the Rise and Fall of German Air Force

The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force, also known as Air Ministry Pamphlet No 248 was written in the immediate aftermath of World War II as an "after action" or "lessons learned" report on the German Air Force in World War II. It was not a literary work, but an intelligence report on how the German Air force operated and what mistakes led to its defeat. The writing style of the book might not be of the best but the thinking behind it is clear and analytical. The writers observed that the central reason for the defeat of the German Air Force and German Armed Forces in the World War II was a failure of the Germans to distinguish between tactical success and strategic failure. The German Air Force was in many ways far ahead of its contemporaries. In 1939 it had the best aircraft, an air supply and transport organisation that was without equal and pilots and tactics that had been perfected in the Spanish Civil War . It had a tactical mobility that was breathtaking for the era and enabled it to concentrate forces over thousand mile distances in a few hours.