Schuh, Horst Luftkrieg über Front und Heimat 1914/18

Flieger und Luftschiffer zwischen Westfront und Rhein

In 1914, a conflict of global proportions began, resulting in the deaths of millions. The modern ?weapons of mass destruction? were, in particular, machine guns and artillery, along with poison gas as a chemical weapon that kills silently. Alongside this new weapons technology, tanks and aeroplanes also made their appearance. To escape the anonymous mass deaths amidst the barrage of fire, the clouds of poison gas and the mud of the trenches, thousands volunteered for the air force. They are encouraged in this decision not only by a generally fostered enthusiasm for technology and flying, but above all by the image of the combative and death-defying flying hero propagated by the media. Thus, for example, Peter Falkenstein, a farmer?s son from the Eifel region of the Rhineland, emerges from the nameless ranks of frontline soldiers to attack cities and armaments sites in the enemy?s rear as the pilot of a heavy fighter aircraft. Beyond the physical destruction it causes, strategic aerial warfare aims to weaken the morale and willingness to defend themselves among the civilian population. The French and British air forces respond to the attacks by German airships and aircraft on London and Paris with bombardments of Rhineland cities such as Düsseldorf, Cologne, Koblenz and Trier. The German civil air defence countered these attacks with anti-aircraft guns and fighter squadrons. Thus, the Rhineland becomes the scene of an air war which, for its inhabitants, already foreshadows the horrors of the bombing terror of the Second World War. The end of the war in 1918 also marks the demise of the German air forces.