Adolf Galland

1. Lead

Adolf Galland (19 March 1912 – 9 February 1996) was the most successful German fighter pilot of the Western Front in the Second World War, credited with 104 aerial victories, and the youngest general in the Luftwaffe when he became General of the Fighter Arm (General der Jagdflieger) in November 1941 at the age of 29.

Unlike the great majority of German aces, who scored their victories against the Soviet Air Force in the East, Galland won all of his victories in the West, against the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces, in campaigns that included the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain and the defence of Germany against the Allied bomber offensive.

He was one of only a handful of men to receive the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, Germany’s highest decoration for battlefield leadership.

Galland’s career is remembered as much for his quarrels with his superiors as for his victories. As General of the Fighter Arm he repeatedly warned Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler that the Luftwaffe was losing the air war over Germany, that the Me 262 jet should be used as a fighter rather than as a bomber, and that the fighter force needed fuel, pilots and time to recover — advice that was ignored, and that eventually cost him his post in January 1945.

In the last weeks of the war he returned to combat as commander of Jagdverband 44, a small unit of Me 262 jets, and was wounded in action in April 1945. After the war he wrote The First and the Last (1954), one of the most widely read German memoirs of the air war, and he remained a controversial figure: admired as a pilot and a commander, and criticised for the years he spent at the head of a fighter force that served the Nazi regime.

2. Key Facts

Born	19 March 1912, Westerholt, Westphalia, German Empire
Died	9 February 1996 (aged 83), Remscheid, Germany
Nationality	German
Role / Office	Fighter ace; General der Jagdflieger (General of the Fighter Arm), 1941–1945; commander of Jagdverband 44, 1945
Known for	104 aerial victories, all on the Western Front; the youngest Luftwaffe general; the dispute with Göring over the Me 262; The First and the Last (1954)
Spouse / Family	Married Sylvinia von Dönhoff in 1954 (died 1963); later married Heidi Horn; two children
Military rank	Generalleutnant (Lieutenant-General)

3. Early Life and Education

A flying family in Westphalia

Adolf Galland was born on 19 March 1912 in Westerholt, a village in Westphalia in western Germany, the second of four sons of Adolf Galland senior, an estate manager, and his wife Anna. The family was of French Huguenot descent, and the boys grew up in a household where flying was a passion: his father had been a keen glider pilot, and Adolf learned to fly gliders as a teenager, taking his first solo glider flight at the age of 17.

He left school in 1932 and worked briefly for a civil aviation company before joining the German airline Lufthansa as a trainee pilot. In 1933 he applied to join the new Luftwaffe, which was being built in secret in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, and he was accepted for fighter training.

He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1934 and served in the first fighter squadrons of the new air force, flying the early biplane fighters of the period and then the first monoplane fighters as they entered service.

Spain and the Legion Condor

In 1937 Galland volunteered for service in the Spanish Civil War with the Legion Condor, the German expeditionary force that supported General Franco’s Nationalists. He flew about 280 combat missions in Spain, mostly in ground-attack roles in the Heinkel He 51 biplane, and he developed the tactics of close air support that he later used in Poland and France.

He scored no aerial victories in Spain — his missions were against ground targets — but he learned the practical business of war: how to keep aircraft flying from rough forward airfields, how to coordinate with ground troops, and how aircraft performed under fire.

He returned to Germany in 1938 as a captain, decorated with the Spanish Cross in Gold, and he was assigned to a staff post in the Air Ministry in Berlin. The posting frustrated him, because he wanted to fly, and when the Second World War broke out in September 1939 he asked repeatedly to be returned to a combat unit.

4. Rise to Prominence

Poland, France and the first victories

Galland’s return to combat came in the invasion of Poland in September 1939, where he flew ground-attack missions in the Henschel Hs 123 biplane. In the campaign in France in May–June 1940 he transferred to fighters, flying the Messerschmitt Bf 109 with Jagdgeschwader 27 and then Jagdgeschwader 26, and he scored his first aerial victories — 14 by the end of the French campaign, according to Luftwaffe records.

