a heath north of the river Aller. These trials were carried out not on official but on private initiative by a person named Schlüter. Using an advertisement in the local paper, the population of Celle was invited to watch the spectacle. However, aviation around Celle did not assume any serious forms until the Imperial Navy decided to choose the location for the construction of an airfield in order to enable intermediate stops for flights between Wilhelmshaven and Kiel. The airfield was opened on 3 October 1918 and used extensively until the end of the World War I in November of the same year when news, spread by pilots, of the sailors' revolt and the beginning of the German Revolution reached Celle. This in turn led to revolt within the city of Celle itself on 7 November 1918. After World War I the airfield was initially abandoned even though some flights took place in the 1920s. The site became more important once the Celle-Wietzenbruch flying school began to use the area as an external landing site in the mid-1930s. Today, part of this former airfield is incorporated into the civilian airfield Celle-Arloh and used for recreational purposes. Wehrmacht 1933 until 1945 The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 prohibited the German Reich to have her own air force. To get around this prohibition, the Nazi Party founded the Deutscher Luftsportverband (DLV or "German Air Sports Association") in 1933 as a disguise to accelerate the building of an air force. Therefore, throughout Germany possible locations for air bases were sought. One of these locations was close to the Celle district of Wietzenbruch. According to official information the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule GmbH (German General Aviation School Ltd.) would become the airport holder. Ernst Sagebiel a leading architect in air base design was put in charge of the building works. After exhaustive construction works, during which the boggy terrain was drained by creating several ditches, the flying school entered service in 1934. Due to the boggy terrain the airfield had to be mixed with bitumen a few years later to prevent airplanes sinking in. This made the ground elastic and resulted in the pilots calling the airfield rubber meadow (Gummiwiese). On 9 March 1935 Hermann Göring officially announced the existence of a German Air Force and the DLV was not needed any longer. The Luftwaffe was officially declared as being the occupant of the air base