After Luetzow’s death, Galland had called the pilots together on the airfield and addressed the men as they stood in a line. “For us the war is over,” he said. He would no longer order anyone to take off—they could only volunteer. “Whoever wants to go home may do so,” he added. A few men thanked him and left. One cited his fiancée, another his sick parents. But someone else said, “We fight until the end.” Galland’s eyes twinkled and he replied, “I am proud to belong to the last fighter pilots of the German Air Force.”
