German Air Force

In the footsteps of the Red Baron ...

Bundesarchiv.

Hitler Youth boy receives flying instruction in a glider. In 1933, the NSDAP established the German Air Sports Association (Deutscher Luftsportverband - DLV) to promote training for potential military pilots on gliders at a time when Treaty restrictions still prevented Germany from operating military aircraft. This organisation was succeeded, in 1937, by the National Socialist Flyers' Corps (Nationsozialistisches Fliegerkorps - NSFK), a body directly responsible to Goering as Reich Minister for Aviation, and organised on paramilitary lines similar to the SA. The new organisation continued to provide basic flight training to "civilian" men and boys in gliders and, increasingly, in aeroplanes. These functions were effectively taken over by the Luftwaffe in the early part of the war. While this 'photo is undated, it seems to be from the "NSFK period", about 1938. The boy/student is wearing an early-type NSFK metal protective helmet. The instructor is in NSFK uniform. On the right breast of this jacket is a blurred image of what is probably an NSFK badge. The "Three Gulls" badge clearly visible on his left breast is the NSFK/Civil Gliding Proficiency Badge Class "C" (sometimes referred to as "First Class"). This was awarded to NSFK glider pilots who had achieved the International Aeronautical Federation's "C" Certificate of Proficiency, which required the pilot to have completed a five-minute solo flight without loss of altitude. Lower levels of Proficiency Badge were awarded in respect of the IAF's "A" and "B" Certificates of Proficiency (showing "One Gull" and "Two Gulls", respectively). The DLV and the NSFK played a major role in ensuring that, at least for the early part of the war, the Luftwaffe was amply supplied with trained and "semi-finished" pilots. Also, as the NSFK was an organisation of the NSDAP, it contributed a distinctly Nazi flavour to the membership of the Luftwaffe that mixed somewhat oddly with its strong "Imperial Cavalry" ethos, carried forward from WW1. Best regards, JR.