• the Italian government submitted the Medici villas (pictured) in Tuscany for designation as a World Heritage Site in 2006?
• the Italian scholar Girolamo Maggi wrote and illustrated two detailed treatises, from memory, while chained in a dungeon in Istanbul?
• the Italian ambassador to the United States offered in the 1920s to disband the Fascist League of North America?
• the Italian socialist leader Dino Rondani represented Argentina in the Executive of the Labour and Socialist International?
• the Italian automaker Autobianchi was founded by the bicycle manufacturer Bianchi, tire giant Pirelli and Fiat?
• the Italian comune of Acerno in the Province of Salerno was founded by refugees from Picentia, destroyed by the Romans after the Second Punic War?
• the Italian-invented human torpedo was first used in World War II to severely damage the British battleships HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth?
• the RTÉ television series The Great Escape follows families as they relocate to countries such as South Africa, Australia, Austria, Italy, France and Spain?
• the Autobianchi Stellina was the first Italian car with a fiberglass body?
• the Battle of the Oranges is the largest organized food fight in Italy?
• the 1986 Vrancea earthquake in Romania, which damaged roughly 55,000 homes, was felt as far north as Poland and as far southwest as Italy?
• the 1915 Avezzano earthquake killed over 30,000 people and flattened the town of Avezzano, Italy?
• the tomb of Pope Clement II in the Bamberg Cathedral is the only extant papal tomb outside Italy and France?
• the inbred villagers of Stoccareddo in Italy are a medical phenomenon, with unusually low frequencies of hypertension, strokes and heart attacks despite a high-cholesterol diet?
• the EU legal doctrine of state liability was first introduced following the Italian government's failure to properly compensate laid off workers?
• only three works of Egardus, a fourteenth century composer whose music was known in Flanders, Italy, and Poland, are known to have survived?
• the 11th-century church of San Giovanni del Toro in Ravello, Italy, has a pulpit with Arabic script and motifs which influenced the Dutch artist M.C. Escher?
• in 2002, hundreds of former mobsters incarcerated in eight jails across Italy, supposedly having no way to contact one another, joined a hunger strike to protest against article 41-bis of the Italian Penitentiary Act?
• in 1935, the Italian Governor-General in Libya, Italo Balbo, founded the Arab Lictor Youth, a fascist youth movement that trained Arab youth for military service?
• former Palermo mayor Vito Ciancimino explained that Italy without bribes would be "as though someone wanted to remove one of the four wheels of a car"?
• the 1955 novel Teneke by Turkish author Yaşar Kemal was adapted into an Italian opera of the same title by Fabio Vacchi in 2007?
• the amorphous phosphate mineral santabarbaraite was named after the Italian mining district Santa Barbara where it was discovered in 2003, but its name also honors Saint Barbara, the patron saint of miners?
• the English mediæval shrine statue Our Lady of Ipswich, ordered to be destroyed during the Reformation, might have survived in an Italian village?
• the European fascist alliance New European Order split in 1955 due to a dispute over the issue of whether South Tyrol should be Italian or Austrian?
• the character actor Tom Greenway, shot down as a pilot in World War II, spent more than a year in Italian and German POW camps?
• the Byzantine Komnenian army was deployed in places as far-ranging as Italy, Hungary, and Egypt, and was instrumental in the Komnenian restoration of the empire?
• the asteroid 7796 Járacimrman, discovered in 1996 on Kleť Observatory and named after the famous fictitious Czech genius Jára Cimrman, proved to be the lost asteroid that had already been observed in 1973 on Brera-Merate Observatory in northern Italy?
• the Beasts of Satan were a heavy metal band and suspected satanic cult in Italy that committed three notorious ritual murders before being arrested?
• the earthquake of 1348 in the Alpine region of Friuli hit at the same time as the plague in Italy and it caused odours to come up through the earth?
