JAGDGESCHWADER 2 "RICHTHOFEN": A Photo Chronicle
By Holger Nauroth
Schiffer Publishing, 2004 | $59.95
Photo-chronicle aviation books live or die by their photographs, and on that criterion alone Jagdgeschwader 2 "Richthofen": A Photo Chronicle justifies its price of admission. Holger Nauroth has assembled a remarkable collection of images — many never previously published — that document the history of one of the Luftwaffe's most distinguished fighter wings from its origins in the prewar Aviation Sports Union through its World War II campaigns and into the postwar Bundeswehr era.
The Baron's Legacy in Images
The opening chapter, devoted to Baron Manfred von Richthofen himself, is alone worth extended attention. The photographs of Richthofen in his Roland D II and in a Pfalz triplane are the kind of primary source material that aviation historians have long sought and rarely found outside major institutional collections. Whether or not you have seen published photographs of the Red Baron before — and if you have any interest in WWI aviation history, you certainly have — there is a strong probability that you have not seen these particular images.
This sets the tone for the entire volume: Nauroth has done the archival work that most photo-chronicle authors do not do, going beyond the standard published collections to find material that is genuinely new. The effort is evident in the quality and rarity of what appears on virtually every page.
The Luftwaffe's "Cell Division"
One of the book's most historically valuable sections covers the reconstitution of the German fighter arm in the spring of 1936. The method used — what Nauroth accurately describes as "Cell Division" — involved taking cadres from existing units and using them as the nuclei around which new units were organized and trained. It was a rapid expansion technique that allowed the Luftwaffe to multiply its effective strength without starting entirely from scratch, and the photographs that document it show a professional military organization taking its identity and its history seriously from the moment of its reconstitution.
The image of Ernst Udet visiting the Geschwader in 1934, wearing his Aviation Sports Union uniform rather than Luftwaffe insignia, is a fascinating historical artifact — a reminder that the organization existed in a kind of semi-official limbo during the years when German rearmament was officially denied but operationally very real.
Rare Operational Images
Several photographs in this volume qualify as genuinely significant aviation history documents. The only known in-flight photograph of a Heinkel He 112 on operations — taken during the Sudeten crisis demonstration of 1938, when Germany was flexing its military muscles for international observers — has not appeared in any previously published account of which I am aware. For students of prewar Luftwaffe equipment, this photograph alone justifies the book's cost.
Equally notable: Charles Lindbergh admiring an He 51 lineup during his famous 1937 visit to Germany. This image exists in the context of the considerable historical debate about Lindbergh's assessments of German air power during this period — assessments that influenced American policy in ways that have been argued about ever since. Whatever one's conclusions about the wisdom of Lindbergh's judgments, the photograph places him in a specific context that contributes to the historical record.
Spanish Civil War and World War II
The Spanish Civil War coverage is necessarily brief — the Condor Legion operated under different unit designations, and the documentary record for that campaign is held in different collections — but Nauroth manages to extract what is available and place it in proper context. The majority of the volume, appropriately, covers the Richthofen Geschwader's WWII operations, providing what the author accurately describes as a "day-by-day account in good times and bad." The range is comprehensive: the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, the Eastern Front, the defensive campaigns over Germany as Allied strategic bombing intensified.
Contemporary coverage, extending through the Bundeswehr to the publication date, rounds out the chronicle and gives the volume a completeness that purely historical treatments lack. The Richthofen name did not die with the Third Reich; it carries into the modern German air force as a link between contemporary military professionalism and the historical tradition it honors.
Verdict
This is a specialized book for a specialized audience, and within that audience it is excellent. For uniform specialists — and the photographs provide extraordinary detail on Luftwaffe uniforms, insignia, and equipment across the entire period — it is essentially indispensable. For aviation historians working the 1930–1945 German air power period, the rare photographs alone make it a necessary acquisition. For the general aviation enthusiast who finds the German aviation story compelling, it is a handsome, well-organized volume that delivers more primary material per dollar than most books in this price category.
Recommended.