Fighters on display

The Air Base was established in 1935, and was the pride of the Luftwaffe during World War II. Field Marshal Herman Goering is said to have taken a deep personal interest in establishing an air force training base for the German Air Force and modeled Fürstenfeldbruck after the United States Army Air Force training center at Randolph Field, Texas.

The RAF and USAAF understood that Fürstenfeldbruck was being used extensively as a training base, and believed it to be of little strategic importance. Consequently it escaped bombing until the later stages of the war, and then it was attacked severely.

Allied reprisal bombing began to desolate many German cities in 1944 and in October the Luftwaffe leaders rushed work to extend the Air Base's runways long enough for fighter aircraft takeoffs. Thousand of slave laborers are said to have "expedited" this project and as the war neared its final critical stages the Luftwaffe was able to mount fighters from the Base. That, however, provoked the Allies to make the only serious bombing raid on the field.

Fifty direct hits were made on the field the afternoon of 9 April 1945 when 338 B-17's of the 1st Air Division, 8th Air Force, unleashed 867 tons of bombs on the runways, hangars, repair shops, and other facilities.