• the plant Campanula isophylla is able to tolerate frost on the mountains of northern Italy, but not when grown in a pot?
• the role of alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's disease was discovered by genetic studies of a family from Contursi Terme in Italy, which had 61 members with Parkinson's?
• the performance of La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina in Warsaw in 1628 was the earliest performance of an Italian opera outside of Italy?
• the only known picture of the Etruscan mythological daemon Tuchulcha is on the wall in the Tomb of Orcus, a 4th-century BC hypogeum in Tarquinia, Italy?
• the important medieval fresco cycle in Castelseprio, Italy, (pictured) was rediscovered only in 1944?
• the little borgo of Settignano, near Florence, Italy, was the birthplace of four sculptors of the Florentine Renaissance— Desiderio da Settignano, Bernardo Rossellino, Antonio Rossellino and Bartolomeo Ammanati?
• the term Cicisbei refers to legal and generally respected companions and often lovers of married women in eighteenth-century Italy?
• the third of four expeditions sent in the late 19th century by French nobleman Marquis de Rays to an imaginary majestic colony called New France in present day Papua New Guinea, saw 123 Italian settlers perish of disease and famine?
• while the engineering treatises of Italian Renaissance artist Taccola were widely copied and studied during his lifetime, printed copies were not made until the 1960s?
• within a tomb in the town of Bergamo, Italy there is a statue dedicated to the life of Enrico Rastelli, the world's greatest juggler?
• when the Duke of Austria, Leopold III, established reign over the Italian city of Trieste one of his stipulations was that the city supply him each year with 100 urns of the region's best Ribolla wine?
• the world's first geothermal power station was built in Larderello, Italy in 1911?
• the town of Sant'Oreste, Italy grew up around the site at which Saint Orestes was said to have been buried alive during the reign of Nero?
• the early Italian composer Gherardello da Firenze belonged to the Benedictine order of the Vallombrosa?
• the cult of Saint Chiaffredo arose after the discovery of a sarcophagus containing a mysterious skeleton near the Italian town of Crissolo?
• the New Eritrea Party initially favoured Italian trusteeship of Eritrea prior to independence?
• the SS Empire Advocate was seized twice by Britain—from Germany after the First World War, and then from Italy during the Second World War?
• the Marienberg Abbey in Italy is the highest abbey in Europe at 1,340 meters (4,400 feet), and allegedly suffered from vampire attacks during the Black Death?
• the MacCrimmons (pictured), one of Scotland's most famous bagpiping families, have been thought to have roots in Cremona, Italy?
• the Giannini sextuplets, the second set of sextuplets in the world to live past infancy, were born in Italy six years to the date after the first set of surviving sextuplets?
• the Scolanova Synagogue, one of four synagogues confiscated and turned into churches in Trani, Italy in 1380, is now a synagogue again?
• the Teatro del Silenzio is an open air amphitheatre in Italy which remains silent for 364 days of the year?
• the Barbarigo was a World War II Italian submarine that mysteriously disappeared in 1943?
• the bombing of an Italian courthouse, the arrests of five Indian police officers, and the funeral for Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto's son are among the events in organized crime so far this year?
• the Venetian polychoral style arose because of the unique architectural and acoustical characteristics of San Marco di Venezia, aka St. Mark's Cathedral, in Venice, Italy?
• the Valle d'Aosta DOC in the Alps of northwestern Italy is home to the highest elevated vineyards in all of Europe?
• the Urakami class destroyer Kawakaze of the Imperial Japanese Navy was built in Scotland, sold to the Regia Marina of Italy and sunk as a ship of the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany?
