BMW aircraft engine factory in Eisenach
| Flugmotorenfabrik Eisenach GmbH BMW Flugmotorenfabrik Eisenach GmbH |
|
|---|---|
| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | 1936 |
| resolution | 1945 |
| Reason for dissolution | Destruction of the plant during an air raid on September 11, 1944 |
| Seat | Eisenach , Germany |
| Number of employees |
|
| Branch | Aircraft engine manufacturer |
The BMW Flugmotorenfabrik Eisenach was a manufacturing company for aircraft engines of the Bayerische Motorenwerke in Eisenach , Thuringia , which existed from 1936 to 1945.
prehistory
The company history of Bayerische Motorenwerke in Munich began during the First World War with the manufacture of aircraft engines of the type BMW IIIa . Motorcycles were built there from 1923, and in 1924 the production of aircraft engines, which had been discontinued after the First World War, was resumed in Munich. BMW took over the Eisenach vehicle factory in 1928 and began producing automobiles there, today BMW's main business area.
After the seizure of power of the NSDAP increased with the start upgrade the air force mid-1930s, the demand for aircraft engines sharply. The capacities of the Munich plant were no longer sufficient for the needs of the Air Force, especially the BMW 132 for the large-scale production of the Junkers Ju 52 , and so BMW began building aero engines in Eisenach in addition to automobiles and motorcycles. Aero engine production was outsourced to the "Flugmotorenfabrik Eisenach GmbH, Eisenach" founded for this purpose on October 16, 1936. After a capital increase to five million Reichsmarks , the German Reich held 70 percent of the company's shares through the Deutsche Luftfahrt bank . By February 1940 BMW had bought back these shares. Since December 1939, the company has been operating under the name “BMW Flugmotorenfabrik Eisenach GmbH”.
Dürrerhof plant
On instructions from the Reich Aviation Ministry , BMW was required to outsource aircraft engine production from the civil vehicle plant in downtown Eisenach. For this purpose, from March 1936 to January 1937 near Hötzelsroda , northeast of Eisenach, in the corridor of the Dürrerhof manor house , a new plant was built in a wooded area, initially consisting of three production and manufacturing halls, an administration building with a canteen, a training workshop, a boiler house and Test stands. Internally it was run as BMW Plant 3 .
The sharply increased demand for aircraft engines led from September 1939 to an expansion of the factory facilities with a large double hall made of self-supporting concrete elements and a building with twelve test stands. The plant was supplied with energy from its own power plant. The plant was considered one of the most modern of its time. In 1940 it had 2,000 employees. The number of employees rose to 5,000 by the time it was closed in 1945. In 1943 40% and in 1945 60% of the workforce were foreign workers. To meet the staffing needs was on the premises, a satellite camp of Buchenwald concentration camp with the code name "Emma", were housed in the up to 650 people, furnished.
Products
Initially, the plant mainly produced engines of the BMW 132 series , air-cooled nine-cylinder radial engines with an output of up to 960 hp, which were based on a license from the US Pratt & Whitney R-1690 . The engines were used in numerous aircraft of the time, including the Ju 52 .
From 1944 the double radial engine type BMW 801 was refurbished and repaired, which was used in the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 with an output of 1700 hp .
In addition to the construction of engines, the factory also reconditioned worn or damaged engines.
Subcamp Emma
From 1940 onwards, large numbers of prisoners of war are documented in Eisenach. Many of them were used as slave labor in the BMW aircraft engine plant in Eisenach. They were initially housed in barracks throughout the city. The Emma subcamp was set up in April 1944 on a factory floor of the Dürrerhof plant. Prisoners from the Allach satellite camp and later from Buchenwald were transferred here. The camp was occupied by an average of 300 to 500 people.
After the last of the Allied air raids on Eisenach , the satellite camp was evacuated on February 16, 1945, and the 383 prisoners at that time were transferred to Buchenwald.
Destruction and dismantling of the plant
In an air raid on September 11, 1944 , the BMW plant was attacked by 71 Boeing B-17 bombers of the 8th Air Force of the USAAF with around 20 tons of bombs (807 bombs). The factory site received 63 hits, 17 of them on buildings. As a result of the bomb hits, fires broke out in the basements where extremely flammable materials were stored. The fire destroyed part of the plant and largely paralyzed production. At this point in time, large parts of the armaments production had already been outsourced to the Werra potash district , including the former Abteroda potash mine , where the Abteroda concentration camp was specially built to meet personnel requirements .
After the occupation of Thuringia by US occupation troops, all available documents and financial resources as well as management personnel of the aircraft engine plant were brought to the BMW main plant in Munich . After the US had withdrawn, the Soviet occupation troops began to completely dismantle the plant in summer 1945. The surviving machines and aircraft parts were brought to the Soviet Union and the factory buildings demolished by the early 1960s, with part of the demolition material being reused for the military accommodation at the nearby Kindel military training area .
The factory premises at Dürrerhof were subsequently used as a landfill. Apart from the ruins of an outbuilding, there are no structural remains of the plant. The striking factory gate, which was dismantled in 1946 and moved to the grounds of the Eisenach vehicle factory, was the only building in the aircraft engine plant that remained, and from then on served as the main entrance to the Eisenach automobile factory . It housed the company security and a branch of the People's Police . Today it is the seat of the foundation automobile world eisenach and is under monument protection.
On the road leading from Eisenach to Hötzelsroda, a memorial stone has been standing near the former plant entrance since 2006 in memory of the concentration camp inmates of the “Emma” subcamp and the forced laborers in the former aircraft engine plant.
literature
- Eberhard Hälbig: Eisenach aircraft engine factory 1939-1945 . Rockstuhl Verlag, Bad Langensalza 2016. ISBN 978-3-95966-136-2
- Eberhard Spee: The BMW aircraft engine plant Eisenach / Dürrerhof , publisher: Stiftung Automobile Welt Eisenach, 2017
- Till Lorenzen: BMW as a manufacturer of aircraft engines 1926–1940: state control measures and entrepreneurial scope for action , Oldenbourg Verlag, 2008
Individual evidence
- ^ Constanze Werner: War economy and forced labor at BMW . Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-57792-1 . P. 34.
- ^ Commemoration of the Emma subcamp, eisenachonline.de, April 11, 2020
- ^ Frank Baranowski: Abteroda men's camp, BMW (“Bär / Anton”). In: nszwangsarbeit.de , 2004.
- ↑ Everything for the preservation of the automobile construction museum in Eisenach. In: eisenachonline.de , January 3, 2013.
- ↑ Memorial stone inaugurated in memory of concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers at Dürrerhof. ( Memento from November 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: eisenach.de , September 1, 2006.