Did one have to be a party member to fly?

[Kongo-Otto]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

No the LW did not have to join the NSDAP. Though many pilots of course did choose to be party members.

As a case in point, during the Battle of Britain, when the commandant of JG53 had problems with Goering over his marriage to a jewish girl, the entire squadron removed NSDAP party insignia (in particular the swastika on the tail) from all JG53 aircraft as a protest.

The Luftwaffe had the highest percentage of party members in the Wehrmacht, but that comes not because of the flying personal, but because of the Fallschirmjägers.
The least amount of party members were to find in the Kriegsmarine.

Hermann Göring as the thug he was, said once "Wer Jude ist betimme ich (I decide who is a Jew) he helped some of his former men from the Jastas which were Jews to leave Germany and some Jews were kept in the Luftwaffe like the later Generalfeldmarschall Milch or General Helmuth Wilberg.