Fully armed Nazi bomber planes 'buried below East Berlin airport'

The Scotsman ^ | July 22, 2003 | Allan Hall

[Recourse]

Tue 22 Jul 2003

Fully armed Nazi bomber planes 'buried below East Berlin airport'

ALLAN HALL IN BERLIN

AN AIRPORT used by hundreds of thousands of tourists and business travellers each year could be sitting on top of thousands of live bombs.

Papers among thousands of files captured from the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, claim tons of live Second World War munitions were buried in concrete bunkers beneath the runways of Schoenefeld airport in East Berlin. It is now the main destination for discount airlines, such as Ryanair, and numerous charter companies.

Not only did the commissars intern munitions beneath the runways, but also entire Nazi fighter planes, all fuelled and fully bombed-up, according to the Stasi.

The captured files of Interflug, the former East German government airline and the airport authority of the DDR, are now being examined to see if the Stasi claim is true.

Experts believe it entirely feasible that, in the aftermath of the Second World War, with Berlin littered with millions of tons of unexploded ordnance, the Soviets could well have pressured local officials to move to clear the airfield as swiftly as possible.

"They would have stuffed them anywhere they could - there was simply too much stuff to blow up all at once," said Karl-Heinz Eckhardt, a Berlin historian. "There was a warren of massive Nazi bunkers beneath the site of the present airport that would have suited their purposes."

City authorities claim the airport is perfectly safe, but a thorough check on the claims in the Stasi files - 140 km of them that will still take a number of years to decipher - is being undertaken.

Nearly two million passengers a year pass through Schoenefeld. According to the Stasi files, the ammunition was buried in bunkers between eight and nine metres deep.

A spokesman for the airport said: "We became aware of the bunkers in 1993, four years after the fall of the [Berlin] Wall. A check was undertaken then and everything was determined to be safe."

But he conceded that he was astounded at the claims that fully-fuelled and bombed-up aircraft lie beneath the runways and said new tests about the safety of the structures will be carried out.

He added: "We had no idea that so much ordnance is supposedly under there."

Frank Henkel, the Conservative interior ministry spokesman, said: "This must be investigated thoroughly and immediately and the runways strengthened if necessary."

Berlin, with its sandy, dry soil, was perfect for the bunker-building of the Third Reich. Hundreds of thousands of them were constructed during the 12-year lifespan of the Nazi government: for every one metre of building above ground in modern-day Berlin, there are three metres below ground.

Bunkers are being discovered every day and a group called Underground Berlin has turned several of them into tourist attractions.

This article:

  http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=792292003

Secret War:

  http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=222

[Polybius]

Quentin Roosevelt (Son of Teddy) was killed in WWI flying an already out of date French plane against the far more sophisticated German planes of the era because American Industry, after spending a billion dollars, had failed to produce even one combat plane.

Care must be taken to not make too general of a statement regarding the overall quality of German World War One aircraft in comparison to French and British aircraft as the aircraft design changed from month to month and the advantange swung back and forth from side to side.

Quintin Roosevelt died on July 14, 1918 flying a Nieuport 28 and was claimed by Uffz Carl Emil Graper of Jasta 50 who was flying an Albatros D.Va.

By July 1918, the Albatros D.Va was already obsolete. It's sesquiplane construction (lower wing smaller than the top wing) and it's "V" shaped struts had been copied by the Germans from the earlier French Nieuport 11 that had been the "hot" aircraft back in the Spring of 1916. Unfortunately, the Albatros D.V had a nasty habit of shedding it's lower wing as the bottom of the V strut was not as wide as the Nieuport struts and this resulted in vibration during dives. This was fixed with strut redesign in the D.Va.

By 1918, German Jasta pilot were bitterly complaining about the obsolete Albatros D.Va. However, the Albatros D.Va continued to see service until the end of the war in less elite Jastas as there were not enough Fokker D. VII's to go around.

