The German participation in the Spanish Civil War was an experience that incorporated a number of principal-agent relationships conducive

to innovation. The Luftwaffe units in Spain were exposed to important external information, were informal in much of their organizational structure, and necessitated a very close yet unrestrictive relationship between agents experimenting in actual combat and the high-level principals monitoring them. The German Army was able, from 1936- 1939, not only to test innovation already accomplished but also to further advance existing doctrine through direct participation in the Spanish Civil War. At the start of the Spanish Civil War, commander Francisco Franco of the Nationalist Forces passed to two German businessmen a message requesting military aid from Germany. Hitler eagerly assented and commanded Goring to begin using the Luftwaffe for aid, which began with airlifting Spanish military personnel and equipment from northern Africa to Spain. In an impressive demonstration of German military efficiency and readiness in 1936, a significant German presence was on the ground in Africa assisting only four days after Hitlers decision. The full four years of participation with Francos forces, from 1936-1939, provided the Luftwaffe with a wide range of experience in air and joint land-air operations, and provided ideal testing of innovations in armor doctrine. The German participation went further than simply practicing and testing their current doctrine; the campaign was structurally unique in that the force was relatively small and tightly-knit, and necessitated a simple, informal command structure that grouped both Army and Luftwaffe units under a single Luftwaffe command, the Condor Legion. Commanders were of high quality, forward thinking, and tactically very hands on. Junior officers had many opportunities for expressing new ideas, that they were able to directly test in actual combat. The poor quality of the opponent and near absence of air opposition encouraged realistic experimentation without fear of heavy losses, especially in the area of joint air-land operations. By October 1936 the Spanish civil war had developed into a stalemate, prompting the Wehrmacht high command to increase the small German force there into a larger operation. The force was upgraded to over 5,000 Luftwaffe personnel using over 100 of their most advanced aircraft; the new force was named the Condor Legionit included a bomber group, fighter group, reconnaissance group, staff, flak battalion, logistics supply battalion, and medical group. New preproduction prototype German aircraft models were included for combat testing. Army participation included a tank battalion and around two hundred military advisors, supported by the Condor Legion logistics group and all serving under Major General Hugo Sperrle and Chief of Staff von Richthofen, both senior Luftwaffe officers. During the subsequent years of combat the Germans would gain the opportunity to test a wide array of new aircraft and to assess their military faults and benefits, making the needed changes. Equally important was the constant testing of tactics and combat formations with the new weaponry. This informal command structure, placing both the Luftwaffe and Army under the same command, was important in helping produce the air-ground coordination and blitzkrieg innovations soon to come. It was a simple structure; the commander of the Condor Legion reported directly to the Special Staff W (the high command structure in Germany coordinating the effort), which reported to the Army high command. The Condor Legion had the benefit of an easy access to the highest levels of leadership, yet enjoyed relative freedom from intrusive

