He also attended the Red Army Air Force's maneuvers in Lipetsk fighter-pilot school and first came in contact with the idea of airborne operations.

In Denmark, a small unit dropped on Masnedø island to seize the Storstrøm Bridge linking Falster and Zealand.

Over the course of the morning and early afternoon of April 9, 1940, the Germans flew in sufficient reinforcements to seize the capital, but by that time the Norwegian government had fled.

From one of these airfields, they were driven out after the first wave of reinforcements, brought in by Ju 52s, was annihilated by anti-aircraft fire and fierce resistance by some remaining Dutch defenders.

Simultaneously, small packets of paratroopers seized the crucial bridges that led directly across the Netherlands and into the heart of the country.

[3][4][5][6][7] During airborne operations in the Battle of Rotterdam of 10 to 14 May 1940, Student was almost taken prisoner, and was shot in the head – by what was later determined to be a stray German round.

In May 1941, Student directed Operation Mercury (Unternehmen Merkur), the airborne invasion of Crete, which was defended by British, Greek and Commonwealth forces.

Crete was taken, in what became the greatest victory of the Fallschirmjäger, but the high casualties caused Hitler to forbid future major airborne operations.

On Hermann Göring's orders, Student launched a wave of brutal reprisals against the local population[12] with the massacre of Kondomari, the Alikianos executions, and the razing of Kandanos being well-known examples.

In 1943, Student ordered Major Harald Mors to plan Operation Oak (Unternehmen Eiche), the successful raid conducted by a special Fallschirmjäger unit to free Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

After a brief time at the Eastern Front in Mecklenburg in 1945, he was captured by British forces in Schleswig-Holstein in April of that same year before he could take command of Army Group Vistula.

He was found guilty of three charges relating to prisoners of war, but acquitted of crimes against civilians owing to the testimony of Brigadier Lindsay Inglis, commander of the 4th New Zealand Brigade.