The Nieuport 28 was the Nieuport company's answer to the currently "hot" SPAD XIII. The new design abandoned the sesquiplane construction and V struts of the older Nieuport fighters and came up with, arguably, the most beautiful aircraft design of World War One........that unfortunately had the nasty habit of shedding it's upper wing fabric during dives.

Nieuport 28's of Quentin Roosevelt's 95th Aero Squadron

The Nieuport 28 was not technically an "obsolete" aircraft it was merely....ummmm.....well,.....bad.

The French rejected the design in favor of the SPAD XIII. However, as there were not enough SPAD XIII's to go around, the new American Aero Squadrons ended up with the French reject design.

The very rapid rate of World War One fighter aircraft design meant that new designs were tried at the factory and discarded on a weekly basis. You have heard of the famous Fokker Triplane but have you heard of the .........Fokker Quintuplane?

That was one of Anthony Fokker's Plane Designs of the Week that he must have come up with after one too many beers at Octoberfest. :-)

Without the intense head to head competition that every European aircraft design was subjected to at the Front or at the factory or at aircraft competitions to chose what design to speed into production, it is very doubtful that any American design from across the Atlantic would have cut the mustard in World War One aerial combat.

[elbucko]

I have no wish to re-fight the second world war.

Neither do I. The German's, did in fact, loose.

On this subject I ask that we agree to disagree.

Agreed.

[Polybius]

World War One, not World War Two, aviation is my area of expertise. There is a rather funky Fokker in my Post 141 in case anyone is interested.

For an Italian, immediately post World War One monstrosity, check out the Caproni CA-60:....Nine wings from three sets of World War One Caproni Triplanes, most likely Caproni CA-48's. It had twice the wing area of a B-52. Like the Spruce Goose, it flew in a straight line......once.

Caproni CA-60

[Consort]

...Blohm und Voss Bv 138

[Consort]

...Heinkel He 111Z

[Michael81Dus]

Don`t forget the X-Ray. Röntgen invented it 102 years ago, I suppose.

[risk]

The Sherman was no problem; we could take care of ten of them with no difficulty. The real problem was that there was always an 11th Sherman."

You just made me think about the 10 American tank crews which (from this description) sacrificed themselves before the 11th could exploit a German vehicle's achilles heel, and how they must have felt going out to meet their fate in the jaws of a tiger.

[JohnBovenmyer]

I don't recall whether it was with the EF 132 or something else, but the Germans did fly one Europe to NY mission during the war as a test run, turning back about 20 miles off Long Island. I don't know how much payload that plane could have carried but certainly they could have done the equivalent of a small Doolittle mission if they'd really wanted.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Erich Hartmann's mark of 352 kills is generally accepted as valid. Most of his kills were in the east although he did get a few P51s. He mostly few ME109s, but did fly some in ME262s late in the war. He was just a kid when he started and was the one big ace who came back after years in Soviet POW camps to fly in the new Luftwaffe. Retired as a General flying F104s as I recall. Hartmann had "The Right Stuff." His biography, The Blond Knight of Germany, is excellent and covers his WWII career, his years as a Soviet prisoner and his later career in the modern air force.

It's hard to know how to compare kills in different theaters, but don't underrate the Germans. One of their aces shot down about 150 Brits, mainly in N. Africa, before being killed. That's a lot more than the top Allied ace (a Russian) shot down.

[wolficatZ]

The Ju-390
Two prototypes flew of a radically modified derivative, the Ju 390. The idea behind this was simple: The wing center section panels, complete with engines and landing gear, where fitted twice. The fuselage was elongated. In this was the four-engine Ju 290 was modified into the six-engine Ju 390. The Ju 390V1 was equipped as as a transport aircraft, and the Ju 390V2 as a long-distance maritime patrol aircraft. They flew in August and October of 1943. The V2 was delivered to FAGr.5, and it demonstrated its potential by flying from Mont-de-Marsan to a point 20km from New York, and back.