oversight. They were separated geographically and possessed tactical authority to control the course of the war. Hitler and the central government showed almost no interest in the day to day management of the operation, leaving the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe to direct the effort. The lack of micro-management by central command allowed Condor Legion commanders to operate as agents with more freedom to experiment and incorporate. These commanders were also principals of the Condor Legion, and the disentanglement from central command provided stronger principal-agent links between these commanders and their agents in the field. Commanders Sperrle and Richthofen were very hands-on commanders, overseeing attacks and constantly constructing forward bases so that they could personally witness the actions. The difficulty of coordinating air-ground attacks, especially with Spanish forces, necessitated this intense involvement, but it allowed the highest command levelcommander and chief of staff to see innovative air-ground tactics employed first-hand. Richthofen had come to Spain specifically hoping to see the Luftwaffe and its equipment in action, and has been described as the spiritual mentor of close air support development by Karl Ries and Hans Ring in their book on the Condor Legion. The highly vested commander is an important commodity for innovation, and the command in Spain was both eager to succeed and willing to remain ever-present during innovative tactical operations. As with the German maneuver, it becomes obvious how important it can be for leaders to personally witness innovation. Agents of course had incentives to successfully innovate because they were involved in actual combat, and despite the obviously inferior nature of the enemy, their lives were dependent on the success of the operation. Even the junior officers not directly exposed to combat were responsible for the successful execution of a real war effort. Another benefit of having a small and somewhat independent operating force was demonstrated by the ability of junior officers to express novel ideas to higher command. One young lieutenant, Werner Molders, developed ideas on tactical fighter formations that were implemented during the course of the operation in Spain. He changed the traditional three plane V formation into a pair formation, a superior structure which the Condor Legion used to great effect. The combination of the highly vested yet unrestricted leadership and small operating core of junior officers with incentive to innovate is a perfect example of the proper principal-agent relationship, neither excessively top-down nor bottom-up. Another informal aspect of the German command in Spain was the necessity of operating through the Nationalist Spanish command in order to coordinate with ground units. At first this might seem like a detriment to the process of innovation, given that Spanish military leadership was of such low quality compared to their German collaborators. In the ground-support sphere, however, it led to improved communications structures. In order to better coordinate attacks, Luftwaffe personnel had to work tirelessly to find ways of jointly planning the air and ground offensives. Besides having to work hard at the command level, the Luftwaffe placed communications and liaison teams at the front lines for better information sharing. Herbert Mason describes these inter-service cooperation lessons as being very beneficial for the later blitzkrieg operations during the Second World War. Air-ground coordination improved a great deal during the campaign based on the increased effort for managerial efficiency. The informal command link reinforced the obvious need for good air-

ground coordination because the Spanish Army was repeatedly unable to follow up after Luftwaffe forward attacks. It was a constant irritation to the German commanders, who became aware of what a well-coordinated attack could accomplish and what innovative information sharing would need to take place to achieve it. Thus in only a years time of combat experience in Spain, the Luftwaffe had truly mastered close air support. On the December 29, 1937, they participated in a battle in Teruel, in which they executed excellent forward bombing that allowed the Nationalist ground forces to follow up, then seamlessly switched to bombing of the follow-up Republican reserve forces This battlefield proof of the effectiveness of ground attack led directly to technological innovation; Condor Legion commanders requested the development of heavily armored aircraft made specifically for ground attack. The Henschel and Focke Wulf companies produced the Henschel 129 as a result. Incentives for the German commanders were naturally based in part on the fact that they were participating in a real conflict, trying to secure a military victory and protect the lives of their troops. Many German officers experiencing the innovative work in Spain later gained valuable promotions, demonstrated by Sperrles advancement in 1937 to field marshal of the Luftwaffe, and the promotion of officers Drum, Plocher, Galland, and Seidemann to the rank of general. Von Richthofen later served as a senior commander in most of the major theaters of the war, including Britain and Russia. An example of direct processing of innovation due to command promotion from the Spanish Civil War to the main Luftwaffe force came after evidence of German deficiency in night and bad weather flying. The German accidents resulting from poor visibility crashes had an immediate impact on Condor Legion commanders, and new training practices were immediately implemented. Sperrle in 1937 returned to Germany to become a commander of the Luftwaffe Third Air Fleet, and immediately strengthened the deficient night and bad weather training. The importance of Sperrles promotion should not be underestimated; he later found himself in the position to directly implement exercises and experimentation designed to strengthen CAS practices. Both Sperrle and von Richthofen were two of the very few Luftwaffe officers to achieve the rank of field marshal. In Germany Sperrle ordered Luftwaffe commanders to set up joint war games with Army units, and used his influence to get Army commanders to allow the participation of the Luftwaffe in their own war gaming and exercises. His Luftwaffe officers were not allowed to merely attend these exercises, but had to participate as commanding air officers. German air power innovation was aided, particularly in the north of Spain, by their opponents lack of air power. German Luftwaffe operations in the Basque region of northern Spain were carried out virtually unopposed by enemy aircraft, giving Luftwaffe command the opportunity to execute ground support, bombing and experimental operations at will. The experimental process benefited from the environmentally-constructed high error tolerance. This historical anomaly suggests opportunities for successful innovation can be abundant when competing against a highly inferior enemy. Ineffective opposition led to high error tolerance for experimentation because there was much less chance of penalty for unsuccessful attempts at actions like close air support or use of massed armor. For example, the near-perfect operating conditions for the Stuka dive-bombers, due largely to the ineffectiveness of Spanish anti-aircraft guns against them, led to tactical perfection and large-scale passing on of lessons learned to parent units in Germany.

