Author: James M. S. Krum
Translations: Zhang Xianjia, Zhou Sicheng, Zhang David
In the early 1930s, at an aviation school in southern Germany, cadets flew Ar 64 biplanes in dense formations, training as future fighter pilots.
The Treaty of Versailles ordered Germany to disband its air force and forbade Germany to possess any flying weapons. This was a serious blow to Germany's military honor, because unlike the Army, the country's air force was an effective combat unit until the end, and it can be said that they were never really defeated in battle. On November 11, 1918, the Luftwaffe had 2,570 modern military aircraft and 4,500 officers and men on the front line. In November of the same year, Germany's total military aircraft reserve was about 15,000 aircraft, all of which were handed over to the Entente as part of the peace process.
Naturally, the German General Staff wanted to retain this superior unit. As a representative of the General Staff at the Peace Conference of Versailles, General von Seckert struggled to keep Germany an air force of 1,800 aircraft and 10,000 relevant personnel. Von Seckert was well aware of the importance of the Air Force and considered the prohibition of the German possession of the Air Force to be the most unacceptable part of the Treaty of Versailles. He continued to make efforts to negotiate the terms of the treaty concerning his own air force; by May 1920, under pressure from the Allies, the Luftwaffe was forced to formally disband. The Weimar Wehrmacht then attempted to retain part of the Air Force under the name of a "police" squadron equipped with military aircraft, which belonged to the German states. But between 1920 and 1921, even such a small force was ordered to be disbanded.
In the eyes of Luftwaffe officers, von Seckert was a strong supporter of their service— he supported the development of the Air Force into a separate branch of the Army, on a par with the Army and Navy. After becoming Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, von Seckert secured a quota of 180 pilots for the Weimar Wehrmacht at the Army Personnel Bureau. At the time, many believed that since Germany was not allowed to have an air force, the 180 places were unnecessary. But this at least shows that von Seckert has won the struggle against bureaucracy. He ensured that a carefully selected team of Air Force officers was preserved within the framework of the Weimar Wehrmacht, laying the foundation for the later revival of the Luftwaffe. Von Seckert created a small air force staff within the General Headquarters and set about the formation of a small, secret air force for the Weimar Wehrmacht, which also had a training program for pilots and aircrews. All this required secret government funding and aid, and von Seckert succeeded. In the words of der Flieger Wilhelm Wimmer: "Von Seckert mobilized all his influence and abilities to protect his pilot team from attacks from all sides, even at the cabinet level." ”
By March 1920, despite the disbandment of the Luftwaffe, von Seckett had created a "shadow air force unit" within the Forces Bureau and the General Command of the Wehrmacht. The most important central body of this shadow air force is the Air Force Organization Office, also known as "TA-L" (L stands for German luft, aviation), which is subordinate to the Organization Department of the Forces Bureau. The director of the Air Force Organization Office was Helmut Wilberg, newly promoted major. On the face of it, Welberg was no more than a staff officer in the Organization Division; but he was in fact the chief officer in charge of the planning and training of the Air Force, directly accountable to the director of the Forces Bureau. The T-3 (Intelligence Service) of the Bureau of Forces also has another Air Force officer who is responsible for gathering intelligence on foreign air forces. The Department of Arms also serves several Air Force officers, where they created an Air Force Technical Office. This agency is responsible for the development, testing and procurement of fighter jets. In 1920, this office was headed by a technically savvy General Staff officer and experienced pilot, Captain Kurt Student.
Portrait of Hans von Seckert (above).
Throughout the 1920s, the Shadow Air Force was well-led at the General Command of the Wehrmacht. In 1927, Helmut Wilberg became assistant to the director of the Forces Bureau, while Fighter Officer Major (later promoted to Field Marshal) Speller and Captain Reinicke joined the Air Force Organization Office of the T-2 (Organization Service), where Colonel Vondem Hagen was an Air Force officer at the T-3 (Intelligence Service). The Shadow Air Force's most powerful delegation within the General Command of the Defence Forces is in the Weapons Agency, which has about 60 commissioned officers, six of whom are from the Air Force. Like the Weimar Wehrmacht itself, the Luftwaffe was small in size, but the members of its organization were fully qualified for the air force's planning, training, and research tasks. Through these Air Force personnel, von Seckert set aside a basic framework for the future reconstruction of the Air Force.
