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

[Burkeman1]

Historical facts? Yep- we overwhelmed them and won. It still doesn't change the fact they had better stuff than us and a better army.

[squidly]

Here's one of their Berlin to New York and back bombers that never made it off the drawing board, but still...it'd be cool to see it.

I believe two of these were built.

[Southack]

"It still doesn't change the fact they had better stuff than us and a better army."

On June 6, 1944, the U.S. landed a total 6 divisions at and behind Omaha and Utah beaches.

To defend Normandy, the Wehrmacht had 44 full strength divisions.

Needless to say, the Americans went on the attack against not only the Germans entrenched in the Atlantic Wall (Hitler's vaunted and over-hyped defensive positions that had been recently strengthed by Rommel himself), but we went on the attack also against the Wehrmacht divisions in the rear.

The outcome of the superior American forces is a historical fact, even though they were outnumbered on that day.

And it's an easy thing to teach to your children. The date, 6/6/44 matches the disposition of American versus German forces in Normandy.

[Southack]

          The Junkers EF 132 was one of the last aircraft project developments undertaken by Junkers in WWII, and was the culmination of the Ju 287 design started in 1942. The shoulder-mounted wings were swept back at a 35 degree angle and featured a small amount of anhedral. Six Jumo 012 jet engines, each of which developed 2500 kp (5500 lbs) of thrust, were buried in the wing roots. Wind tunnel results showed the advantages of having the engines within the wing, rather than causing drag by being mounted below the wing surfaces. Several wooden mockups were built of the wing sections, in order to find the best way to mount the engines without wasting too much space while at the same time providing maintenance accessibility.  The landing flaps were designed to be split flaps, and the goal was to make the gearing and operation simple. Because of the high placement of the wings to the fuselage, an unbroken bomb bay of 12 meters (39' 4") could be utilized in the center fuselage.  The tail planes were also swept back and the EF 132 had a normal vertical fin and rudder. An interesting landing gear arrangement was planned, that consisted of a nose wheel, tow tandem main wheels beneath the center rear fuselage, and outrigger-type wheels under each outer wing. A fully glazed, pressurized cockpit located in the extreme fuselage nose held a crew of five. Armament consisted of two twin 20mm cannon turrets (one located aft of the cockpit, the other beneath the fuselage) and a tail turret containing another twin 20mm cannon. All of this defensive armament were remotely controlled from the cockpit, and a bomb load of 4000-5000 kg (8818-11023 lbs) was envisioned to be carried.
          A windtunnel model was tested in early 1945, and a 1:1 scale wooden mockup was also built at the Dessau Junkers facility to test the placement of various components, and also to check different air intake openings in the wing leading edge for the jet engines. The development stage had progressed far when the Soviets overran the Dessau complex and took possession of all of the Ju 287 and EF 132 designs and components. The Soviets gave its approval for the bombed out Junkers Dessau factory to be partially rebuilt, the wind tunnels repaired and the jet engine test and manufacturing facilities to be put back into operation.  The wooden mockup was inspected frequently by Soviet officials when the entire complex was carted up and removed to the USSR, along with forcibly removing all Junkers employees in October 1946. Work was begun on a glider to further test the flight handling characteristics, which was reported to be excellent. Construction work had begun on the Ju EF 132 when an order was given to stop all work, and the project was canceled.

[Southack]

"I believe two of these were built."

Only if you count wooden mockups.

[wolficatZ]

A full scale wooden mockup of the EF132 was built but none were ever completed. You can see a lot of it's influence in early Soviet jet bombers, like the M-4 Bison and the T-16 Badger. That's a really nice graphic, notice the Hs293 missile firing, which were built at the Henschel Flugzeugwerke AG Berlin-Schönefeld complex.
What might be down there now?

[SkyPilot]

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".

After the war, the Allied powers were very skeptical of the Luftwaffe's kill claims, until they saw their meticulous documentation and research. The RLM in Berlin were incredibly exacting in their records, as were their standards. Both the US and the British launched investigations into the Luftwaffe, not so much as out of a desire to prove or disprove the Luftwaffe aces claims, but to figure out how the Luftwaffe, outnumbered and outgunned still proved to be one of the most lethal and most highly organized fighting machines in history.

Both the Allied and the Axis pilots required either a witness and/or gun camera footage to claim a kill. Some of the more prolific aces (Hartman, Galland, Priller) had designated wingmen whose primary job it was to tally their leaders kills.

