DLV Deutscher Luftsportverband visor hat wreath insignia (2589)

Deutscher Luftsportverband (DLV) NSFK enameled visor hat wreath insignia. slightly over 71mm wide, exactly like the originals.

German Air Sports Association (DLV eV) was an association founded in March 1933 by the NSDAP . Officially the national governing body for air sports, it was actually a paramilitary front organization to build the Air Force . With him, the uniform basis for military pilot training was laid. It was succeeded by the National Socialist Air Corps in 1937 .

Already at the end of March 1933 – even before the establishment of the Reich Ministry of Aviation – all air sports organizations were reorganized by Hermann Göring as Reich Commissioner for Aviation. In the official founding meeting on March 25, 1933, the Rhön-Rossitten Society, the Aero Club of Germany, the German Aviation Association and the National Socialist Air Corpsthe German Air Sports Association was founded as a uniform national association. The associations then dissolved, only the Aero Club of Germany remained as a pure representation to foreign countries. All facilities of the associations listed above, their training facilities and flying schools were transferred to the DLV. Bruno Loerzer , a friend of Hermann Göring and a fighter pilot in World War I , became the first president.  After disclosure of the Luftwaffe in 1935, the President of the DLV bore the title of Reichsluftsportführer.  Colonel Albrecht Mahnke was the second and last President and Reich Air Sports Leader from 1935 to 1937.

The main task of the new association, which was under the “joint leadership of the Ministry of Aviation , the Ministry of Defense and the Supreme SA leadership ” and was in very close contact with the Reichswehr and the police as well as with the SA , SS , the Stahlhelm , the Hitler Youth and worked in the labor service was military pilot training.

The SA aviator towers were separated from the SA and incorporated into the DLV. On June 21, 1933, a joint meeting of the leaders of the SA and SS air turrets took place in Berlin , at which the transfer of the air turrets to the DLV was completed and the guidelines for the uniform structure of the entire German “ sports aviation ” were established. On the occasion of this meeting, Göring addressed an appeal to the German airmen (in: Die Luftwacht , June 1933), which stated, among other things:

“The Fuehrer has ordered that all German aviation forces be brought together as a unit. I have therefore agreed with the Chiefs of Staff of the SA and the Reichsfuhrer of the SS to combine these forces within the framework of the German Air Sports Association. They will form the basis of new air raid towers there.”

The detachment of the Flieger Towers from the SA in no way meant a weakening of military pilot training, but on the contrary its expansion. The Reich Aviation Law passed in December 1933 gave members of the DLV the same rights as members of the SA, SS and Stahlhelm, whose squadrons had also been incorporated into the DLV.