Weser Flugzeugbau
GmbH, known as Weserflug, was an aircraft manufacturing company in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
.
History
The company was founded in 1934 as a subsidiary of the ship and machine company
Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG
Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau Aktiengesellschaft (abbreviated Deschimag) was a cooperation of eight German shipyards in the period 1926 to 1945. The leading company was the shipyard AG Weser in Bremen.
History
The Deschimag was founded in 1 ...
(DESCHIMAG). It began production that year at
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
Tempelhof
Tempelhof () is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of the former Tempelhof Airport, one of the earliest commercial airports in the world. The former airport and surroundings are now a park called ...
, and in
Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...
.
In 1935, Dr. Adolf Rohrbach became technical director of a new Weserflug factory at Lemwerder, near Bremen, which opened in 1936. He had been working on ideas for
VTOL
A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-win ...
(Vertical TakeOff and Landing) aircraft since 1933, and now developed them further.
In 1938, the company developed the
Weserflug P.1003, a VTOL aircraft. It had 4 m diameter propellers that swivelled between horizontal and vertical, and could fly up to 650 km/h. It requires very complex gearing to tilt the wings without varying the power to the propellers, and therefore was never built.
World War II
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
Weserflug had another factory in
Liegnitz
Legnica (Polish: ; german: Liegnitz, szl, Lignica, cz, Lehnice, la, Lignitium) is a city in southwestern Poland, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the Kaczawa River (left tributary of the Oder) and the Czarna Woda. Between 1 June 1975 a ...
. It built
Ju 188 and
Ju 388 bombers, one of which survives in the
National Air and Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States.
Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...
in Washington, DC.
Perhaps foreseeing the end of the war, the management of Weserflug transferred in 1944 from Berlin to
Hoykenkamp
Hoykenkamp is a small village in Lower Saxony, Germany, north west of Delmenhorst. Hoykenkamp is part of the municipality of Ganderkesee and belongs to the district of Oldenburg.
History
Hoykenkamp's main claim to fame is to be the place whe ...
, 15 km west of Bremen. It took over buildings previously used by
Focke Achgelis
Focke-Achgelis & Co. G.m.b.H. was a German helicopter company founded in 1937 by Henrich Focke and Gerd Achgelis.
History
Henrich Focke was ousted in 1936 from the Focke-Wulf company, which he had cofounded in 1924, due to shareholder pressure. ...
.
[F.-Herbert Wenz: Flughafen Tempelhof. ''Chronik des Berliner Werkes der "Weser" Flugzeugbau GmbH Bremen.'' Bau der Kriegsflugzeuge Ju 87-Stuka und Fw 190 1939-1945. Lemwerder (Stedinger Verlag) 2000. . 159 pages.]
During 1940-5, Weserflug built 5215
Junkers Ju 87 Stuka
The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka (from ''Sturzkampfflugzeug'', "dive bomber") was a German dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann, it first flew in 1935. The Ju 87 made its combat debut in 1937 with the Luftwaffe's Cond ...
planes at Tempelhof. This plant also constructed
Fw 190
The Focke-Wulf Fw 190, nicknamed ''Würger'' ("Shrike") is a German single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank at Focke-Wulf in the late 1930s and widely used during World War II. Along with its well-known counterpart, t ...
fighters. Forced labour was used; on 20 April 1944 2,103 of the 4,151 Tempelhof workers were foreign forced labourers.
Ju 86
The Junkers Ju 86 was a German monoplane bomber and civilian airliner designed in the early 1930s, and employed by various air forces on both sides during World War II. The civilian model Ju 86B could carry ten passengers. Two were delivered to ...
aircraft were manufactured at Lemwerder.
After the war
At the end of the war, all aircraft production in Germany halted for several years. In 1948 a trustee, Horst Janson, was appointed to collect the assets of Weser AG, to which Weserflug belonged. He was responsible for some postwar reindustrialization in Bremen, such as reactivating the shipbuilding industry, and joined the board of Weser AG. Production of motorized aircraft was forbidden in Germany from 1945 until 1955. In the 1950s the Hoykenkamp area was used for small businesses.
In 1960, while retaining his other commitments to the reindustrialisation of Bremen, Janson became chairman of Weser AG. In 1961, Weserflug joined forces with
Focke-Wulf
Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG () was a German manufacturer of civil and military aircraft before and during World War II. Many of the company's successful fighter aircraft designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. It is one of the ...
- also of Bremen - and
Hamburger Flugzeugbau
''Hamburger Flugzeugbau'' (HFB) was an aircraft manufacturer, located primarily in the Finkenwerder quarter of Hamburg, Germany. Established in 1933 as an offshoot of Blohm & Voss shipbuilders, it later became an operating division within its pare ...
in the
Entwicklungsring Nord
The Entwicklungsring Nord (Northern development circle) - abbreviated ERNO - was a 1961 joint venture of Bremen-based Weserflug and Focke-Wulf with Hamburger Flugzeugbau to develop parts for rockets and get involved in space activities.
Jet-power ...
(ERNO) to develop rockets. Focke-Wulf and Weserflug formally merged in 1964, becoming
Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke
Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW) was a West German aerospace manufacturer.
The company was formed by the 1964 merger of two German aerospace firms, Focke-Wulf and Weser Flugzeugbau GmbH (Weserflug). The formation of VFW was a natural outco ...
(VFW). Janson retired as chairman of Weser AG in 1969.
Aircraft
*
Weserflug We 271
The Weserflug We 271 was a German flying boat prototype, first flown just before World War II.
History
This amphibious flying boat was produced in 1938 by the German aviation company Weser Flugzeugbau GmbH. The aircraft was a twin engine, all- ...
*
Weserflug WP 1003
The Weserflug P.1003, was a two-seat German aircraft designed in 1938 by Weserflug. The aim of the project was to construct a military tilt rotor aircraft with VTOL characteristics for use in World War II.
At the beginning of 1938 plans for a ti ...
See also
*
Volksflugzeug
The ''Volksflugzeug'' (People's Aircraft) was a grand Nazi-era scheme for the mass-production of a small and simple airplane in the 1930s. It was one of the attempts of the Nazi regime to use consumer technologies as a propaganda tool.
Unlike th ...
References
{{Authority control
Companies based in Bremen
Defunct aircraft manufacturers of Germany
Manufacturing companies based in Bremen (state)