian population, however, was not envisaged.
II.
While the victorious powers of World War I had been thinking about the future
role of the air force and the significance of the air war, already during the war or
immediately after the end of the war, such thoughts necessarily had to be omitted in
the German Reich for the time being. 19 Being bound by the clauses of the Treaty of
Versailles, Germany was not allowed to establish a “Major General Staff”, set up and
support air forces and associated facilities and installations. And the Reichswehr was
restricted to the number of 100,000 soldiers. According to the concept of the German
military leadership of the post-war period, the Reichswehr was a sort of cadre army
designed to enable a fast augmentation and rearmament of the German armed forces
upon discontinuation of the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.
The restrictions on no account prevented the German Reich from deliberately and,
of course, secretly disregarding the clauses of the Treaty early on, although extent
and efficiency of those measures remained relatively moderate. 20 Such illegal activities
included the training of pilots within the scope of aerial sports or in the civil sector
at Lufthansa, and the disguise of smaller flying units as “advertising squadrons”
for advertising flights. Already since 1924 there had been a German flight center at
Lipezk as part of the cooperation with Russia in the field of military policy. Here,
military aircraft were tested and fighter pilots and observers were trained. 21
As to the development of its own air war doctrine, the Reichswehr was first left
19
Cf. James S. Corum, »The Development of German Air Doctrine between the Wars«, in: War in
History, 3 (1996), p. 85-101.
20
Cf. Wilhelm Deist, Die Aufrüstung der Wehrmacht, in: Wilhelm Deist/Manfred Messerschmidt/
Hans-Erich Volkmann/Wolfram Wette, Ursachen und Voraussetzungen der deutschen Kriegspolitik.
Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (ed.) (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 1)
Stuttgart 1977, p. 402 and p. 473-496.
21
Cf. Wolfram Falck, Falkenjahre. Erinnerungen 1910-2003. Kurt Braatz (ed.). Moosburg 2003, p.
27-41.