An alternate source of information was provided by the participation of the Russian military, which committed forces on behalf of the Spanish Republic. The military value of the fighter/bomber was further emphasized for the Germans in March 1937 when Russian-piloted fighter aircraft nearly decimated a motorized corps of Italian troops. The action demonstrated the devastating potential of tactical ground bombardment. These results, in particular, were analyzed by the German command and the international military press. A unifying military culture occurs when both commanders and sub-units envision the same set of possibilities. This was facilitated by the comprehensive exposure of large numbers of the Luftwaffe to the Condor Legions innovations. In the interest of providing combat experience for its officers, over fourteen thousand German personnel of all levels of rank were rotated in and out of Spain, seeing and participating firsthand the new innovations. The rapid production of combat veterans that returned to their units after a year of service in Spain ensured the rapid integration of the new tactics throughout the operating core of the Luftwaffe. The experience had an immense influence on Luftwaffe doctrine, tactics, and technology through its involvement in every type of air campaign. Commanders and managers involved with innovation also infused the Luftwaffe; in addition to Sperrle and von Richthofen, future generals Drum, Plocher, and Seidemann all gained combat experience in the Spanish Civil War. The Luftwaffe gained a command staff experienced in planning and execution of joint land-air combat operations. This heavy exposure to innovation worked the same way as the comprehensive post-War studies of the German Armys failures and the changes that needed to be madeby saturation through involvement of a large number of officers. The commitment by the German Army of one armored battalion to the Spanish campaign, under the leadership of the Luftwaffe, provided excellent opportunities for testing blitzkrieg tactics. These opportunities began after the Fascist forces had essentially broken the fixed Nationalist lines and initiated a war of maneuver. In what was considered one of the first true blitzkrieg operations, in 1938 the armored force was able to break through the front lines and make a thirtysix kilometer advance in one day. The Luftwaffe had to make several forward deployments to continue support to the quick-moving armor squadron, gaining valuable experience for future blitzkrieg operations. Many attribute the German experience in the Spanish Civil War as the final field test of the joint doctrinal and operational lessons that had been first introduced at Kazan and Lipetsk. In 1937 when the German Army held the all-important autumn maneuvers in which blitzkrieg proved itself beyond a doubt, the close air support employed was a direct result of Sperrles participation in the Spanish Civil War and the Condor Legions experience with blitzkrieg. As Herbert Mason confirms, Condor Legion commander Richthofenlike Sperrle before him became a passionate supporter of the Luftwaffes close air support role in blitzkrieg operations. During the invasion of Poland, Richthofen was so committed to securing the benefits of air and ground cooperation he had learned in Spain that he shared command headquarters with Tenth Army commander von Reichenau. This excellent inter-service cooperation, also learned through dealings with the Spanish officers, facilitated Richthofens close air support to Reichenaus armor during that campaign and was a key element in the next years success in France. Indeed, Richthofens close air support against the French at Sedan facilitated the crossing of the Meuse

and the breakout from the Meuse river bridgeheads on 15 May 1940 by Guderians XIX Panzer Corps and the XLI Panzer Corps, the seminal event in the Allied collapse in the West. In another irony, this German advantage was fleeting. The blitzkrieg successes against Poland and France, going down from the wide to the narrow openings of a funnel, were inverted in the following campaign against the Soviet Union where the German forces traversed the funnel from narrow aperture to wide, dissipating their mass over the vast Russian land mass and stretching their air assets to beyond the breaking point. Strategic mismanagement and over-extension will always trump doctrinal innovation and tactical brilliance.