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French text: The inter-war period is a fascinating, but largely unrecognized, period in the history of German aviation. Signed in June 1919 and enacted in January 1920, the Treaty of Versailles includes many provisions to restrict the rearming of the defeated Germany. Thus, she has less right to tanks, artillery and warplanes, resulting in the dissolution of the Luftstreitkraften. This prohibition does not stifle its aeronautical industry, which circumvents the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles by building such devices in other countries. As early as the mid-1920s, Germany could count on the secret of Lipetsk aviation school in the USSR, or its pilot training and material experimentation, allowing the Weimar Republic to retain know-how aeronautical without alerting France and the United Kingdom. The Lipetsk school closed in September 1933, a few months after the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany. In 1935, the Third Reich created a new air force, the Luftwaffe, which in 1939, on the eve of World War II, became the most powerful military aviation unit in the Western world. Historian Jacques Pernet, specialist in German and American aviation, and the journalist and writer Jean-Charles Stasi tell this story in a lively, lavishly illustrated book with many color photos.