His rise was rapid: in August 1940 he became commander of the III. Gruppe of JG 26, and in the Battle of Britain he emerged as one of the Luftwaffe’s leading aces, shooting down British fighters over the Channel and southern England. By the end of 1940 he had 58 victories and had been awarded the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves.

His reputation was built not only on his score but on his leadership: he was a demanding commander who flew with his men, who insisted on the best equipment for his wing, and who was not afraid to tell his superiors what he thought.

The Battle of Britain and the clash with Göring

The Battle of Britain, fought from July to October 1940, was the making of Galland’s reputation and the beginning of his conflict with Hermann Göring. Galland and his fellow wing commander Werner Mölders repeatedly told Göring that the Bf 109’s short range over England, the lack of a long-range escort fighter, and the decision to switch the bombing from RAF airfields to London were undermining the Luftwaffe’s campaign.

At a famous meeting in August 1940, Göring asked the assembled fighter leaders what they needed to win the battle, and Galland is reported to have replied, “I should like an outfit of Spitfires for my squadron.” The remark, whether exactly as reported or not, captured his frustration: the British Spitfire was, in his judgement, a better dogfighter than the Bf 109 at the altitudes where the battle was fought.

Göring did not forget the remark, and the relationship between the two men never recovered.

5. Adolf Galland’s Role in World War II

General of the Fighter Arm

Galland’s appointment as General of the Fighter Arm in November 1941, at the age of 29, made him the youngest general in the Luftwaffe and the man responsible for the whole of Germany’s day-fighter force. The appointment was a recognition of his record as a fighter pilot, and it was also a trap: it took him out of the cockpit, where he was brilliant, and put him behind a desk in Berlin, where he had to fight for aircraft, for fuel, for pilots and for time, against a high command that understood less about air warfare than he did.

The years that followed, from 1941 to 1945, were the years in which the Luftwaffe lost the air war over Germany, and Galland’s career as a general is the story of a man who saw the defeat coming, who warned his superiors about it, and who was unable to prevent it.

His record as a general must be judged in that light, and not only by his score as a pilot.

Galland’s appointment changed the nature of his war. He was no longer a wing commander who could win a battle by flying better than his opponents; he was an administrator who had to win arguments in Berlin about production, fuel and training, and who had to accept that the decisions that mattered most were made by men who understood less about air warfare than he did. The frustration of that position runs through everything he wrote after the war.

In November 1941, after Werner Mölders was killed in a flying accident, Galland was appointed General der Jagdflieger — General of the Fighter Arm — at the age of 29, the youngest general in the Luftwaffe. The appointment took him out of the cockpit and into a desk in Berlin, responsible for the organisation, training and equipment of the entire German day-fighter force.

He continued to fly combat missions when he could, and he added to his score, reaching 94 victories by the end of 1941 and 104 by April 1942, when he was forbidden to fly operationally. In January 1942 he received the Diamonds to the Knight’s Cross, the second man after Mölders to receive the award.

His task as General of the Fighter Arm was formidable: the fighter force had to defend Germany against the growing Allied bomber offensive, to support the armies in Russia and the Mediterranean, and to do so with aircraft that were becoming outdated and with pilots who were being trained ever more briefly.

The defence of the Reich

From 1942 onwards Galland’s war was the defence of Germany against the Allied strategic bombing campaign. The American Eighth Air Force began daylight bombing in 1942, and from 1943 the combined British night offensive and American day offensive put the Luftwaffe under strain it had never faced.

Galland built up the fighter defences, introduced new tactics — including the massed “Gefechtsverband” formations and the use of heavily armed fighters against bombers — and argued for the concentration of all available fighters in Germany. He was right about the scale of the threat, but the resources he needed did not exist: fuel was short, experienced pilots were being killed faster than they could be replaced, and the factories that built fighters were themselves being bombed.

By 1944 the Allied fighter escorts, above all the long-range P-51 Mustang, could accompany the bombers all the way to Berlin, and the German fighter force, in Galland’s own phrase, was being “bled white”.