Moreover, the Luftwaffe initiated a stringent "point" system for their pilots. While the allies branded a pilot an "ace" after 5 kills, the Luftwaffe required many more times this number before the full "Experten" lable would be awarded. Please see LUFTWAFFE SCORE SYSTEM

The book The Luftwaffe Diaries was completed in the 1960's, and documented that the Luftwaffe was not only accurate in its claims of kills by its aces, it undercounted many claims. Moreover, the RLM in Berlin was more stringent in its criteria than either London or Washington.

In short---those Luftwaffe aces were not some figment of the Nazi propaganda machine. They were the real.

[graycamel]

To bad our troops were using the French "Chau Chau" machine gun in WWI as it had a clip that was exposed and thus allowed mud and dirt to jam it and was near useless.

Notice the words "French" and "useless" are often in the same sentence?

[graycamel]

Who invented radio? Marconi or Tesla?

Neither one, it was Mahlon Loomis. He gave up after a series of bad luck (fires, recession) and went into dentistry.

[squidly]

Thanks. I knew I'd seen a photo of one, but I guess it was a photo of the wooden model.

[dbehsman]

"What did they ever invent on their own?"

Printing press,
Globe,
Contact lenses,
Refracting telescope,
Bunsen burner,
Geiger Counter,
Kindergarten,
Electron microscope,
GAS POWERED motorcycle,
Beer stein.

This is just the stuff of the top of my head. The point is, they weren't dummies!

[Southack]

"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."

One wonders if that is how polite company describes/hints that it was Howard Hughes flying around in a Jet years before anyone else...

[Prodigal Son]

What did they ever invent on their own?

Well, the automobile for one.

[Prodigal Son]

When Michael Caine in one of the movies based on a Peter Benchley novels ("The Island"?) overcomes his anti-gun instincts and saves his son from pirates with a Twin Fifty.

Aye, that was a good flick. I liked the scene where the pirates had his own son shoot a coconut (or something) out of his hands. "Can you hold still? Now would be a good time".

[RightWhale]

When one adds up all the "kills" the Germans claim

I think what they did was share kills. If two ganged up on a bomber, they would both get credit for the kill. So I was told, anyway.

[Axenolith]

I **** you not, a guy one of my roomates in school knew decided to sell off a stable of cool American cars to buy tanks.

Sold the roomate a 1959 Pontiac Catalina in perfect shape. We debated whether he'd be able to keep it up at the 57 vette or the 70 SS Camaro that had ~70 miles on it...

When I was by his place he had an 8 ton light British tank and was getting the overweight permits to bring his newly aquired Sherman there.

[elbucko]

In short---those Luftwaffe aces were not some figment of the Nazi propaganda machine. They were the real.

With all due respect, the kill records of the German pilots were, in fact, exaggeration at best and propaganda at worst. The two links in your post even admit as much, as this quote from one of your sources elaborates:

"And so it goes. When British fighter pilots overclaim, their optimism is portrayed as laughable; but when German fighter pilots overclaim, Bekker wonders whether the British are telling the truth about their losses. Luftwaffe victories are the result of wonderful machines, courageous aircrews, and brilliant planning; but defeats are the fault of Hitler and Goering.
After a while this adolescent self-justification seems a bit tedious (and irritating, since many of Bekker's readers lack the background that would enable them to put it into perspective)." [from "Luftwaffe Diaries"]

As for the "LUFTWAFFE SCORE SYSTEM" link in your post, it is merely more of the same unsubstantiated propaganda repeated on a web site originating in the Netherlands by a person born in 1971. The site is, "Dedicated to the Luftwaffe", and not likely to be an objective source of facts. Hardly irrefutable proof that the claims of the German pilots are more than propaganda being repeated anew by youthful admirers.

And finally, I know many WWII fighter pilots of both the Royal Air Force and the US Air Corps. I play the bagpipes and I am the "Piper" at the Eagle Squadron Reunions when held on the West Coast. I also play at the request of the RAF in So. Ca. In all candor when asked, many of them don't think the kill records of the Luftwaffe are true. However, some of these pilots add, that if some high scores (in the hundreds) are true, they are not "Air Combat Victories", but are simply murder.

[SkyPilot]

Since the end of the second world war, there have been literally hundreds of books written on this subject, as well as official investigations by all the governments involved.

I can site them, and we can attempt to outpost each other, but I don't think that would be productive. I have no wish to re-fight the second world war. On this subject I ask that we agree to disagree.

[TD911]

1 BF109 to go please.

[StriperSniper]

Looks a lot like a B52, doesn't it,

My first thought, just change the engines and the cockpit. The shape of the rest of the airframe is dead on.