In order to observe the situation on the ground, Richthofen flew himself around the battlefield in a Fi 156 Storch reconnaissance plane. On several occasions he spotted targets; on another, he landed at a panzer division’s forward command post to personally coordinate air support to stop a Polish counterattack.

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In less than a month it was all over. With relatively few losses, Richthofen’s airmen had performed brilliantly. Luftwaffe close air support not only brought the campaign to a speedy conclusion, but saved thousands of soldiers’ lives by destroying Polish fortifications that otherwise would have required a costly ground assault. Gen. Walther von Reichenau, commander of the main panzer forces in the campaign, declared that the Special Purpose Division had “led to the decision of the battlefield.” The Germans’ experience in Poland proved that their conception of joint operations could work. The division was enlarged and renamed the VIII Fliegerkorps (Air Corps).

The VIII Fliegerkorps moved to the western front in October 1939. Richthofen relentlessly drove his staff and commanders through a series of war games and exercises to prepare for the next campaign. He absorbed lessons learned in Poland and revised the Luftwaffe’s tactics. In his view, the greatest problem in the Polish campaign had been army/air force communications. So additional Luftwaffe ground liaison teams were trained and placed in army corps headquarters and with the panzer and motorized divisions. When the Germans began their offensive into France in May 1940, the VIII Fliegerkorps was the best-trained tactical air force in the world.

In the first week, Richthofen’s air corps of more than three hundred Stukas, bombers, and escort fighters devastated Allied airfields and supported the advance of the German armies through the Low Countries. At the same time, the main German armored force, concentrated in Gen. Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist’s Panzergruppe, broke through the French defense line at Sedan and crossed the Meuse River. The way was open to advance to the English Channel and separate the Allied northern army group from the rest of the Allied armies.

Von Kleist had advanced so rapidly, however, that the slow-moving infantry divisions meant to protect his flank had fallen far behind; on May 16 they were told to slow their advance. At a commanders’ conference that day, Richthofen demonstrated his operational savvy, telling Göring that von Kleist had a war-winning opportunity, but that it was fleeting and that delay would allow the Allies to organize new defenses. Göring directed the VIII Fliegerkorps to “follow Panzer Group von Kleist to the sea.”

Richthofen ordered his forces to screen and protect Panzer-gruppe von Kleist’s open flanks and to execute attacks in front of the panzer advance. Reconnaissance units of the VIII Fliegerkorps spotted French divisions moving to counterattack and relentlessly bombed troop columns, as well as French tank units that appeared on the German flanks. Richthofen’s Stukas helped repel attacks by Col. Charles de Gaulle’s 4th Armored Division at Montcornet on May 17, and at Crécy-sur-Serre on May 19. The VIII Fliegerkorps attacks threw the French and British forces into confusion. The Luftwaffe provided the infantry divisions with just enough time to move up and protect the Panzer-gruppe’s flanks. On May 20, von Kleist’s force reached the English Channel and divided the Allied armies.

The campaign of 1940 was a dramatic example of how air power could play a decisive role in maneuver warfare. Richthofen had proved himself to be one of the Wehrmacht’s coolest and boldest senior commanders. When others worried that contact reports from the front indicated major Allied counterattacks, Richthofen correctly discounted them as “panic reports.” He complained, quite accurately, that most of the army and air force generals were reluctant to take full advantage of their operational opportunities: “This nervousness, worry about flanks and various fears seem to be the natural approach to operations for the higher leadership.”

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