The Me 262 dispute and dismissal

Galland’s most famous dispute with his superiors concerned the Messerschmitt Me 262, the world’s first operational jet fighter. Galland, who flew the aircraft in 1943, was convinced that it was the weapon that could restore German air superiority: it was some 150 km/h faster than any Allied fighter, and in his judgement it should be built in large numbers as a fighter and used against the bomber streams.

Hitler, however, ordered that the Me 262 be developed as a bomber — the “Blitzbomber” — for attacks on the invasion forces, and Göring supported him. The decision delayed the Me 262’s entry into service as a fighter by many months, and by the time jet fighter units were formed in 1944–1945, it was too late: fuel was almost gone, airfields were under constant attack, and there were too few trained pilots.

Galland’s insistence on the fighter version brought him into open conflict with Göring, and in January 1945 he was dismissed as General of the Fighter Arm after a group of senior fighter commanders — the “fighter pilots’ revolt” — presented their complaints to Göring.

6. Key Decisions

Speaking truth to Göring

Telling Göring the fighter force needed Spitfires (August 1940). Galland’s reported request for an outfit of Spitfires was more than a joke: it was a public statement that German equipment was inferior in the battle being fought. The remark damaged his relationship with Göring permanently, but it established his reputation as a commander who would tell his superiors unwelcome truths.

Insisting the Me 262 be built as a fighter (1943–1944). Galland argued, in writing and in person, that the jet should be used against the Allied bomber streams, where its speed gave it an overwhelming advantage. Hitler’s order to build it as a bomber delayed the fighter version and wasted the aircraft’s greatest strength. Historians still debate how much difference an earlier jet fighter would have made, given the shortages of fuel and pilots, but few dispute that Galland was right about the aircraft itself.

The cost of Galland’s honesty was real. Göring never forgave the Spitfire remark, and in the years that followed he treated Galland with suspicion, overruled his recommendations, and blamed the fighter force for failures that were caused by shortages of fuel and pilots rather than by any failure of leadership. Galland’s willingness to speak plainly was admired by his fellow pilots, but it did not protect him.

Supporting the revolt of January 1945. In January 1945 a group of senior fighter commanders, led by Günther Lützow, presented a list of complaints to Göring about the conduct of the air war and the dismissal of Galland’s supporters. Galland did not lead the revolt, but he was its cause: the commanders were protesting his treatment and the policies he had opposed. Göring dismissed Galland and several of the protesters. The episode showed that, by 1945, the Luftwaffe’s senior fighter pilots had lost confidence in their own high command.

Returning to combat with Jagdverband 44 (1945). After his dismissal Galland was given command of Jagdverband 44, a small unit of Me 262 jets manned by experienced aces, and returned to combat in the last weeks of the war. The decision was characteristic: rather than accept a staff post, he chose to fly. He was wounded on 26 April 1945, when his Me 262 was hit by American fighters, and he was in hospital when the war ended.

7. Controversies

The score and the system

Galland’s score of 104 victories is documented in Luftwaffe records, and unlike the scores of some Eastern Front aces, it was achieved against opponents who kept their own records, so it can be checked against British and American loss reports. Historians who have made the comparison find that his claims were broadly accurate, though, like all fighter claims, they contain a margin of over-claiming that is normal for air combat.

The more serious question about Galland is not his score but the system he served: as General of the Fighter Arm he was a senior officer of a regime that used slave labour to build its aircraft and that murdered millions of people. Galland never joined the Nazi Party, and after the war he said that he had been a soldier, not a politician.

Critics reply that a general who directed the fighter defences of the Reich for three years cannot separate his military record from the regime it defended.

The Me 262: what if?

The Me 262 dispute has generated a large “what if” literature, much of it uncritical. Some popular histories claim that, if Galland had been allowed to build the Me 262 as a fighter in 1943, Germany could have stopped the Allied bombing campaign.

Serious historians are more cautious: by 1944 Germany was short of fuel, of pilots and of the alloys needed for jet engines, and the Me 262 itself was difficult to fly, unreliable, and vulnerable on take-off and landing. An earlier jet fighter would have inflicted heavier losses on the bombers, but it is unlikely to have changed the outcome of the war.

