Defenders of the Reich

The story of the Luftwaffe fighter arm’s desperate defence of the Third Reich from the growing Allied bomber offensive in World War II.

The Reichsverteidigung (Defence of the Reich) was a do-or-die campaign that saw the very best fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe attempt to defend German skies from increasingly large formations of RAF and USAAF medium and heavy bombers. Flying both piston-engined and, eventually, the first jet-engined fighters to see operational service, the Jagdflieger employed a wide range of weapons and tactics in an effort to blunt the Allied air offensive across Nazi Germany and Occupied Europe.

Defenders of the Reich focuses on the story of the pilot, his aircraft, his weaponry, and his draining, dangerous missions. It also explores Luftwaffe tactics against the USAAF and the RAF bombers from the summer of 1942 through to VE Day. The Luftwaffe pilots fought until they were all but obliterated as USAAF and RAF fighters decimated their ranks in the air and targeted their airfields in devastating strafing attacks.

Leading Luftwaffe historian Robert Forsyth uses German and Allied archival documents, coupled with interviews with former Jagdwaffe pilots, to tell the history of this last-ditch aerial campaign from the perspective of the Luftwaffe.