Based on first-hand accounts, original documentation and unpublished images, this is a highly illustrated history of the Flak-Artillerie in World War II.

Until the late 19th century wars were fought on land or at sea, but the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 saw the first use of hot-air balloons and aerial warfare was born. The Prussian Army sought a way to counter this development, and introduced the Krupp-built 3.7cm Ballon-Abwehrkanone – the first anti-aircraft weapon, and the source of all future German Flak-Artillerie.

In this new study, German armour expert Thomas Anderson traces the story of German anti-aircraft artillery through the rapid advances of World War I, though the interwar years to the rise of Nazism, German rearmament and World War II. Drawing on after-action reports, original wartime documents and rare and previously unseen photographs, he traces the development of increasingly sophisticated self-propelled anti-aircraft weapons through to the fully armoured Flakpanzer culminating in the Kugelblitz, the Flakpanzer 341 built on the PzKpfw V Panther chassis.

Thomas Anderson is a specialist on German armoured fighting vehicles of World War II. He regularly contributes to popular modelling and historical magazines, including Military Modelcraft International (UK), Steel Art (Italy), Historia Militar (Spain) and Batailles & Blindes (France). He lives in Germany.