"Shortly after the conclusion of WWI, German military leaders made a decision to base their military strategy on a brief, highly mobile, fast-paced, theater level offensive. The Luftwaffe was built around this concept of operations. We can measure its effectiveness in how well it performed its most important task: the gaining of air superiority.

The Luftwaffe was well organized, equipped, and successfully employed to gain air superiority in short-offensive campaigns against continental Europe. This impressive offensive air strategy featured all-out independent operations against opposing air forces as the means to achieve air superiority. Many air forces have since attempted to emulate the Luftwaffe's early victories: impressive successes include Israels defeat of the Egyptian air force in 1967 and the coalition's defeat of the Iraqi air force in 1991.

German success, however, was context dependent. The Luftwaffe was prepared towin air superiority within the framewok of a short offensive war. The air war over Europe became a protracted stuffle on all fronts, and the Luftwaffe was forced onto the strategic defensive. Despite dramatic German adjustments, the Luftwaffe ultimately failed in its quest for air superiority. This failure may serve as a distant warning; the Germans devised a brilliant strategy that was forced into a context in which it could not succeed.

Luftwaffe leaders sought victory within the short-war framework because German lessons of World War I included the understanding that Germany could not afford to wage a protracted war of attrition. Germany had been overwhelmed by the Allies materiel and economic superiority. Gen Hans von Seeckt, Army commander from 1920 to 1926, realized that fast mobile offensives would be necessary to avoid the kind of prolonged struggle Germany could not win. This philosophy had an impact on how the Luftwaffe approached air superiority...."

The Luftwaffe identified air superiority as its most important task. This belief was founded on German World War I experiences, embraced by senior German military leaders, and established in military regulations. In World War I, the Kaiser's aviators fought and lost a costly battle for air superiority over France and Belgium. Experience revealed that air superiority was desirable because it enable one's observation and ground attack to operate freely while denying the same to the enemy.

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In 1929 General von Seeckt wrote that future war would begin with a clash of air fleets and that the air objective must be the "enemy air force, andonly after its suppression can the offensive be directed against other targets."

The requirement for air superiority was reflected in interwar regulations. The 1934 army operational doctrine manual, Truppenfuhrung (Troop Leadership), stated that "in order to successfully carry out major ground operations, one should seek to establish air superiority over the enemy at the decisive point."

That Luftwaffe leaders embraced the need to gain air superiority is also evident in their prewar writings. The first Luftwaffe chief of the general staff, Gen Walther Wever, listed the need "to combat the enemy air force: among the Luftwaffe's priority tasks. Prior to the Polish campaign, Gen Hans Jeschonnek, a later chief of staff, wrote that:

"the most proper and essential task is the battle against the enemy air force, and it must be executed vigorously and at all costs. The second task, the support of the army, in the first days of the war cannot claim the same level of importance.... What may be achieved in the first two days by using one's own air force against an opposing army does not compare with the damage an enemy air force may inflict if it remains battleworthy."