Character-based study of why the German air force was defeatedRecounts the Luftwaffe in combat from the blitzkrieg of 1939-40 and the Battle of Britain to the Eastern Front and the Normandy campaignFrom its secret post—World War I beginnings to its virtual destruction by the Allied air forces, the story of the German air force is best told by examining its leaders—brilliant, ambitious, ruthless, and deceitful men like Hermann Goering, the drug-addicted Luftwaffe commander; Erhard Milch, the half-Jewish head of aircraft production; and Adolf Galland, the general of fighters who often clashed with Goering. Mitcham profiles them and others while describing the Luftwaffe's battles—both in the skies and behind the scenes—and explaining why it was so decisively defeated.