• career US diplomat George Wadsworth, Chargé d'affaires in Italy at the onset of World War II, was one of the last American personnel to leave the country?
• between 20,000 and 80,000 Filipinos live illegally in Italy?
• Italy's 1957 Eurovision entry, "Corde Della Mia Chitarra", was so long that it resulted in the introduction of length restrictions for competing songs?
• Italy's Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico shipyard built two ocean liners named MS Stockholm for the Swedish American Line between 1936 and 1941, neither of which operated commercially?
• Italian-Swiss entrepreneur Carlo Gatti pioneered the sale of ice cream to the general public in London from 1849, and later ran several music halls?
• Italian noblewoman Bianca Riario acted as a substitute mother in the early 1500s to her half-brother, the celebrated Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, while her own mother was in prison?
• Italian composer and bandleader Ulderico "Rico" Marcelli married the violin soloist from his own Fibber McGee and Molly radio show band?
• Italian explorer Rafael Perestrello, a cousin of Christopher Columbus, sailed on behalf of Portugal and established trading relationships for that country with the Ming Dynasty in China in 1516?
• Italy's newly appointed Minister for Equal Opportunity, Mara Carfagna, used to be a showgirl and a glamour model?
• Kermit Roosevelt's co-brother-in-law Mervyn Herbert played first-class cricket for Somerset County Cricket Club and died in the British Embassy in Rome, Italy?
• Swiss cyclist Hugo Koblet, a Tour de France winner and the first non-Italian to win the Giro d'Italia, died at age 39 under mysterious circumstances?
• tariffs imposed by the Austrian Empire on the export of Piedmontese wines to Austrian controlled areas of Italy was one of the underlying sparks of the revolutions of 1848–1849?
• Serbia and Montenegro and Italy were co-hosts of the 2005 European Volleyball Championship?
• Messina, Italy, known as Messene during the Sicilian Wars, was sacked by the Carthaginians in 397 BC in retaliation for the attack on Motya by Dionysius I of Syracuse?
• Libya was the first country to purchase the Palmaria, an Italian-made self-propelled 155mm howitzer, ordering 210 units in 1982?
• Italian composer Francesco Portinaro survived an outbreak of bubonic plague that killed 12,000 to become maestro di capella at Padua Cathedral?
• Italian Vice Consul Vito Positano saved the future Bulgarian capital Sofia from burning by the Ottoman army?
• Christmas is traditionally celebrated in Agnone, Italy, with a torchlight parade known as Ndocciata? (2006 event pictured)
• Galileo's father Vincenzo Galilei was a noted Italian lutenist?
• chief justice Frederick Richard Jordan once decided that the government of New South Wales had "no business" refusing a water irrigation licence just because the applicant was Italian?
• canoe racer Josefa Idem, a 1984 Olympic bronze medalist for West Germany, later took an Italian citizenship and became the first female Olympic medalist in canoeing for her new country?
• Bulgarian–Italian Futurist painter Nikolay Diulgheroff, an honorary citizen of Turin, studied at the original Bauhaus in Weimar?
• Giorgio Francia of Italy became the first non-German to win the German Formula Three Championship, by winning the title in the year 1974?
• Italian aerodynamicist Antonio Ferri took to the hills in 1943 with a trunk load of scientific documents to turn over to the Allies?
• Italian mathematician Guido Castelnuovo secretly taught geometry to Jewish students during World War II?
• Italian tennis player Federico Luzzi was prohibited from wearing a shirt with a Playboy bunny logo while competing at the 2007 U.S. Open tournament?
• Italian mafioso Antonino Calderone (pictured) was the first pentito to provide details on Mafia operations in Catania?
• Italian film director Marco Ferreri hired actor Michel Piccoli almost immediately after the two first met for his art house masterpiece Dillinger Is Dead?
• Italian aeronautical engineer Corradino D'Ascanio developed a record-setting early helicopter in 1930 and designed the original Vespa motor scooter in 1946?
