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

[UnBlinkingEye]

It took almost 60 years to find these... how long will it take to find Iraq's WMD

LOL

I guess Bush is off the hook, courtesy of the Stasi.

[Southack]

USAF Museum

Northrop XP-79B "Flying Ram" Length : 4.27m Wing Span : 11.58m Height : 2.13m Wing Area : 25.83 Square Meter All-Up Weight : 3,932Kg Engine : Westinghouse 19-B X 2 Max Speed : 880Km/h Cruis Speed : 772Km/h Range : 1,598Km Service Ceiling : 12,192m Crew : 1 Armament : 12.7mm Machine Gun X 4 First Flight: Nov 1944

[elbucko]

When one adds up all the "kills" the Germans claim, not just the ones listed, the total exceeds the number of the loss totals for all allied aircraft. I think the Krauts were counting their ammunition as "kills". In the end, it doesn't matter anyway. The German's lost.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Pretty weird, thanks for the ping!

[Consort]

[Live free or die]

Looks a lot like a B52, doesn't it, with the over wing and underwing mounted engines? Maybe they were copying heavy bomber design from shot-down US aircraft.

I woulda said a mix of B-36 and B-47 what with the forward section and the engines arrayed as they are. I'm not sure what you're looking at with the 'underwing engines'. I think you're looking at the HS-293 air-to-air missiles (another German innovation) mounted on the wings.

[Burkeman1]

Go do a google search on it. It is commonly accepted that Germany was the leading scientific country of the age in the early 20th century. But if you want a more down to home example- 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.

Americans were far more ingenious in new inventions but once invented- the Germans exploited them far better than us.

[Experiment 6-2-6]

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

Not to gets off topic, or nuthin', but what exactly is this 140 km of them?

Is that, like, if put end to end, they would be 140 kilometers high?

Somebody clue me in here...

[elbucko]

I'd rather have a Spitfire MkV. However the Spit MKXIV was more than a match for any German prop aircraft and was the first to "kill" an Me-262.

[Southack]

LOCKHEED F-80C "SHOOTING STAR"

The Shooting Star was the first USAF aircraft to exceed 500 mph in level flight, the first American jet airplane to be manufactured in large quantities and the first USAF jet to be used in combat. Designed in 1943, the XP-80 made its maiden flight on Jan. 8, 1944. Several early P-80s were sent to Europe for demonstration, but WW II ended before the aircraft could be employed in combat. (The aircraft was redesignated in 1948 when "P" for "Pursuit" was changed to "F" for "Fighter.") Of 1,731 F-80s built, 798 were F-80Cs.

On Nov. 8, 1950, an F-80C flown by Lt. Russell J. Brown, flying with the 16th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, shot down a Russian-built MiG-15 in the world's first all-jet fighter air battle.

SPECIFICATIONS
Span: 38 ft. 10 1/2 in.
Length: 34 ft. 6 in.
Height: 11 ft. 4 in.
Weight: 16,856 lbs. max.
Armament: Six .50-cal. machine guns and eight 5 in. rockets or 2,000 lbs. bombs
Engine: Allison J33 of 5,400 lbs. thrust (with water-alcohol injection)
Cost: $93,456
Serial number: 49-696
C/N: 080-2444

PERFORMANCE
Maximum speed: 580 mph (928 kmh).
Cruising speed: 437 mph (700 kmh).
Range: 1,090 miles
Service Ceiling: 46,800 ft.

[VOA]

Let me know if a Me262 or Focke wolfe is there, I'll buy it and restore it :)

As for the Me262, maybe you'll like to pass the time checking out a NEW Me262
as the excavation in East Berlin drags on...

http://www.stormbirds.com/project/index.html

[elbucko]

Americans were far more ingenious in new inventions but once invented- the Germans exploited them far better than us.

Respectfully, I wholeheartedly disagree.

[Southack]

Bell XP-59 Airacomet

USA

America's first jet plane offered only a small advantage over conventional piston-engined fighters and was confined to the training role.

Described as one of the best-kept secrets of World War II, the Airacomet was the first jet-propelled airplane in the United States. It was such a hush-hush project that hundreds of flights had been made in the radically new machine before it was announced to the public in 1943.