 

Junkers Ju 390V2

Six 1970hp BMW 801E radial engines Wing span 50.32m, length 33.6m Empty weight 36900kg, max. take-off weight 53112kg Max. speed 515km/h at 6200m, cruising speed 357km/h. Max. range 9700km.

Armament: Two dorsal gun turrets, each with a MG151, and one MG 151 in the tail. Aft and front MG131s in the gondola, and two MG131 beam guns.

[risk]

[image: JU EF 132]

I think that is a B52, images for which would be very easy to digitize and pass off as "the original prototype's simulation." Afterall, these are images that appear to have been provided to a flight simulator package, many of which include B52 skins and properties.

Here are some (possibly) more realistic images of the JU EF 132:

And the 131:

[elbucko]

It's hard to know how to compare kills in different theaters, but don't underrate the Germans.

Yes it is difficult to make any kind of "fair" comparison. Should the destruction on the ground of an enemy aircraft be "sportingly" counted as a "kill"? Is 5 years on continuos flying duty, as the German pilots on the Eastern Front had to do out of necessity, in any way comparable to a tour of one year, as the Yanks and Brits (though I personally know some Eagle Squadron pilots that flew the whole 5 years). Especially considering that the Yank and Brit pilots had the duty of bomber escort and not the easy picken's the Germans had of the Soviet Air Force. Comparison? Perhaps. Perhaps not, but I don't "overate" the Germans as some are want to do.

During the mid-1930's, German agents poured over the patent offices of as many countries as its agents could access. It comes as no surprise to me that they seem, to many of you, as prolific inventors. The realities prove the Germans at being quite adept at reverse engineering, as were the Japanese (the "Zero" engine was an evolved copy of a British Bristol "Jupiter" engine). It is no surprise that the Germans chose to develop the axial flow jet engine, considering the remarkable showing of Charles Parsons, "Turbinia", in 1894. The Turbinia was a steam turbine of axial flow design that propelled the 100 ft. craft to 40 mph on the water. It is not much of a theoretical jump to replace expanding steam with expanding gas from the combustion of kerosene. Drawings of Parsons steam turbine were found at the Jumo Motor Werke by the allies after the war.

As for pilots, the Germans, as far as I am concerned, have a long way to go to compare to the skill and courage of the British pilot Jeffrey Quill and the American, Carroll MacColpin.

Quill was the Spitfires chief development pilot, as well as scoring two kills during the Battle of Britain. Quill was the test pilot that developed the "Spit" from 5,500 lbs. gross, 1050 hp, 8x.303 Browning machine guns in 1940 to the MK14 Spitfires weight of 12,500 lbs. gross, 2,500 hp, and 4x20mm Hisp-Suisa cannon (5 times the "throw weight of 1940). Quill also developed the carrier version of the Spit, the "Seafire". BTW, the first combat encounter between a Spitfire and an Me/Bf109 was on the 15th. of May, 1940, over France. Pilot Officer Alan Deere shot down 3, Me-109's on that day without a loss to his squadron. So much for the "Invincible" Messerschmitt. As for the Focke Wulfe 190, after the Spitfire Mk-9, there was no superior German fighter in the skies over Europe until the too late Me-262 (Yes, I know, it was all Hitler's fault).

Carroll McColpin was from California and was the American Commander of No. 133 Eagle Squadron. On Oct. 2nd. '42, McColpin went spinner to tail with Werner Molders. The British combat report claims the aerial combat lasted over half an hour. The result was a draw. McColpin, when bounced by Molders was already out of ammunition. He had no choice but to "out fly" the German "Ace".

So, keep it up, you "Kraut Lovers". I can go spinner to rudder with your claims of "German superiority", and if not shoot them down, argue them to a draw.

[Burkeman1]

Great points- but I think American military training will still teach the battles of Manstein and Rommel and other German leaders in WWII against the Russians and even us for years to come. And German Aviation was great. If they got the ideas from the US or Britain- so what- they devolped them- we didn't.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Thanks for the reply.