• Antonio Liozzi, an 18th century Italian artist, trained under the tutelage of Marco Benefial?
• Arthur Fonjallaz was expelled from the Heimatwehr, a fascist organization in Switzerland, because he advocated an annexation by Italy?
• unemployment protection in Italy is guaranteed by Italy's constitution?
• Vincenzo Ragusa was an Italian sculptor hired by the Meiji government of Japan from 1876 to 1882 to introduce Western art techniques in order to revive Japan's own ancient sculptural arts?
• Toto's seizure of power in Rome, Italy, in 767 is one of the first indications that the military aristocracy believed that supreme power in Rome rested with the papal office?
• Saint Terence was proclaimed the patron saint of Pesaro for appearing in times of crisis, lifting a siege of the Italian town by French troops?
• shale oil was used to light the streets of Modena, Italy, at the turn of the 17th century?
• Sigismondo d'India, a 17th century Italian composer, produced music in nearly all the forms of the day, including monody, madrigal and motet?
• acqua pazza, an Italian herbed broth used to cook seafood, is literally translated as "crazy water"?
• podestà was a powerful position in medieval north Italian cities?
• according to National Geographic, La Maratona (2008 race pictured), an annual competition held in the Dolomites of the Italian Alps, is "one of the biggest, most passionate, and most chaotic bike races on Earth"?
• before the bobsleigh track in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy was shortened to its current configuration in 1981, it was used as part of the film For Your Eyes Only?
• a reviewer of the 2006 album Gigahearts by the Italian industrial band Dope Stars Inc. described the group as "the new generation of what Goth means in the 21st century"?
• a papabile was asked during the papal conclave of 1572 by a representative of King Philip II of Spain to withdraw his candidacy in order to maintain peace in Italy?
• SM U-5, ceded to Italy in 1920 as war reparations, was the only member of the U-5-class submarines of the Austro-Hungarian Navy to survive World War I?
• Santa Maria delle Carceri, a church in Prato, Italy, was built on the site of the city's old medieval jail?
• Russian opera in the 18th century was dominated by Italian composers and singers?
• Domenico Pino, an Italian General of Division in Napoleon's Grande Armée, married a ballerina and sold the villa in Como that she inherited from her rich first husband to Caroline of Brunswick?
• Enrique Tirabocchi had to appeal to Benito Mussolini to retrieve a trophy he received for swimming the English Channel, as it had been confiscated by customs officials when he reentered Italy?
• Carlo Orelli (pictured) was the last surviving Italian veteran to see service on Italy's entry into World War I?
• Bruno Sacco, the Italian-born head of styling at Daimler-Benz between 1975 and 1999, considers his design of the 1991 Mercedes-Benz S-Class luxury car to be four inches (10 cm) too tall?
• AVIS, the association of Italian blood donors founded in 1927, was asked to include an F for fascist in its acronym by Mussolini?
• Frank Brickowski played basketball in Italy, France and Israel for three years in the early 1980s, until the New York Knicks thought he was ready for the NBA?
• Frank Fulco, a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives between 1956 and 1972, was once honored on his House floor by the government of Italy for his long involvement in Italian American causes?
• Massimo Morsello was the most prominent far right Italian songwriter?
• Odoardo Beccari was an Italian naturalist best known for discovering the titan arum, the plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world, in Sumatra in 1878?
• Jacopo I da Carrara, signore of Padua, Italy, voluntarily stepped down in 1319 to save the city from Cangrande I della Scala?
• International Gothic art is so called because very similar styles existed in centres as far apart as France, Bohemia, Italy and Burgundy?
• Gran Paradiso National Park is Italy's oldest national park?
• 19th century Polish general Ludwik Mierosławski led revolutionaries in Poland, Germany and Italy?

