Jagdwaffe: Birth of the Luftwaffe Fighter Force

Luftwaffe Colours
Volume 1 Section 1
By Eric Mombeek
With J.Richard Smith & Eddie J. Creek
Classic Publications, 1999
ISBN 0-9526867-5-9
96 pages
MSRP £12.50

Aviation Usk Price: $16.95

Reviewed by Chris Banyai-Riepl

While there are plenty of books out there on the Luftwaffe, some of the best I've ever seen were the old Luftwaffe Colors books published by Kookaburra back in the 1970s. Unfortunately those have been long out of print and are hard to find. Since then, few books have captured that "one stop shop" style of covering all of the Luftwaffe coloring schemes. Until now, that is. This new series by Classic Publications is aiming at becoming a single point of reference for World War Two Luftwaffe colors and markings. The only downside to the whole series is that it focuses only on the fighter end of things, but maybe they will do a bomber/transport series in the future.

The series is broken up into six volumes, with each volume having four sections. The first volume covers the Luftwaffe from birth through the invasion of France in 1940. Section 1 is the first book out, and this title covers the birth of the Luftwaffe, with the history starting back in 1919 and continuing on up to 1938. After the First World War, Germany was severely restricted in its ability to have an air force, but somehow they always managed to find a way. This is illustrated lavishly in both photos and color profiles, as well as detailed in a wonderfully written text. The early formative years of the Luftwaffe aren't as popular as the later, wartime years, but by reading about what was going on during those early years one can start to build a picture of why things happened the way they did later on.

Once Germany formally announced the presence of an Air Force in the early 1930s, the expansion of the air arm exploded, with the Luftwaffe growing from a small collection of planes to one of the largest air forces in the world. With this sudden growth of military aviation, some method of marking the planes needed to be devised, and as a result several things happened. Squadrons adopted colors to paint on the noses and spines of their planes, and individual plane numbers were assigned. All of this is shown in full color profiles as well as in photographs. At the very end of the book, around 1938, the colors changed to the more familiar dark greens over blue gray, and the Bf109 starts to make its appearance.

The photos included in this title are incredible, from the early years on up through to 1938. Heinkel He51s and Arado Ar68s make up the majority of this book, as those were the mainstays of the Luftwaffe throughout these early years. The profiles are done by Tom Tullis and are very well drawn, but like any artwork they need to be taken with a grain of salt. There are quite a few glaring errors in many of them, made all the more obvious by the fact that in most cases the photo of the plane depicted is on the same page. Another issue with the profiles is their color. They are depicted as being a greenish gray, very similar to RLM02. Every other publication concerning the colors of early Luftwaffe aviation has these planes colored a pale gray that's very evenly toned. When I first saw these profiles, I had thought that maybe the authors discovered something that others hadn't, but included in this title is a period color photo that shows the pale gray color rather than the one depicted in the profiles. This is the only downside to an otherwise excellent book.

While the profiles may not be the best in this title, the overall book is excellent and the price can't be beat. With the lack of references on the early Luftwaffe years, this book is very welcome and the Luftwaffe Colours Series promises to be quite useful. When the entire series is done, it will be the most thorough and complete reference on the Luftwaffe Fighter Arm ever printed, and it will be done in an easily read and lavishly photographed way. Who could ask for anything more?