Atzenhof old airport

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Atzenhof old airfield
City of Fürth
Coordinates: 49 ° 29 ′ 52 ″  N , 10 ° 57 ′ 19 ″  E
Height : 305 m above sea level NN
Postal code : 90768
Preserved airfield site, former flight control building, hangar (2004)
Former airport fire department (2014)

The old Atzenhof airport was a diversely used airfield and one of the two former airports in the city of Fürth . The site became a district in 2016.

geography

The location originally belonged to Atzenhof . Since the regional reform in Bavaria and the construction of the Main-Danube Canal , the parcel on which the airfield was located was in the Unterfarrnbach district. The western part of the site is built over with today's port of Fürth . As part of the reorganization of the district boundaries in 2016, the old Fürth airport became a district.

Flying School 3 of the Royal Bavarian Air Force

In 1915, the Royal Bavarian Air Force (1912-1919) began building a military aviation station in Fürth. The Nuremberg – Bamberg railway line , the confluences of Pegnitz , Rednitz and Zenn in the Regnitz and striking church towers were important landmarks at that time , making it easy to find the place in visual flight . Soon afterwards, in October 1916, Aviation School 3 was relocated from Lagerlechfeld to Fürth to start training. Since the buildings - with the exception of an aircraft hangar - were not yet completed, the first flight students had to live in tents on the edge of the airfield. In August 1917, the newly created second replacement aircraft department was relocated to Atzenhof. The staff was also initially quartered in the city. In 1917 construction was pushed ahead and finally the air station was completed in the summer of 1918. There was a large shipyard, nine so-called “normal aircraft hangars”, two makeshift aircraft sheds, a motor vehicle hangar, an engine test bench, a shooting range and other functional and barracks buildings. The Flugwerft is a particularly representative building. A structurally identical building was erected at the Schleissheim aviation station and is now part of the branch of the Deutsches Museum . In addition to the German pilots and observers, pilots of the Ottoman Empire were also trained in Fürth.

Fürth-Nuremberg airport

Fürth on the European air transport network in 1924

Immediately after the end of the First World War , the transition to civil aviation began. At first, discarded military aircraft were used to carry out on-demand flights before the first regular airlines appeared. The end of the burgeoning air traffic threatened with the Versailles Treaty . In August 1920, however, the Reich government succeeded in having the Fürth air port added to the list of international airports. The first scheduled flight landed on December 30, 1920, followed by a permanent airmail route from Munich to Leipzig in March 1921, and the first passenger flights followed in May. The Fürth flight meteorological station, which was equipped with its own Fokker D.VII , was also established at this time . From 1923 to 1927 the number of take-offs and passengers carried increased more than tenfold and in 1926 Fürth was the eighth largest airport in Germany. In 1927 the airport was finally illuminated at night. Nordbayerische Verkehrsflug GmbH (from 1930 Deutsche Verkehrsflug AG) had its headquarters in Fürth-Atzenhof. The Junkers A 50 exhibited in the Deutsches Museum in Munich still bears their insignia.

Junkers

In October 1922, a commercial user could be found in the Junkers factory. The Junkers aircraft works were looking for a base for Junkers air traffic. Junkers finally set up its central maintenance and repair workshop in the large shipyard and finally even the final assembly of the famous Junkers F 13 and G 24 all-metal aircraft was relocated to Fürth. The individual components of the aircraft were delivered by means of the so-called airfield runway. Additional jobs were created through the production of floats for the seaplane variants of the aforementioned models. The Junkers era was not to last long, however, as the Dessau company cleared the Fürth shipyard again in 1929 .

Nuremberg-Fürth airport

Now the city of Nuremberg took over the majority of the shares in the airport and it was renamed Nuremberg-Fürth Airport . On August 20, 1933, civilian flight operations in Fürth-Atzenhof finally ended, because on that day the airlines moved to the now completed Nuremberg-Marienberg Airport .

Military use in the Third Reich

Location of the airfield: red = former grass field from 1918–1945, yellow = paved runway of the US Army
New aircraft yard

After the end of civil aviation, the area was used again for military purposes. Initially, paramilitary activity took place through the establishment of flying clubs and companies. Sportflug GmbH and the Süddeutschland advertising squad already trained pilots for the future air force before 1935 . The only surviving Messerschmitt M17 on display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich still bears the inscription Sportflug GmbH Fürth-Fliegerschule on the vertical stabilizer . Further construction work soon followed to adapt the infrastructure at the Fürth air base to modern requirements. In 1934 and 1935, two hangars, a new shipyard, fire department and command building as well as a large number of barracks buildings were built. The site manager was government building officer Wilhelm Schulte II. After the air force was exposed, an A / B pilot school was established, which started operations with theoretical and practical training. In April 1937, this unit was expanded to a pilot school C, which now also trained with multi-engine aircraft. In 1940 the Fighter Pilot School 4, which was renamed the Jagdgeschwader (JG) 104 on March 19, 1943, moved into Fürth. From now on the focus of training was on fighter pilots. Secondary places were Roth , Herzogenaurach , Buchschwabach , the Unterschlauersbach airfield and Deiningen . In the meantime, the airfield has been used again and again by active aviation associations. From November 1939 to February 1940, the II. Group of Kampfgeschwader 2 , from July to September 1941, the 15th Squadron of Jagdgeschwader 52, and in the final phase of the war, I./KG 30 (December 1944 to February 1945) and II ./KG 51 (April 1945).

Former reception building and aircraft yard (2014)

Military use by the US Army

Buildings preserved to date (2017)

Atzenhof airfield survived the war almost undamaged. It is thanks to the disobedience of the air base commander that the building was not blown up - as provided for in the Nero order - when it was handed over to the Americans on April 19, 1945. First the US Air Force used the area and paved the grass field with sand ladders . The numerous aircraft found in Fürth - including the Bf 109 G&K, Fw 190 A&D, Ju 87 , Si 204 and various training planes - were pushed into a sand pit with bulldozers or scrapped. Then the US Army took over and used the area until September 15, 1993 as Airfield R-28 or "Monteith Barracks". Only the Army built an asphalt runway 670 m × 23 m with orientation 10/28 for their fixed-wing aircraft. In 1956 the “Air Day of Nations” took place at the airfield, which attracted 100,000 visitors. However, the US Army stopped flying with fixed-wing aircraft in the 1960s and only helicopters were stationed. When the US Army returned the airfield site to the Federal Republic, the historic aircraft yard was placed under a preservation order. The other buildings were given a new use.

literature

  • Winfried Roschmann, Udo Sponsel, Bernd Jesussek: The Fürth Hardhöhe. Städtebilder Verlag, Fürth 1999.
  • Renate Trautwein, Oliver Wittmann: Learn to fly in Fürth-Atzenhof. emwe Verlag, Nuremberg 2011.
  • Barbara Ohm ua: Fly, just fly! Genniges Verlag, 1995.
  • Carl Hildebrandt: Broken Eagles paperback series . Volume 1-3, Fighter Pictorials, 1987-89.

Web links

Commons : Flugplatz Atzenhof  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Location of the airport on historical table sheet from 1945.
  2. Location at BayernAtlas
  3. Districts of Fürth 2016 (PDF)
  4. Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45 Germany (1937 Borders). Pp. 200–201  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 21, 2017.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.ww2.dk