Galland himself, in his memoirs, was careful not to claim that the Me 262 could have won the war; he claimed only that it was misused, and on that point most historians agree with him.

The debate is also a reminder that technology alone rarely decides a war. The Me 262 was faster than anything the Allies flew, but it needed fuel that Germany no longer had, pilots trained to fly it, and airfields that were not under attack — and by 1944 Germany had none of these in sufficient quantity. Galland understood the aircraft; what he could not change was the strategic situation in which it had to fight.

8. Later Life and Death

Prisoner and author

Galland was taken prisoner by American forces in May 1945 and held until 1947. He was not charged with war crimes, and he was released without trial. In the years that followed he worked as a consultant to the Argentine Air Force under President Juan Perón, helping to build Argentina’s post-war air force, and he later worked in the German aviation industry.

In 1954 he published his memoirs, The First and the Last, which became an international bestseller and established his reputation in the English-speaking world. The book is a vivid account of the air war from the German side, and it is also, as historians have noted, a work of self-justification: Galland presents himself as a professional soldier who served his country, and he says little about the regime he served or about the slave labour that built the aircraft he flew.

His years as a prisoner were short, but they marked a turning point. In captivity Galland met the British and American officers who had fought against him, and he began the friendships with former enemies that would continue for the rest of his life. The experience also gave him the distance to write about the war, and The First and the Last was written, in part, as an explanation to his former enemies of what the Luftwaffe had tried to do.

Galland spent his later years in Remscheid, in western Germany, where he was a well-known figure in aviation circles and a frequent guest at reunions of wartime pilots, British as well as German. He married Sylvinia von Dönhoff in 1954; she died in 1963, and he later married Heidi Horn, with whom he had two children. He remained in good health into old age and continued to fly light aircraft.

He died on 9 February 1996, at the age of 83, and was buried in Remscheid. His death was reported in newspapers around the world, and the obituaries reflected the divided judgement of his career: a brilliant fighter pilot and a brave commander, and a general who served a criminal regime without ever publicly breaking with it.

In his final years Galland was a familiar figure at aviation reunions, where he was respected by British and American veterans as well as by Germans. He rarely spoke about politics, and when he did he presented himself as a soldier who had done his duty. He continued to fly light aircraft well into old age, and he followed the development of post-war aviation with the interest of a man who had spent his life in the air.

9. Legacy

The pilot’s legacy

Galland’s legacy as a pilot is secure: 104 victories, all in the West, against the best fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces, make him one of the great fighter aces of the war, and his leadership of JG 26 in the Battle of Britain is studied as a model of fighter-wing command.

His book The First and the Last shaped the English-speaking world’s understanding of the Luftwaffe for a generation, and his post-war friendships with British aces — including Douglas Bader and Robert Stanford Tuck — became a symbol of reconciliation between former enemies. The Me 262, the aircraft he championed, is preserved in museums around the world as the first operational jet fighter, and Galland’s name is inseparably linked to it.

His reputation among fighter pilots has endured because it was earned in the air, against opponents who were themselves among the best in the world. The Battle of Britain, the Channel Front and the defence of the Reich were fought against pilots who kept their own records, and Galland’s victories can be checked against those records in a way that the victories of the Eastern Front aces cannot. That verifiability is part of his standing.

As a general, Galland’s legacy is more mixed. He was right about the Me 262, right about the need to concentrate the fighter force in Germany, and right that the Luftwaffe was losing the war of attrition — and he was unable to change any of it. His career illustrates the limits of professional expertise in a dictatorship: a general could be right, could argue his case to the highest level, and could still be overruled by a leader who understood less about air warfare than he did. That, rather than his score, is the lasting lesson of Galland’s career, and it is the reason his memoirs are still read by students of military leadership.

The lesson of his generalship is a sombre one. Galland was right about the aircraft, right about the tactics, and right about the strategy, and none of it mattered, because the decisions were made by men who would not listen. His career is therefore studied not only as an example of fighter leadership but as a warning about what happens when professional military advice is ignored by a dictatorship.

