Creation of the German air force

The British chronology of the war records under 25 November 1916 that the German air force became a separate branch of the army. The change was spread over several weeks. Its basis was an order of Emperor Wilhelm II of 8 October 1916 creating a new post: Commanding General of the Air Forces (Kommandierender General der Luftstreitkräfte, Kogenluft for short). It went to Lieutenant-General Ernst von Hoeppner. According to the German Wikipedia, the Emperor appointed him to the post on 12 November, and on 20 November the name Luftstreitkräfte (“air forces”) was officially introduced as the designation of an independent branch of the field army. Some accounts, however, date Hoeppner’s tenure from as early as 8 October. We have not found 25 November itself in the available sources as the date of a specific order, but it fits within this sequence of changes. Until then German military aviation had been called the flying troops (Fliegertruppe).

The lesson of the Somme

The reform was forced by the summer of 1916. Over the Somme the Allied air services had an enormous numerical superiority. British and French aircraft directed artillery fire, photographed the German positions and attacked them from low altitude, and the German airmen were rarely able to interfere. Hoeppner wrote after the war that all the reports from the troops pointed to the “disastrous effects” of the enemy’s superiority in the air. The German anti-aircraft artillery (PL) also suffered heavy losses, its horse-drawn batteries standing exposed a few kilometres behind the infantry line.

The idea of combining all means of air warfare was older. In the spring of 1916, impressed by the air fighting over Verdun, the Chief of Field Aviation (Feldflugchef), Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen, wrote a memorandum demanding unified direction of all aviation and anti-aircraft defence of the army and navy. In his view the best solution would be a separate Reich aviation office, equal in rank to the War Ministry and the Navy Office, as in Britain, where the creation of an air ministry was already being considered. The War Ministry, however, did nothing about it, and the Navy Office rejected the idea. Only the new Supreme Army Command, taken over at the end of August by Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, carried out at least part of these plans.

A general for aviation

The order of 8 October directed that, “in accordance with the growing importance of the air war”, all the army’s means of air warfare and anti-aircraft defence, at the front and at home, be combined in a single office. Kogenluft now commanded the airmen, the observation balloon units, the army airships, the military meteorological service, the anti-aircraft artillery and the home air defence. He was to be responsible for their uniform expansion, equipment and employment.

Ernst von Hoeppner was born in 1860 at Tonnin (now Unin) on the island of Wollin. He was a cavalryman and had no experience of aviation whatsoever. In 1914 he was chief of staff of the 3rd Army, in 1915 of the 2nd Army, and from April 1916 he commanded the 75th Reserve Division. He was, however, regarded as an outstanding commander, energetic and able to impose his will. Thomsen became his chief of staff, and the post of Chief of Field Aviation was abolished. Major Wilhelm Siegert was responsible for the organisation of aviation at home.

The unification was not complete, as Hoeppner admitted in his memoirs. Naval aviation and the navy’s airships, flown over England by Peter Strasser’s men, remained outside his authority. Hoeppner stressed, however, that the concept of “the German air forces” had come into being, and that airmen hitherto scattered in small units attached to armies and corps felt that they belonged to a single, important arm.

Fighters and the winter programme

The new command’s most important task was to take air superiority away from the Allies. The first step was taken even before the reform. From August 1916, on the proposal of the fighter ace Oswald Boelcke, fighter aircraft, until then allotted a few at a time to flying units, were gathered into separate fighter squadrons (Jagdstaffeln). They received the new Albatros D.I and D.II biplanes and Halberstadts, armed with two machine guns firing through the propeller. In the autumn the balance in the air over the Somme began to tip in Germany’s favour. Boelcke himself was killed on 28 October, when in combat he collided with the aircraft of his squadron comrade Erwin Böhme. His pupil from Jagdstaffel 2, Manfred von Richthofen, shot down Major Lanoe Hawker, one of the most famous British airmen, on 23 November.

The programme Kogenluft prepared for the winter provided for increasing the number of fighter squadrons to 36 by the spring of 1917 and for special training of their pilots, including at a fighter school near Valenciennes. Most of the other flying units were to concentrate above all on reconnaissance and artillery observation, and some of the bomber squadrons were split into smaller units that escorted the observation aircraft. At army headquarters the staff officers for aviation became army aviation commanders, with authority over all the army’s flying units.

Britain, which in May had set up an Air Board without executive powers, still had two rival air services, the army’s and the navy’s. It merged them into an independent Royal Air Force only in April 1918. The German reform soon bore fruit: in the spring of 1917 the fighter squadrons inflicted such heavy losses on the British air service over Arras that April of that year became known as “Bloody April”.