The P-59 had its inception on August 28, 1941, when Lawrence Bell, President of Bell Aircraft, was summoned to Washington, DC, for a conference. He had been called to the nation's capital by General H. H. Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Force, to discuss the possibility of designing a single-seat fighter around the jet engine that had been evolved by a Royal Canadian Air Force officer, Group Commander Frank Whittle. Mr. Bell replied that he was definitely interested in the project and would put his design engineers to work on the plane without delay.

At that time the Bell company was working on a new twin-engined fighter for the Air Force, under the designation XP-59. In order to preserve the cloak of secrecy, the original project was canceled and the new twin jet fighter was given the same designation.

To conceal the jet engine power source, a wooden propeller was attached to the nose for ground transportation.

Bell Aircraft engineers immediately began design work on the new project, and by March 1942 they were ready to start construction on three XP-59A's. The planes were to be powered by two 1,250 pounds-thrust turbojet engines built under license by General Electric.

The first XP-59A was shipped in secrecy to Edwards Air Force Base in California, where it was flown for the first time on October 1, 1942, by Robert Stanley, Bell's chief test pilot.

During the test program a formation of P-38 Lightnings on a training mission over the Mojave Desert was overtaken by an Airacomet. The P-38 pilots were puzzled when they saw the plane with no propeller. Stranger still, the Airacomet pilot was wearing a derby hat and had a cigar in his mouth. After a few seconds, the jet pilot tipped his hat politely and pulled away from the formation. This was the first time that Air Force personnel, except for a select few at the test base, had ever seen a jet propelled airplane.

A P-63 Kingcobra and a P-59A Airacomet flying together. Neither plane was outstanding but both were unique.

Following the test program, the Air Force ordered 13 YP-59As. Next was a contract for 80 P-59As. Only 30 of these had been delivered when the contract was canceled on October 30, 1943. Unlike the Messerschmitt Me-262, and the Gloster Meteor, the airplane had been successful as a test vehicle, but it offered only a small advantage over conventional piston-engined fighters. No P-59s ever entered squadron service but were used for test purposes and as trainers for jet pilots.

[Burkeman1]

Well- it was true. Their weapons were better than ours in both wars (the two exceptions being the M1 infantry rifle of the Americans and our long range bombers.) They practically invented the entire modern chemical industry and pionered whole new fields in physics. Alot of this was because of German Jews ironically.

[Live free or die]

I remember this plane! Wasn't this the one they had counter-rotating props on at first but changed to jets because the noise of the two props (the tips of which were always at mach buffet) made so much noise that carrier deck hands were going deaf even with hearing protection?

[Burkeman1]

Well the Germans actually deployed jets during WWII- and under heavy bombardment. We never did.

[PLMerite]

The father of a friend of mine was in Germany at the end of the war (Airborne), and supposedly he was trying to figure out a way to disassemble an Me-262 and ship it back.

Too bad he didn't figure it out.

[Chad Fairbanks]

You don't happen to read Clive Cussler novels, do you?

I do. Been reading him since the beginning. Can't name my favorite, because they (The Dirk Pitt ones) are all so good. Havn't gotten into the newer 'NUMA' ones yet, but they are on my to-read list...

[Final Authority]

Are you aware that Huntsville Alabama had a huge population of German scientists and engineers producing the equipment that would put an American on the Moon. Goddard did not envision a turbo-pump to force fuel into the rocket motor nor did he ever design a true inertial guidance system for delivering a vehicle to a pre-destined location. The Germans certainly did it many times over. Although the jet engine was ostensibly invented by Whittle in England, Ohaim (sic) in Germany developed the axial turbine at about the same time and because of it made for the practical application of jet propulsion. Whittle's centrifugal design, although functional, was never practical beyond minimal requirements. Although Germans may not have invented the telephone a man from Italy did transmit a radio message. Although a German did not invent the electric lamp, without a vacuum pump obtained from Germany such a lamp could never have been built. One must consider, it is not about national origin, it is about determination and intelligence that forms outcomes.

[elbucko]

You get the ME 109 and I'll get a P 51 mustang and I'll meet you at 10,000 ft. Good luck.

Equal pilots?! My money is on the Mustang.

BTW, you had better make that 25,000ft. That's the altitude their engines were designed to operate.