On 23 May 1937 the Chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff, General Kesselring, who was decidedly in favour of the military use of gliders, visited the DFS. Being pleasantly surprised by what he saw that day he no doubt had a hand in the subsequent acquisition by the DFS of two additional Kranich in June and July 1937. The delivery of these aircraft enabled students to undertake longer flights on a more frequent basis. These were a boon for the training. The students made such fast progress that by the beginning of September many of them had earned the “Silver C” badge. Twelve of the promising trainees, amongst them Kiess, Flucke, Beck, Distelmeier, Fiedler, Nagel, Salomon and Weigelt could now pilot powered aircraft under the supervision of Fritz Stammer. At the beginning of 1938 they began training in towing gliders under the instruction of Erick Klöckner. In April 1938 these men towed gliders piloted by candidates from the second group who started training on 2 November 1937. While the students of the second course were receiving primary instruction in a Kranich, students from the first training course were taught to fly the newly delivered DFS 230 assault gliders by Zitter, Schieferstein and Opitz. Some of the primary instruction of students belonging to the second course was undertaken by other DFS instructors, including Heinz Schubert and Ludwig Egner, both of whom were also taught to fly the DFS 230.

Training was not accident-free. For example an He 46 tug crashed when the glider under tow rose too high. The pilot Erwin Sahner was seriously injured.

On 16 November 1937 a practical display was carried out to assess the DFS 230 as a future military glider. Ten of them with a full complement of passengers and piloted by trainees from the first course landed in close formation on a marked field. The occupants left the gliders rapidly, armed and ready to fight. Paratroopers in the same exercise were scattered by the wind, and because they landed over a wide area, it took them considerably more time than the glider men to recover their weapons, which had been dropped with them, and to form up for the purpose of assaulting their allotted target.

On 9 March 1938 a training unit for military glider pilots was set up at Fürstenwalde/Brandenburg (and came into effect on 1 April 1938). The unit was designated “Ausbildungskommando für Lastenflug” under the leadership of Oberleutnant Kiess. Despite the visible success of the practical exercises at Stendal, and the enthusiastic support of Generals Jeschonnek and Kesselring, there were those who remained doubtful as to the military value of the troop glider. Many paratroop officers were “envious” of the outstanding results achieved by the gliders and feared being overshadowed by them.

As a consequence of this lack of support, a decision was made to terminate the training of military glider pilots by the DFS upon the conclusion of the second training course and on 19 July 1938 the transport unit under Oberleutnant Kiess was disbanded.

However, General Student, who assumed overall command of Germany’s paratroopers on 6 July 1938, believed that glider borne troops could be used against fortifications along the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia during the planned annexation of Czechoslovakia. It was not long before he ordered the setting up of the LS-Kommando Flieger-Division 7 at Prenzlau, to be commanded by Kiess. On 20 September that year the unit was fully operational but took no part in attacks against fortifications along the borders. The unit consisted of two officers and twenty-seven men including pilots of the calibre of Flucke, Distelmeier and Salomon, and was equipped with six Ju-52’s and six DFS 230 assault gliders.

While all these advances were proceeding in Germany, the FAI created the Internationale Leistungsabzeichen in Gold, or “Gold C”, to recognise a standard of achievement much higher than that required for the award of the “Silver C”. In order to earn the “Gold C”, glider pilots were required to have flown 300 km, though not necessarily to a predetermined goal, achieved a gain in altitude of 3000 m, and have flown continuously for more than five hours. Opitz became the sixth pilot to obtain this coveted badge. Other successful pilots were Hermann Zitter and Karl Schieferstein, together with civilian instructors Otto Brautigam (world gliding champion and winner in 1939 of the Adolf Hitler prize for gliding), Erwin Kraft (both involved in the assault on Eben Emael), Wilhelm Fulda and Heinz Schubert (both piloted gliders for the attack on Veldwezelt bridge). By December 1940 only forty-one glider pilots worldwide had obtained the “Gold C”.

Another pilot who merits a mention is Heinz Scheidhauer who qualified from the first course. His passion for gliding brought him into contact with the brothers Reimar and Walter Horten, the fathers of the “all wing” glider. In 1938 Scheidhauer was one of four candidates vying for an opportunity to fly two Horten III “all wing” gliders in the 1938 Rhone Valley gliding championships. One of the trials set by the Horten brothers to make their choice was a flight from Bonn to Cologne against the wind. Two of the candidates protested that this was not possible, but meteorologist Walter Blech and Scheidhauer made the flight although it took them over nine hours. The Horten brothers needed no further proof and chose the pair to fly their gliders at the championships¹.