Von Seckert insisted that as a modern field force, the Weimar Wehrmacht should have an "air force awareness". As a result, air force groups, usually composed of three pilot officers, are sent to a total of seven military district headquarters. The role of these groups is to ensure that Air Force tactics and techniques are studied throughout the army and that the Air Force participates in all military training. Simulated Air Force offensive and aerial observations were developed by Air Force groups as part of standard command exercises and divisional exercises. Von Seckert also issued orders to disperse 180 pilot officers to the entire Weimar Wehrmacht. The 1927 officer duty list, for example, revealed that pilot officers with combat experience—those marked in officers' lists as having imperial pilot and air force observer badges—were distributed in almost every regiment of the army. Pilot officers are under command under a dual command system, performing day-to-day military missions in their respective units, but are also assigned to flight courses at Shadow Air Command.
Officers assigned to flights within Soviet Russia are formally discharged from the Wehrmacht during the mission and are re-approved to reinstate their original ranks and years of promotion only upon return from the mission. The 1927 officers' duty sheet shows that only 134 pilot officers with combat experience in the First World War officially served in the Weimar Wehrmacht that year. Even taking into account retirements and deaths, this figure is much less than the 180 pilot officers absorbed by the Wehrmacht in 1920.
Air force training in the 1920s on the territory of Soviet Russia provides an explanation for this figure. In the late same era, as many as 32 experienced pilots served in Soviet Russia every year. Officer duty tables of the 1920s also show that a disproportionate number of experienced pilots were assigned to the three cavalry divisions of the Wehrmacht, which accounted for only 15 per cent of the army's combat strength. 1927 was a typical year, with more than 20 percent of pilots assigned to serve in cavalry units. Since one of the main features of the Weimar Wehrmacht Cavalry Division compared to other branches of the armed forces was the "excessive proportion of officers", the cavalry was likely to be used (through this feature) to preserve the formation of pilot officers. This would make it easier for the Air Force Organization Office to draw them (Air Force officers) out on missions.
(Above) In 1924, a folk glider club held a flight event in the wilderness, which showed that the audience was in a state of flux. The boom of glider sports in Germany in the 1920s contributed to the development of aviation technology and played an important role in the Air Force's human resource reserves.
Although von Seckert cleverly formed and concealed a secret air force, he did not contribute much to the military doctrine of the Luftwaffe. He acknowledged the importance of large air forces as tactical weapons, which is an important prerequisite for coordinating with their own (ground) combat forces to support ground forces in victory. This view is the general opinion held by most officers of the General Staff in 1918. In his own writings, von Seckert stressed the importance of gaining air superiority by concentrating air forces on enemy airfields from the outset. After seizing air supremacy, the Air Force needs to disperse the main tactical tasks, the most urgent task being to disrupt the enemy's mobilization and attack supply centers. Long-range aerial reconnaissance in support of ground forces is also an important task for the Air Force. However, von Seckert never showed the slightest interest in strategic air warfare or in bombing enemy cities.
Von Seckert recognized that he was not an Air Force strategist or tactician, but he was able to listen carefully to his subordinate Air Force officers, give them full respect, and at the same time fight for their interests. Captain Wielberg, who served as von Seckert's Air Force Staff Officer in 1919, drew up plans to rebuild an Air Force with 1,800 aircraft. Von Seckert admired Welberg's ability to work and submitted the plan almost verbatim to the Allied negotiators in an effort to get them to accept it.
During his inspections of Weimar Wehrmacht units and field exercises, von Seckert often reminded senior officers of the army to have a clear understanding of the importance of the Air Force. In his annual "Commander-in-Chief's Message to the Whole Army," von Seckert devotes an entire chapter, usually 2 out of 20 pages, to Air Force defense and to sharp comments and recommendations on the progress made by the German army. In his 1923 report, he ordered that the Air Force must be given more opportunities for training in the army and recommended the adoption of a new tactical manual, Command and Operations, as a guide to simulating Air Force operations.
The most important achievement of von Seckert for the future reconstruction of the Air Force was the militarization of civilian aircraft in the 1920s, a cause that transformed almost all of the aviation industry and civil routes into military reserves. Since Germany was forbidden to possess an armed air force, von Seckert used his rather outstanding political prowess to ensure that civil aviation was under the control of former pilot officers, who were ardent collaborators of the Wehrmacht.
Founded in 1926, Lufthansa quickly became Europe's largest civil aviation company within a few years, nurturing the embryo of the future Luftwaffe under its civilian coat, showing passengers boarding Lufthansa's airliner at Berlin's Tambelhof Airport, newly opened in 1926.
All in all, former Luftwaffe pilots gained dominance in the field of civil aviation. All these developments stemmed from von Seckert's shrewd judgment: he recognized the importance of civil aviation for the development of the Weimar Wehrmacht Air Force.
This article is excerpted from "The German Army Between The Two World Wars"