Hardly a Kraut-lover, I simply respect the German technical expertise.

You've made a good case over certain aircraft, but I have yet to see a point for point rebuttal of the 30 or so points I made off the top of the noggin.

We won, and that's good. They, however, were spookily advance in far too many fields to make me comfortable. You can claim that they were all allied ideas if it makes you feel good, but my mind works a little more rationally than that.

Thanks.

[Southack]

"We won, and that's good. They, however, were spookily advance in far too many fields to make me comfortable."

The Germans had two innovative designs in production during WW2 that had no allied counterpart: The V-2 ICBM and the V-3 stationary supergun. But even for those two technologies, the Germans stole the V-2 hook, line, and sinker...right down to copying American professor Robert Goddard's gyroscopic control and engine venturi...and the V-3 was simply an electricly-triggered version of a pyro-staged American Civil war cannon.

But for everything else, the allies had the same or a superior version. For the German V-1, the U.S. had the JB-10. For the ME262, the U.S. had the P-80.

Where the Germans fell remarkably short, however, was in the areas of mass production, encryption, computers, and atomic warfare, all of which were dominated by the U.S. and UK.

Moreover, the illusion of German technology is primarily due to the fact that the Germans lost the war and had **all** of their top secrets exposed. In contrast, the U.S. was able to maintain its secrets (well, except that the atomic warfare was a bit hard to hide, and the field of computers was so eagerly being pursued in U.S. research centers).

[elbucko]

Do you realize that the combined total of aircraft claimed destroyed by the 105 Luftwaffe pilots, listed in your post, totals 15,422 aircraft? Did you know that the total war production of the P-51 "Mustang" was 15,580 total aircraft? The P-47 "Thunderbolt", 15,660 aircraft.

It doesn't take a German Rocket Scientist to suspect that these claimed number of kills, from a hundred Nazi pilots is equivalent to one aircraft's entire production, is a little exaggerated. The only explanation, that makes any sense of these claims, is that Hitler did not like to hear bad news.

[Burkeman1]

I don't know if these posts can help you guys settle this:

http://www.angelfire.com/ct/ww2europe/stats.html

http://personal.trxinc.com/dpixler/

The second post- if you scroll down a bit says the following:

"U.S. ARMY AIR FORCE CASUALTIES TOTALED 120,000, OF WHOM 40,000 DIED IN COMBAT. ANOTHER 15,000 DIED IN TRAINING OR IN AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES. AIRCRAFT LOSSES WERE 65,200, ONE THIRD OF THESE WERE DESTROYED IN CRASHES IN THE STATES. "

Don't know if that helps.

[Consort]

Do you realize that the combined total...

Yes.

... is a little exaggerated.

Yes.

...Hitler did not like to hear bad news.

Yes, and?

[Burkeman1]

If you will notice- in my previous post- that paragraph states that 120,000 died serving in the US Army Air Force. But only 40'000 in combat? But only a third due to accidents in the US. Did the rest die in Accidents in Europe? And doesn't that number of dead airmen seem a bit high since we only lost about 425,000 in WWII over all?

[elbucko]

"U.S. ARMY AIR FORCE CASUALTIES TOTALED 120,000, OF WHOM 40,000 DIED IN COMBAT.

The US Army Air Corps fought all around the world, not just Europe. To imply that proof of the Luftwaffe's prowess is contained in the 40,000 combat fatalities statistic, is a specious argument at best. It still begs the question that if the Luftwaffe was so good, why did they loose the war. The more likely answer is that, as the Germans lost the air superiority they had at the beginning of the war and could not regain it, the only thing left to do was to lie. Just as we saw in "Baghdad Bob's" reports last April, that; "Iraqi armored units were turning back the American tanks", while the Abrams's tanks were rolling into Baghdad behind him.