Nearly 400 color photographs reveal fascinating detail on the planes and
the men of the Luftwaffe, as they progressed from seeming invincibility
to utter defeat.
Eighty years after its creation, the Luftwaffe is still one of the most
fascinating forces in the history of aviation. A companion to Luftwaffe
in Colour Volume 1, which covered the victory years from 1939 up to
Spring 1942, this volume with nearly 400 images contains even more
fascinating material on the machines of the Luftwaffe and the men who
flew them, as their fate took an increasingly grim path.
Initially the Luftwaffe ruled the skies but thereafter fought an
increasingly futile war of attrition which when combined with vital
strategic mistakes in aircraft production, was its death knell. Despite
this the Luftwaffe produced the most successful air aces of all time who
feature in this volume. Among many remarkable images we see one of the
last Junkers 87 B-2 operational on the front line on the Eastern Front
during the winter of 1942-1943, the huge BV 222 V-5 of
Lufttransportstaffel in the port of Heraklion in late 1942, pilots in
Tunisia in 1943, the aces Hans Philipp, Wolfgang Spate and Heinz
Schnaufer and a vivid demonstration of the reversal in fortunes in 1944
as Allied bombers destroy 106 places, engulfing them in fire at
Schwabisch-Hall on German soil.
In this painstakingly pieced together collection, originally published
in France, the full detail behind the propaganda is once more revealed,
in rare colour photographs.
