There is no organizational continuity between the current German Air Force and the former Luftwaffe of the Wehrmacht founded in 1935, which was completely disbanded in 1945/46 after World War II.

Many well-known fighter pilots of the Wehrmacht's Luftwaffe joined the new post-war air force and underwent refresher training in the US before returning to West Germany to upgrade on the latest U.S.-supplied hardware.

This is in line with the policy of the Bundeswehr on the whole, which does not consider itself a successor of the Wehrmacht and does not follow the traditions of any other previous German military organization.

All aircraft sported—and continue to sport—the Iron Cross on the fuselage, harking back to the pre-March 1918 days of World War I, while the national flag of West Germany is displayed on the tail.

The West German public referred to the Starfighter as the Witwenmacher (widow-maker), fliegender Sarg (flying coffin), Fallfighter (falling fighter) and Erdnagel (tent peg, literally "ground nail").

On 25 August 1966, the German Defence Minister Kai-Uwe von Hassel relieved the Chief Inspector of the Air Force Generalleutnant Werner Panitzki, and transferred Colonel Erich Hartmann, commanding officer of the 71st Fighter Squadron, as both had publicly criticized the acquisition of the Starfighter as a "purely political decision".

The Americans blamed the high loss rate of the Luftwaffe F-104s on the extremely low-level and aggressive flying of German pilots rather than any faults in the aircraft.

Steinhoff and Rall, therefore, changed the training regimen for the F-104 pilots, and the accident rates fell to those comparable or better than other air forces.

However, the F-104 never lived down its reputation as a "widow-maker", and was replaced by the Luftwaffe with the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter and the Panavia Tornado fighter-bomber in many units much earlier than in other national air forces.

The remainder of the units were divided into functional commands: Over the next decade, the Luftwaffe received large amounts of new equipment, including in 1968 the first C-160 Transall transport planes, in 1974 the F-4 Phantom II fighter-bombers, in 1978 the first Alpha Jet Version A light attack jets and in 1979 the first of 212 Panavia Tornado fighters.

After German reunification in October 1990, the aircraft and personnel of the former GDR air force, the Luftstreitkräfte der NVA were taken.

The United States sent a group of fighter pilots to Germany during the Red October exercise to practise tactics against the aircraft they were most likely to meet in real combat.

The MiG-29s of JG 73 were fully integrated into the Luftwaffe's air defence structure and the first Soviet Bloc aircraft to be declared operational within NATO.

The Luftwaffe experienced combat action for the first time since World War II during September 1995[8] in the course of Operation Deliberate Force, when six IDS Tornado fighter-bombers, equipped with forward looking infrared devices, and escorted by eight ECR Tornados, supported NATO's artillery missions on positions of the Bosnian Serbs around Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina.

[9][10] In March 1999, the Luftwaffe became involved in a direct combat role as part of the Kosovo War along with the other NATO powers.

[11] The Luftwaffe sent in Fighter Bomber Wing 32, equipped with ECR Tornados, which flew missions to suppress enemy air defenses in and around Kosovo.

On 13 January 2004, the Minister of Defence, Peter Struck, announced major changes in the future of the German armed forces.

Assuming that the plans to order 180 Typhoons is carried out in full, and all of the F-4 Phantoms are removed from service, this would cut the number of Tornado fighter-bombers down to just 85.

It was reported that around half of the Eurofighters and Tornados were not currently airworthy and that the aging C-160 fleet remained in limited service while awaiting the introduction of the Airbus A400M, the first of which was delivered in December 2014.

[17] Ursula von der Leyen admitted that, due to the poor state of the Bundeswehr's equipment, Germany was no longer able to fulfill its NATO commitments.

[20] In 2018, the Air Force issued a request for information from manufacturers about four potential aircraft to replace the aging Panavia Tornados - the Eurofighter Typhoon, F-15 Advanced Eagle, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and F-35 Lightning.

[21] In January 2019, it was announced that the F-35 Lightning had been dropped from the shortlist, with the Eurofighter Typhoon and Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet under consideration.

[23] In April 2020, the German government announced its intention to gain approval for the purchase of 30 Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, 15 EA-18G Growlers, and 55 Eurofighter Typhoons as replacements for the Tornado fleet.

[25] The Super Hornet was selected due to its compatibility with nuclear weapons and availability of an electronic attack version.

In March 2022, German Minister of Defence Christine Lambrecht announced that Germany intends to buy 35 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighter jets instead of Super Hornets to replace the Tornado, the only aircraft Germany possess capable of carrying US nuclear weapons.

[31] In April 2022, as a continuation of the STH program, Germany has chosen the CH-47F Chinook to replace its aging fleet of Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion.

[36] A fighter-bomber wing fielding Panavia Tornado IDS planes remains in service at Büchel Air Base.

On 12 April 2016, the Ministry of Defence decided to close the TTC by 2019 to consolidate the reduced operation of remaining Tornado aircraft in Germany.

the Airport Berlin Tegel which has been closed in November 2020: In 2012, the Air Force had an authorized strength of 44,565 active airmen/women and 4,914 reservists.

[51] Originally German Air Force aircraft carried an Iron Cross—appearing to be closely modeled on that used by the 1916–17 era Imperial German Luftstreitkräfte through the spring of 1918, but no longer have the white border around the crosses' "ends" (thusly resembling the orthogonal white "flanks" of the earlier, 1918–1945 era Balkenkreuz national marking)—as an identifying feature on all four wing positions and on both sides on the rear of the fuselage and a small tricolor German flag painted on the vertical stabilizer.