Facts on topics related to Italy

France

• "4 Mots sur un piano", which deals with the theme of a romantic relationship between two men and one woman, was the fifth best-selling single of 2007 in France?
• 11-year old Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein is regarded by Jacobites as third in line for the throne of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland?
• 18th century Franco-Portuguese industrialist Jácome Ratton (pictured) left a vivid account of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake in his memoirs and was exiled to the Azores during the Napoleonic Wars?
• 18th century French artilleries were the most efficient at cannon operation (pictured), capable of firing 150 shots per cannon daily during siege?
• 18th century French salons were often led by those who were creating the Encyclopédie?
• footballer Edward King was honored for heroism in the Philippines and tactical skill in France and later became Commandant of the Army Command and General Staff College?
• Cambodia's Mongkol Borei District was part of Thailand until the French demanded it back in 1907?
• Camille Le Mercier d'Erm and his colleagues formed the Breton Nationalist Party in 1911 to advocate the independence of Brittany from France?
• Catherine II's Instruction to the Legislative Assembly was banned in pre-revolutionary 18th-century France as a "libertarian book"?
• cinematographer Lawrence Sher first developed an interest in photography after his father convinced him to take a 35mm camera on a Teaneck High School-sponsored trip to France?

Rome

• Kermit Roosevelt's co-brother-in-law Mervyn Herbert played first-class cricket for Somerset County Cricket Club and died in the British Embassy in Rome, Italy?
• British athlete Don Thompson was nicknamed "Il Topolino" (Italian for "Little Mouse") when he raced to victory in the 50km walk at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while wearing a képi and sunglasses ?
• Alan de St Edmund, while in Rome as chaplain to Cardinal Hugh of Evesham, was made Bishop of Caithness after its previous bishop-elect died there while seeking consecration?
• Eddisbury hill fort, the largest and most complex Iron Age hill fort in Cheshire, was destroyed by the Romans to prevent it being used against them?
• Ethelbert of York's 8th century library was probably the largest book collection of its day outside of Rome?
• Flaithbertach Ua Néill, king of Ailech in Ireland, was called Flaithbertach an Trostáin, Flaithbertach of the Pilgrim's staff, as a result of his pilgrimage to Rome in 1030?
• Jakub Uchański, a 16th-century primate of Poland, was suspected of heresy and summoned to appear before the inquisition in Rome?
• John Devitt was awarded a gold medal in the 100m freestyle at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome despite all three timekeepers awarding a faster time to the silver medallist?
• Michael Stern was one of two journalists to enter Rome on June 3, 1944, one day ahead of American forces?
• Monte Testaccio (pictured) in Rome is an artificial hill, 35 m (115 ft) high and 1 km (3,300 ft) in circumference, consisting entirely of the fragments of 53 million ancient Roman amphorae?

Sicily

• bugged conversations with surgeon-crime boss Giuseppe Guttadauro revealed how the Mafia funded the 2001 election campaign of Sicilian President Salvatore Cuffaro?
• Sicilian Mafia boss Giuseppe Falsone has been on the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy since January 1999, a list of criminals considered extremely dangerous by the Polizia di Stato?
• Ferdinandea was a volcanic island near Sicily which was claimed by four countries when it appeared in 1831, but was destroyed by erosion less than a year later?
• Michele Amatore, who was a Sudanese slave, became a captain in the Bersaglieri regiment and was decorated for his work in Sicily?
• Salvatore Cardinal Pappalardo broke the code of omertà in 1992, becoming the first senior Sicilian clergyman of the Catholic Church to openly condemn the Mafia?
• Pleurotus nebrodensis was declared to be a critically endangered mushroom in Sicily by the IUCN?
• Saint Thomas Becket professed to owe a "debt of gratitude" to Margaret of Navarre, who was the regent of Sicily between 1166 and 1171?
• ancients thought that the river Himera divided the island of Sicily in half, when in reality Himera was the name of two separate rivers, the Grande River and the Salso River?
• in 878, the Byzantines lost Syracuse in Sicily to the Arabs because the imperial fleet was occupied with transporting marble for the construction of the Nea Ekklesia cathedral?
• instead of abducting people, Francesco Paolo Varsallona, who became an outlaw in 1893, introduced tribute payments for guaranteed safety and was credited with modernizing brigandage in Sicily?

Greece

• German painter Ludwig Thiersch influenced the debate over Byzantine and Western influences in modern Greek art, and painted church frescoes in Greece, Austria, Germany, England, and Russia?
• Greek composer Phivos has written songs for artists including Keti Garbi, Angela Dimitriou, Manto, Thanos Kalliris, and, most successfully, Despina Vandi?
• Greek–Polish singer Eleni Tzoka has been awarded the Saint Rita of Cascia prize for the act of mercy towards the killer of her young daughter?
• Nigeria, which contains what was once the Kingdom of Benin, has repeatedly called for the U.K.'s return of the Benin Bronzes, in a situation similar to Greece's petition for the return of the Elgin Marbles?
• Norwegian chemist Alexis Pappas was born in London to Greek parents who fled from Belgium to England during World War I?
• Russian Hussar Alexander Bulatovich (pictured) was a military aide to Ethiopian ruler Menelek II, a hieromonk in Greece, and leader of a banned religious movement?
• Stylianos Pattakos, a principal of the 21 April 1967 coup in Greece, after his conviction at the Greek junta trials, enjoyed amenities such as a pond with 21 goldfish while imprisoned?
• American statesman John Milledge named Athens, Georgia, the city surrounding the University of Georgia, after Athens, Greece, the city of Plato's Academy?
• Emmanouil Argyropoulos (pictured), the first Greek aviator to fly over his country, was also the first casualty suffered by Greek military aviation one year later during the Balkan Wars?
• Nobile Teatro di San Giacomo di Corfù‎, founded in 1720, was the first modern opera theatre in Greece?

