German military aviation in the First World War moved from improvised reconnaissance machines to a structured industry that produced some of the most effective fighters of the conflict. The story runs from the opening of Johannisthal airfield and the rise of Anthony Fokker, through the Fokker Eindecker and the Albatros biplane fighters, to the Fokker D.VII of 1918. This article traces that line of development and the men, machines and organisation behind it.
Early German Aviation and the Rise of Fokker
German aviation took its first organised steps at Johannisthal, the Berlin airfield that opened in 1909 and became the centre of early flying in Germany. It was here that the Dutch designer Anthony Fokker built his reputation, and it was here too that Fraulein Mellie Beese, the first German woman pilot, set up a training school. These origins matter: the technical and training infrastructure assembled before 1914 gave the German air service a foundation to build on once war began.
When war came in August 1914, aircraft were used chiefly for reconnaissance and artillery spotting. There was no separate fighter aircraft and no reliable way to fire forward through a spinning propeller. That problem, and its solution, defined the next phase of the air war.
The Fokker Eindecker and the "Fokker Scourge"
The decisive early German advantage came from a gun, not an airframe. In 1915 Fokker's team produced a synchronisation gear that timed a machine gun's fire to the rotation of the propeller, allowing bullets to pass between the blades. By July 1915 the gear had been fitted to Fokker's single-seat M.5K monoplane, which entered service as the Fokker E.I, the German air service's first true fighter (en.wikipedia.org, Fokker Eindecker fighters).
The result was a period of German air superiority from mid-1915 into early 1916 that Allied airmen came to call the "Fokker Scourge", with poorly armed reconnaissance crews regarding themselves as "Fokker Fodder" (en.wikipedia.org, Fokker Eindecker fighters). The Eindecker was not a fast or especially manoeuvrable machine, but armed with a synchronised gun it changed how aircraft fought. The monoplane had shown what a purpose-built, gun-armed fighter could do.
Organising the Fighter Force: Boelcke and the Jagdstaffeln
Technology alone did not sustain superiority. The Allies caught up with their own gun-armed fighters during 1916, and the German response was organisational as much as technical. From August 1916 the German air service formed dedicated single-seat fighter units, the Jagdstaffeln, with orders issued on 10 August 1916. Jagdstaffel 2, mobilised on 1 September 1916, was placed under Oswald Boelcke, who hand-picked his pilots, among them the young Manfred von Richthofen (en.wikipedia.org, Jagdstaffel 2).
Boelcke codified the principles of air fighting in his Dicta Boelcke, a set of combat rules emphasising positional advantage and coordinated attack that became core training doctrine for the new squadrons (en.wikipedia.org, Dicta Boelcke). Boelcke himself was killed in a mid-air collision with his friend Erwin Boehme on 28 October 1916 (en.wikipedia.org, Oswald Boelcke), but the unit he shaped, and the doctrine he left, outlived him. Charles E. MacKay's account gives Boelcke and Max Immelmann, the two great Eindecker-era aces, fresh treatment alongside Richthofen.
The Albatros Fighters: Reclaiming the Sky
The aircraft that turned the Jagdstaffeln into a war-winning force came from Fokker's great rival, Albatros. The Albatros D.I was ordered into production in June 1916 and reached the front only two months later. Its successor, the D.II, lowered the upper wing to improve the pilot's view, correcting the most obvious fault of the first design (en.wikipedia.org / historyofwar.org, Albatros D.I and D.II).
The definitive variant was the Albatros D.III, which entered squadron service in December 1916 and was immediately praised for its climb and manoeuvrability. Adopting a sesquiplane layout with a narrow lower wing, it gained agility but inherited a structural weakness: the lower wing could twist and fail in steep dives, and pilots were warned accordingly. Despite this, the D.III was the preeminent German fighter during the period of aerial dominance known as "Bloody April" 1917 (en.wikipedia.org, Albatros D.III). The sleek Albatros biplanes, with their semi-monocoque plywood fuselages, defined the look of the German fighter arm through the middle of the war.
The Naval Air Arm and the Giants
German aviation in the Great War was not only the fighter squadrons of the Western Front. The German Naval Air Arm, the Marine-Fliegerabteilung, fought its own campaign, and the Flanders Flight gained air superiority over the English Channel. MacKay's work sets out, for the first time in print, a complete description of the Naval Air Arm with orders of battle including Armistice Day 1918.
Alongside the fighters came the giant multi-engine bombers, the Riesenflugzeuge, including the Linke-Hofmann, Staaken, D.F.W. and Zeppelin types, which carried out raids on London. The book details the deployment of this bomber force and draws on the inspection reports of the League of Nations Inter-Allied Control Commissions on aviation, 1919 to 1926, including fresh information on the all-metal Zeppelin Staaken, where inspectors found a second Staaken air liner in production.
The Fokker D.VII and the End of the War
The last and most respected German fighter of the war returned the name Fokker to prominence. The Fokker D.VII of 1918 was so feared that it became the only aircraft type specifically named in the Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles, which required Germany to surrender all examples to the Allies (en.wikipedia.org, Fokker D.VII). Such was demand that the type was mass-produced under licence at Fokker's rival Albatros, at its Johannisthal works and at the Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke (en.wikipedia.org, Fokker D.VII) - a striking close to the Fokker-Albatros rivalry that had run through the whole war.
The aftermath was as deliberate as the build-up. MacKay describes the German aircraft industry, spares supply and the post-Armistice plans, including the Amerika Programme and the Hindenburg plan, drawing on Allied intelligence and newly translated archive documents.
The Richthofen Question
No account of German aviation in the Great War avoids Manfred von Richthofen, and MacKay's book addresses the most argued question of all: how the Red Baron died. Using the autopsy report, the book presents an account of Richthofen's loss that concludes the Canadian pilot Roy Brown did not shoot him down, a question long disputed by historians and one the surviving medical evidence speaks to directly.
Read the Full Story
German Aircraft in the Great War 1914-1918 (ISBN 9781838056742) is a 256-page A5 reference work with over 200 original black-and-white pictures and drawings, built on Allied intelligence, newly translated archive documents and the League of Nations Inter-Allied Control Commission inspection reports. It offers, for the first time in print, a complete breakdown of the organisation and supply of the German Air Force and Naval Air Arm.
Read the full story in German Aircraft in the Great War 1914-1918 by Charles E. MacKay.