During the first major German operations in Spain in early 1937, Richthofen insisted on thorough planning and worked his staff long hours. He spent much of his time at the front conferring with the ground commanders in order to thoroughly understand their plans and air support requirements. Richthofen was determined to prove that air power could be decisive in battle, and he was ready to develop new tactics to do it.

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During the Nationalist offensive into the Basque region in the spring of 1937, Richthofen noted that the Nationalists were deficient in artillery. Since the Condor Legion was equipped with several batteries of superb 88mm antiaircraft guns, he deployed them on the front lines as artillery pieces. The guns proved highly successful in knocking out Basque fortifications and enabling the Nationalists to advance. Richthofen gleefully noted that his new tactics had "caused consternation among the flak theorists back in Berlin," who were shocked to see the antiaircraft gun used as an artillery piece. But using it in ground combat became standard Wehrmacht doctrine.

Richthofen became known among Condor Legion staff as "The Tartar" for combining a cold-blooded ruthlessness with ingenuity in directing operations. He devised, for example, new methods of using bombers and fighters as "flying artillery" on the front lines to destroy Basque defenses. Sperrle and Richthofen would sit on a hilltop overlooking the front lines and guide the aircraft to their targets over the radio. Such accurate air support allowed the Nationalist army to maintain its advance, and it overran the entire Basque province in several weeks.

Richthofen's traits were combined to devastating effect in an attack that became infamous for its brutality: the bombing of the small Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937. German and Italian bombers dropped thirty-one tons of munitions on the town that day, killing hundreds of people and destroying nearly three-quarters of its buildings; this was one of the first instances of a city being destroyed by aerial attack and a precursor to even more destructive attacks made later in the war. After Guernica fell, Richthofen drove through the wreckage, laconically noting that "the town was leveled and closed to traffic for twenty-four hours." His most enthusiastic diary entry that day was reserved for the new German equipment that had just been tested there: "The 250-kilogram bombs and EC B 1 bomb fuses worked wonderfully!"

In early 1938 Richthofen returned to Germany to be promoted to colonel and take command of a bomber wing. He was back in Spain in November, now as a major general in command of the Condor Legion, and directed the air support for the final Nationalist offensive in early 1939. After the Nationalist victory in March, Richthofen returned to Germany as a national hero. In June, he and Sperrle led the troops of the Condor Legion in a triumphal parade through Berlin, where Hitler lauded the assembled fourteen thousand veterans for "teaching a lesson to our enemies."

But the most important lesson learned in Spain was by the Germans. The experience they gained there had a huge influence on the tactics of the newly revitalized Luftwaffe and put Germany well ahead of the Western Allies in modern war experience. The war had made it clear that the effective cooperation of air and ground forces was the key to victory. As a result, in the summer of 1939 the Luftwaffe formed the "Special Purpose Division," a force of three-hundred-plus aircraft composed of Ju 87 Stukas, Henschel attack planes, a reconnaissance squad-ron, and fighter groups for escort. It was organized specifically for the close support of ground forces, and placed under Richthofen's command. Its first deployment? Poland.

In many respects Richthofen's use of air power in the Polish campaign of 1939 followed a traditional German approach to combat, which involved massing forces to support the main effort. For the first ten days of the Polish campaign, Richthofen's Stukas and attack planes flew four to six sorties a day, operating from rough forward airfields and supplied with fuel and bombs by the mobile logistics columns. As in Spain, Stukas and bombers pummeled the Polish fortifications. However, most Luftwaffe attacks were concentrated behind the front lines and sought to paralyze Polish troop movement.

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