Luftwaffe (German pronunciation: [ˈlʊftvafə] ( listen)) is the aerial warfare branch of the German Armed Forces. The term luftwaffe is also the generic German term for an air force as well as being the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956.

Schweizer Luftwaffe is also the name of the Swiss Air Force in German. Two other historic German air forces are the World War I-era Luftstreitkräfte of the era of the German Empire, and the Luftstreitkräfte der NVA in the GDR. The air force of Austria is called Österreichische Luftstreitkräfte.

The forerunner of the Luftwaffe, the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte), was founded in 1910 with the name Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches, and changed to the name "Luftstreitkräfte" by the end of 1916, with the emergence of military aircraft, although they were intended to be used primarily for reconnaissance in support of armies on the ground, just as balloons had been used in the same fashion during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 and even as far back as the Napoleonic Wars. It was not the world's first air force, however, because France's embryonic army air service, which eventually became the French Air Force (Armée de l’Air), had been founded in 1909. Britain's Royal Flying Corps (which merged on April 1, 1918 with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force) was founded in 1912.