During the Second World War, the Luftwaffe counted history’s highest-scoring pilot aces, or Experten, among its ranks. Prior to the outbreak of the war, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forbidden from having an air force, which forced the Nazis to improvise by training their pilots abroad and concealing their build-up of military planes and personnel under a commercial guise. This pretence ceased in 1935 when the existence of the Luftwaffe was officially recognised – the secretive training programmes meant it began with many experienced aviators. This included veterans of the Condor Legion – Hitler’s expeditionary force sent to fight in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) – but soon many young pilots, brought up through the ranks of the Hitler Youth, were making their name in aerial combat.
Many pilots