Portugal

• 18th century Franco-Portuguese industrialist Jácome Ratton (pictured) left a vivid account of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake in his memoirs and was exiled to the Azores during the Napoleonic Wars?
• Angola gained its independence from Portugal through the Alvor Agreement?
• Eça de Queirós, one of the greatest writers in the Portuguese language, was born in Praça do Almada, the civic center of Póvoa de Varzim in Portugal?
• Italian explorer Rafael Perestrello, a cousin of Christopher Columbus, sailed on behalf of Portugal and established trading relationships for that country with the Ming Dynasty in China in 1516?
• Portugal was taken to court over its failure to implement EU directives regarding its water supply and sanitation systems?
• Portuguese Josefa de Óbidos was one of the few women dedicated to painting (pictured: still life by her) in the Baroque era?
• Portuguese architect Mateus Fernandes is best known for his Manueline-style work at the Monastery of Batalha?
• Portuguese soldier and explorer Francisco Barreto led an expedition to Monomotapa in search of legendary gold mines, but died along the way from tropical diseases, as did many of his men?
• Ulysses S. Grant awarded Bolama to Portugal, who made it the first capital of Portuguese Guinea?
• Arthur Raikes was a British army officer but received honours from Zanzibar, Austria and Portugal?

Germany

• 19th century Polish general Ludwik Mierosławski led revolutionaries in Poland, Germany and Italy?
• U.S. Ambassador Charles E. Bohlen received the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which contained an understanding between Hitler and Stalin to split Central Europe, from German diplomat Hans von Herwarth?
• the author of the term Third Reich predicted that "Germany might perish because of the Third Reich dream"?
• Church of Scientology International official Leisa Goodman went on a six-month mission to investigate the treatment of Scientologists in Germany?
• communist activist Franz Jacob organized one of the largest resistance groups in Germany during World War II?
• French Major General René Cogny, who later commanded French forces during the First Indochina War, was captured in June 1940 by the German army, and had to escape by crawling naked through a drainpipe?
• French protests caused the Russians to award the contract for the Gangut-class battleship to a Russian firm rather than the German winner of the 1908 international design contest?
• Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg Franz Hofer arranged the surrender of the troops under his command with an American sergeant, and a Jewish emigrant from Germany, Fred Mayer?
• German painter Ludwig Thiersch influenced the debate over Byzantine and Western influences in modern Greek art, and painted church frescoes in Greece, Austria, Germany, England, and Russia?
• German bass Hans Herbert Fiedler sang the role of Moses in the original 1954 production of Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron?

Poland

• "Spieprzaj dziadu!" (Polish for "Piss off, old man!"), said by current Polish President Lech Kaczynski, has become one of the most famous phrases in modern Poland?
• 19th century Polish general Ludwik Mierosławski led revolutionaries in Poland, Germany and Italy?
• abrasion has destroyed the 14th century Church in Trzęsacz, Poland, near the Baltic Sea, except for part of its southern wall?
• French-born artist Jan Piotr Norblin is famous in Poland for illustrating many important historical moments of the last years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and is considered one of the most important painters of the Polish Enlightenment?
• German socialist politician Siegmund Glücksmann initiated the first socialist protests against the Piłsudski government in Poland?
• Greek–Polish singer Eleni Tzoka has been awarded the Saint Rita of Cascia prize for the act of mercy towards the killer of her young daughter?
• Japan and Poland are the world's largest krill fishing nations since Russia abandoned its operations in 1993?
• neoclassical Staszic Palace in Warsaw was temporarily given a Russo-Byzantine redesign upon Poland's partition?
• Norwegian professor of bacteriology Sverre Dick Henriksen was an honorary member of the Polish Chamber of Physicians and Dentists, despite having never worked in Poland?
• Poland's Antoni Gawryłkiewicz, a recipient of the Righteous among the Nations medal, signed his Yad Vashem deposition in Hebrew, a language he did not understand?

Italia

• one of the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic was the Italian Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boat, which went on to serve in the Luftwaffe in WWII?