Lechfeld Air Base is a

German Air Force The German Air Force (german: Luftwaffe, lit=air weapon or air arm, ) is the aerial warfare branch of the , the armed forces of Germany. The German Air Force (as part of the ''Bundeswehr'') was founded in 1956 during the era of the Cold War a ...

(''Luftwaffe'') base located 1 km east of Lagerlechfeld in Bavaria, about 20 km south of Augsburg on the Bundestrasse 17. It was the home of Training Division A of the School of Management Assistance, and of 32 Fighter Bomber Wing (''Jagdbombergeschwader 32''), part of the Luftwaffe's 1st Air Division. The two squadrons based there flew the Panavia Tornado until 2013. Now Lechfeld is planned as Germany's second base for the Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft, which will be stationed here from 2025.

History

In 1912, the

German Army The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...

's military flight operations started at Lechfeld, but were forbidden after the First World War. Flight operations were resumed in 1934 and a flight school was opened. The

Messerschmitt Messerschmitt AG () was a German share-ownership limited, aircraft manufacturing corporation named after its chief designer Willy Messerschmitt from mid-July 1938 onwards, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, in partic ...

Works at Augsburg used Lagerlechfeld also as a test airfield. On May 22, 1943, at Lechfeld,

Adolf Galland Adolf Josef Ferdinand Galland (19 March 1912 – 9 February 1996) was a German Luftwaffe general and flying ace who served throughout the Second World War in Europe. He flew 705 combat missions, and fought on the Western Front and in the Defen ...

made his first flight in the Messerschmitt Me 262, a highly advanced twin engine jet fighter. He told Hermann Göring, "It felt as if angels were pushing." In April 1944 a special Luftwaffe service test unit began training of operational pilots on the Me 262A. Most of the buildings were destroyed by 1945 after several air attacks.

American use

American Army units moved into the Lagerlechfeld area in early May 1945 during the Western Allied invasion of Germany and seized the airfield with little or no opposition. Initial reconstruction plans for the base to be used as a United States Army Air Forces field were cancelled after the German Capitulation on 7 May, and the facility was garrisoned by United States Army units, although United States Army Air Forces personnel were sent to the base to evaluate the Messerschmitt aircraft left at the airfield. It was designated as

Advanced Landing Ground Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) were temporary advance airfields constructed by the Allies during World War II during the liberation of Europe. They were built in the UK prior to the invasion and thereafter in northwest Europe from 6 June 19 ...

"R-71" In December 1945, the facility was turned over to the United States Army Air Forces, which renamed it ''Army Air Force Station Lechfeld'' and was used by various units as an occupation garrison until being closed on 1 Jun 1947, being put into "standby" status and turned over to the Army garrison at Augsburg for control.

Modern era

The unreconstructed facility was eventually turned over to the reconstituted German Armed Forces in 1955, and the first German military personnel of the newly created '' Bundeswehr'' arrived at the Lechfeld on 7 July 1956. Their task was to rebuild the air base that had been damaged in the Second World War. Two years later, on 22 July 1958, 32 Fighter Bomber Wing began flight operations using F-84 Thunderstreak aircraft. On 14 September 1961, two F-84F Thunderstreak of 32 Fighter Bomber Wing crossed into East German

airspace Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...

due to a navigational error, eventually landing at Berlin Tegel Airport, evading a large number of Soviet fighter planes. The event came at a historically difficult time during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, one month after the construction of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...

. Oberstleutnant Siegfried Barth, commander of the unit at the time, was transferred for the incident but later, after a number of investigations and complaints, had to be reinstated.STRAUSS-BEFEHL: Bier-Order 61
''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'', published: 9 May 1962, accessed: 30 November 2010 In 1965 32 Fighter Bomber Wing received the

F-104 Starfighter The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is an American single-engine, supersonic air superiority fighter which was extensively deployed as a fighter-bomber during the Cold War. Created as a day fighter by Lockheed as one of the "Century Series" of fi ...

until they were replaced between 1982 and 1984 by the Panavia Tornado. Lechfeld Air Base was used for several

NATO deployments of USAF and

Air National Guard The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the ter ...

units during the annual " Reforger" exercises. In October 2011 the German Federal Ministry of Defence announced a reorganisation/reduction of the German Armed Forces. As a consequence, 32 Fighter Bomber Wing will be disbanded and 14 Student Company of the German Armed Forces Command Support School, also stationed at the air base, will be reduced to one of the elements of the German Armed Forces Command Support School. The base will house a branch of the German Air Force Engineering Training Centre and other minor units of the air force. The reorganisation will reduce the number of personnel stationed on the air base from currently 1620 to 570. The disbandment of 32 Fighter Bomber Wing took place on 31 March 2013. In 2019, it was announced that Lechfeld would become the second base for the Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft. In addition to the main base Wunstorf, 13 aircraft of this type are to fly here from 2025.''Ministerin: Zweiter Standort für Transportflugzeug A400M (02 January 2019)''
Bundesministerium der Verteidigung (in German), retrieved 13 September 2020

References

External links

Homepage of the German Air Force (''in German'')
* {{authority control Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Germany Military installations established in 1912 Airports established in 1912 1912 establishments in Germany Bases of the German Air Force