Luftwaffe | War History

Gerhard Barkhorn Was the Second-Highest-Scoring Fighter Pilot In All of History

Gerhard Barkhorn standing in military uniform

Gerhard Barkhorn was a legendary, although contentious, aviator who flew for the Luftwaffe during World War II. Nonetheless, he earned a vast number of aerial victories,…

Henschel Hs 129 :The Luftwaffe’s Soaring Tank Buster Armed With a 75 mm Cannon

Sky at sunrise + Drawing of a Henschel Hs 129

As tank warfare evolved and became a key strategy during the interwar period, the German Wehrmacht envisioned a new kind of blitzkrieg – one that…

Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse: The German Bomber Destroyer That Was No Match for Allied Fighters

Messerschmitt Me 410A-1/U2 Hornisse parked on the tarmac

The Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse was a German twin-engine heavy fighter and bomber destroyer operated by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. Designed as…

Fritz X: The World’s First Precision-Guided Missile Took Out the Italian Navy’s Flagship

Fritz X on display

The Fritz X was a German radio-guided anti-ship missile that went by many names: Ruhrstahl SD 1400 X, PC 1400X, Kramer X-1 and FX 1400.…

The German V-1 ‘Buzz Bomb’ Was Developed to Terrorize the British Public

V-1 "buzz bomb" on display

Vengeance weapon one (V-1), the “buzz bomb,” the “doodlebug” or the “Fi 103” – whatever name you call it by, this impressive World War II-era…

Operation Bodenplatte: The New Year’s Day ‘Hangover Raid’ That Devastated the Luftwaffe

Smouldering remains of a North American B-25 Mitchell at Melsbroek

Launched as part of the Battle of the Bulge, Operation Bodenplatte was meant to devastate Allied airfields in the Low Countries. While Wehrmacht soldiers were fighting…

Sonderkommando ‘Elbe’ – Germany’s Aerial Kamikaze Force

Three Messerschmitt Bf 109s in flight

Japanese kamikaze pilots were well known during the Second World War for their sacrificial bombing tactics against enemy naval vessels. They would put their aircraft…

Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer Was the Luftwaffe’s Best Night Fighter Pilot

Todd Neikirk
Underside of a Messerschmitt Bf 110 in flight + Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer in uniform

Between World War I and II, a number of advancements were made in aviation. Despite this, there were still some conditions that made flying difficult,…

All Five of the Second World War’s Triple Aces in a Day Flew for the German Luftwaffe

Messerschmitt Bf 109G parked on a runway

The Second World War saw thousands of air battles between pilots. Germany, which started the conflict in 1939 with its invasion of Poland, held a…

Operation Wikinger: The Kriegsmarine’s Disastrous Mission in the North Sea

German destroyer Z1 Leberecht Maass at sea + Heinkel He 111 in flight

The Luftwaffe was the main arm and, arguably, the most dangerous aspect of the German military. Another branch intended to be just as strong was…

Junkers Ju 87Bs Utilized Psychological Warfare Against Allied Ground Troops

Junkers Ju 87Bs in flight

The Germans during the Second World War hoped to take over the world, and they didn’t just plan to do so by using military force.…

Erich Hartmann: The Most Successful Fighter Ace of All Time

Erich Hartmann smiling

Despite to horridness of their cause, the pilots of the German Army were among the most successful of the Second World War. The most storied…