In November 1941, Werner Mölders, who commanded the German Fighter Force as the General der Jagdflieger, was killed while a passenger in a flying accident and Galland succeeded him, staying in the position until January 1945.

Over the ensuing years, Galland's disagreements with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring about how best to combat the Allied Air Forces bombing of Germany caused their relationship to deteriorate.

[8] In 1927, Galland's lifelong interest in flying started when a group of aviation enthusiasts brought a glider club to Borkenberge, a heath east of the Haltern-Münster railway and part of the Westerholt estate.

[19][20] In October 1935, during aerobatic manoeuvre training, he crashed a Focke-Wulf Fw 44 biplane and was in a coma for three days, other injuries were a damaged eye, fractured skull and broken nose.

His experiences in pin-point ground assaults were used by Ernst Udet, a proponent of the dive bomber and leading supporter of the Junkers Ju 87 to push for Stuka wings.

[26] During his time in Spain, he developed early gasoline and oil bombs, suggested the quartering of personnel on trains to aid in relocation, and following the Nationalist victory was awarded the ‘Spanish Cross in Gold with Swords and Diamonds' for his contributions.

On his return to Germany, he was ordered to the headquarters of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM – Ministry of Aviation) where he was tasked with preparing recommendations on the subject of close air support.

[25] Unluckily for Galland, his excellence at evaluation earned him a place at Tutow training facility where he was asked to test fly prototype reconnaissance and strike aircraft.

On the third day of the offensive, 12 May 1940, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of Liège, Belgium, at a height of about 4,000 metres (13,000 ft),[37] flying a Bf 109, Galland, with Gustav Rödel as his wingman, claimed his first aerial victories, over two Royal Air Force (RAF) Hawker Hurricanes.

As high-scoring aces, both Galland and Mölders shared their concerns that close escort of Bf 110s and bombers robbed fighter pilots of their freedom to roam and engage the enemy on their own terms.

The [Bf 109s] were bound to the bombers and could not leave until attacked, thus giving their opponent the advantage of surprise, initiative, superior altitude, greater speed, and above all fighting spirit, the aggressive attitude which marks all successful fighter pilots.

By the end of September, Galland noticed that "the stamina of the superbly trained and experienced original [cadre of pilots] was down to a point where operational efficiency was being impaired.

Galland's response to the situation was to develop tactics that mixed the bomb-laden Bf 109s with the fighter escort in an effort to deceive the enemy and confound their intercept plans.

Just earlier that week, when the armour plate was installed, he severely berated his mechanic, Gerhard Meyer, who welded it in, when he hit his head on the canopy upon entering his aircraft.

[100][101] In November 1941, he was chosen by Göring to command Germany's fighter force as General der Jagdflieger, succeeding Werner Mölders who had just been killed in an air crash en route to attend the funeral of Ernst Udet.

[110] From 16 May to 9 July Allied forces flew 42,147 sorties and lost 250 aircraft to the Axis' 325 as the air offensive gradually rendered airfields in Sicily inoperable.

[10] From 1942 to 1944, the German fighter forces on all fronts in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) came under increasing pressure and Galland's relationship with Göring began to turn sour.

Galland suggested that the fighter forces defending Germany should limit the number of interceptions flown to allow sufficient time for re-grouping and to conserve air strength.

Galland presented these wrecks as proof that the Luftwaffe was facing an enemy that could soon escort its heavy bombers with fighter aircraft to industrial targets inside Germany.

[127] Nonetheless, the arguments ultimately continued, mainly over aircraft procurement and armament for the defence of Germany from Allied bombing, and began to give rise to a growing personal rift between Göring and Galland.

[128] In November 1943 Galland issued a communique to the fighter forces, announcing the introduction of new weapons, such as heavily armed Fw 190s, to engage of destroy Allied bombers through the use of massed and formation-based attack tactics at close range.

In mid-March 1944, shortages of skilled pilots caused Galland to send the following message asking for volunteers: The strained manpower situation in units operating in Defence of the Reich demands urgently the further bringing up of experienced flying personnel from other arms of the service, in particular for the maintenance of fighting power to the air arm, tried pilots of the ground attack and bomber units, especially officers suitable as formation leaders, will now also have to be drawn on.

In a wartime report he wrote: In the last four months [January–April 1944] our day fighters have lost 1,000 pilots...we are numerically inferior and will always remain so...I believe that a great deal can be achieved with a small number of technically and far superior aircraft such as the [Me] 262 and [Me] 163...

[142] In the first five months of 1944, Peltz' conventional bomber force had suffered a significant defeat over England in Operation Steinbock but it did not dull his appetite for offensive action or dent his reputation with Göring.

Galland said after the war, that had it not been for the Allied landing in Normandy which increased the need for lighter fighter variants, each Geschwader in the Luftwaffe would have contained a Gruppe of Sturmbock aircraft by September 1944.

[148] Galland himself flew on unauthorised interception flights to experience the combat pressures of the pilots and witnessed USAAF bombers being escorted by large numbers of P-51 Mustangs.

The Führer was also skeptical that the Luftwaffe could stop the American air offensive and was not willing to have German resources sit idle on airfields to wait for an improvement in flying conditions.

As the war continued Galland flew missions in violation of these restrictions against the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) bombing raids during the Defence of the Reich.

He found that James Finnegan, a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot of the 50th Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force, had made a "probable" claim on 26 April 1945, the day of Galland's last mission.

[189] Other sources conflict with this, noting to his close post-war association with RAF aces Douglas Bader and Robert Stanford Tuck, allegedly of Jewish ancestry [191] yet named godfather of Galland's son Andreas.