The first flush of an overwhelming tactical success for the Luftwaffe bomber forces happened with the defeat of Poland. Furthermore the campaigns in Denmark and Norway ended with complete victory for the Wehrmacht. With the fall of France it seemed that German military power would be strong enough to become victorious all over Europe. However British air defence forces resisted the German raids to bring about the first major failure of German air power. Hitler’s continental policy, the invasion of the Balkans and the capture of Crete, accompanied by the establishment of the Luftwaffe in Italy, the antishipping raids and the Battle of the Atlantic, were responsible for many operational losses which weakened the strength of the bomber Gruppen of the Kampfgeschwader. But the Luftwaffes most dangerous campaign followed in summer 1941: the invasion of the Soviet Union with whom Germany had shared a non-aggression pact. German Bombers Over Russia is an illustrated account of the German bomber raids over the eastern Front and how weather and heavy punishment gradually destroyed the Luftwaffe.