The general staff put Richthofen’s talents to use. He served as a liaison between the shadow air staff and German aviation firms, and studied how the German aircraft industry could be best employed for rapid mobilization. He also deepened his expertise. In 1929 he was awarded a doctorate in engineering from the University of Berlin; his doctoral thesis was a top-secret study on production techniques for building all-metal aircraft. It would become the foundation for the first expansion plans of the shadow Luftwaffe in 1932–1934.

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Like most of the officer corps, Richthofen believed that Germany needed strong, authoritarian leadership and welcomed Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933. He was never a member of the Nazi Party because German military regulations barred officers from any political party membership or activity. Nonetheless, Richthofen was soon known as one of the more enthusiastic admirers of Hitler within the officer corps.

With the start of rearmament in 1933 Richthofen was appointed chief of aircraft development at the Luftwaffe’s Technical Office. Working with the head of that office, Col. Wilhelm Wimmer, whom Richthofen called “the best technical mind in the Luftwaffe,” he spent three happy years supervising aircraft testing and development. With ample funding from a Nazi government in a hurry to rearm, he assigned contracts to German aircraft designers and manufacturers to develop a new generation of fighters and bombers that would outperform the aircraft of Germany’s likely enemies. Under his supervision, the superb Bf 109 fighter and the He 111 and Do 17 bombers went from the drawing board to factory production in less than three years—a remarkable achievement.

Ironically, Richthofen was initially opposed to the procurement of an aircraft that would go on to perform brilliantly in the first half of the war, the Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber, because he believed dive-bombers were too vulnerable to antiaircraft fire. However, he strongly supported the development of heavy strategic bombers and saw that two prototype four-engine bombers, the Do 19 and Ju 89, were ready for testing by mid-1936. Richthofen was disappointed when the heavy bomber program was cancelled, believing that these weapons should have top priority and presciently predicting in September 1939 that “Germany will regret going to war without heavy bombers.”

Richthofen, the Ph.D. engineer, thought far beyond the immediate requirements of the Luftwaffe. He believed the time was not far off when air forces would be equipped with rockets and high-altitude rocket planes. In 1934 and 1935 he provided Luftwaffe support for Wernher von Braun’s rocket research. The
jet impulse engine that became the engine for the V-1 rocket began with a contract issued by Richthofen. In 1935 Richthofen pushed the development of a high-altitude rocket plane that could operate at over fifty thousand feet. The eventual result was the Me 163 Komet rocket fighter.

In the summer of 1936, the Luftwaffe’s commander in chief, Hermann Göring, replaced the exceptionally capable Wimmer with an incompentent crony, Ernst Udet, and Richthofen quickly became disenchanted with his job. Udet soon put the Luftwaffe’s aircraft development programs into a muddle by insisting that bombers under development, such as the promising Ju 88 “fast bomber,” be completely redesigned as dive-bombers. An appalled Richthofen remarked, “This is nonsense, you can’t go against nature!” Udet’s decisions pushed the Luftwaffe’s development back by years, and Richthofen sought a command position elsewhere. He did not have to wait long.

In July 1936 civil war broke out in Spain, and Hitler decided to intervene on the side of Gen. Francisco Franco’s conservative Nationalists. The Luftwaffe deployed a force of one hundred aircraft, flak guns, and five thousand men to Spain. This force, known as the Condor Legion, provided Germany with an opportunity to test its new weapons and gain experience in modern warfare. Maj. Gen. Hugo Sperrle was named the Condor Legion’s commander; Richthofen, now promoted to lieutenant colonel, became his chief of staff. Richthofen directed the daily operations of the force—and seized the chance to prove his abilities as a senior officer in battle.

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