10. Assessment by Historians

The military judgement

Historians rate Galland as one of the ablest fighter leaders of the war. His tactical sense, his leadership of JG 26, and his understanding of the air war as a whole — including the importance of training, of fuel, and of the industrial base — put him ahead of most of his contemporaries.

The American historian Richard Overy, in his history of the air war, describes Galland as the Luftwaffe’s most perceptive fighter commander, and British historians have noted that his warnings about the bomber offensive were accurate and were ignored at Germany’s cost.

His score of 104 victories, achieved entirely in the West, is regarded as more impressive than the much higher scores of Eastern Front aces, because it was won against opponents who were better trained, better equipped and, from 1943 onwards, present in overwhelming numbers.

His understanding of the air war was unusually complete for a fighter pilot. He grasped that the battle was not only about aircraft performance but about training, fuel, production and the morale of the pilots, and he wrote about all of these in his memoirs. That breadth of understanding is the reason his book is still read by airmen and historians, long after the details of his victories have been forgotten by the general public.

The moral judgement is less favourable, and Galland himself seems to have understood why. He never joined the Nazi Party, and he was not implicated in war crimes, but he served for three years as the general responsible for the fighter defences of a regime that was murdering millions of people, and the aircraft he commanded were built in part by slave labour.

His memoirs say little about this, and his post-war career as a consultant and author allowed him to present himself as a soldier rather than as a servant of the regime. Modern historians accept the distinction in part — Galland was not a Nazi ideologue — but they do not accept it in full: a general of his seniority, they argue, cannot claim to have been merely a technician of air warfare.

His career remains, for that reason, a case study in the moral ambiguity of professional military service under a dictatorship.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Adolf Galland?
Adolf Galland (1912–1996) was a German fighter ace with 104 aerial victories, all on the Western Front, and General of the Fighter Arm from 1941 to 1945. He was the youngest general in the Luftwaffe and the commander of Jagdverband 44 in the last weeks of the war.

How many aircraft did Galland shoot down?
He was credited with 104 aerial victories, all against the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces in the West. He scored no aerial victories in Spain, where he flew ground-attack missions.

What was Galland’s dispute with Göring about?
Galland argued that the Me 262 jet should be built as a fighter to attack Allied bombers, while Hitler and Göring ordered it to be built as a bomber. The dispute, and the “fighter pilots’ revolt” of January 1945, led to his dismissal as General of the Fighter Arm.

Did Galland fly the Me 262 in combat?
Yes. He flew the Me 262 in 1943 as a test pilot and again in 1945 as commander of Jagdverband 44, a small unit of jets flown by experienced aces. He was wounded on 26 April 1945 when his Me 262 was hit by American fighters.

Was Galland a member of the Nazi Party?
No. Galland never joined the Nazi Party. He was not charged with war crimes after the war, but historians note that he served as a senior general of the regime for three years.

What is The First and the Last?
It is Galland’s memoir, published in 1954, and one of the most widely read German accounts of the air war. It is a vivid narrative of fighter combat, but historians note that it says little about the regime Galland served.

Related articles

• Douglas Bader
• Erich Raeder
• Ernest King

Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Adolf Galland” — birth 19 March 1912, death 9 February 1996, 104 victories, General der Jagdflieger 1941–1945, Me 262 dispute, Jagdverband 44.
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Adolf Galland” (britannica.com) — biography, fighter ace, General of the Fighter Arm.
3. Adolf Galland, The First and the Last (Methuen, 1955; German edition 1954) — memoir; Battle of Britain, the Me 262 dispute, Jagdverband 44.
4. Donald L. Caldwell, JG 26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe (Ivy Books, 1991) — Galland’s command of JG 26, the Battle of Britain, the Channel Front.
5. Richard Overy, The Air War, 1939–1945 (Potomac Books, 2005) — the bomber offensive, the defence of the Reich, the Me 262.
6. David Baker, Adolf Galland: The Authorised Biography (Windrow & Greene, 1996) — biography based on Galland’s papers and interviews.