German aircraft registration until 1945
As a German aircraft registration to 1945 all labels apply to aircraft that have been painted on the basis of laws, regulations, decrees or instructions to the source, the existing approval and eventual membership in a particular establishment of an aircraft at any time to determine. The letters of the alphabet and the digits from 1 to 9 and the zero are used for this. An additional distinguishing feature are the serial numbers, which were initially set by the manufacturers themselves at their own discretion, but were later set up according to rules set by the Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM). In this later form, the up to 8 or 9-digit numbers also contained information about the aircraft type and design.
Types of marks and the time of their use
Civil registration number
Empire
On January 1, 1914, the air traffic regulations of the German Aviation Association appeared, in which guidelines for the marking of aircraft were laid down for the first time. At that time, the association issued the consecutively numbered pilot's licenses for pilots in the name of the FAI , there were no official regulations. The rules provided for the letter "D" for Germany enclosed in a circle, an owner designation with one or more letters and a distinguishing number.
This form of license plate could not spread very much because eight months later the First World War broke out and civil aviation practically came to a standstill. Nevertheless, it was theoretically valid until the end of 1918.
On December 4, 1918, the Reich Office of the Interior created the Reich Air Office , the head of which was appointed August Euler , the holder of the German pilot's license number 1 . Only three days later, an “Ordinance concerning the provisional regulation of aviation law” was issued, in which the Reich Aviation Authority was authorized to allow airlines and their aircraft to operate in the air pending final regulation and to lay down provisional labeling regulations. The latter were largely based on the 1914 regulation, but without the "D". The license plate of an aircraft consisted only of the abbreviation of the owner's name and a number, with which each owner consecutively numbered his own aircraft fleet, starting with "1".
Weimar Republic
On May 2, 1919 and July 3, 1920, the responsible committees dealt with drafts of an annex to the planned air traffic law, which contained forms of marking that differed slightly from each other and from the one in use. But none of them came into play.
At the beginning of March 1919, the Reich Air Office issued “Principles and Conditions for Air Traffic Licensing” based on its authorization, according to which for the first time the licensing, issuing of license plates and registration of aircraft should be operated by a central body. The "aircraft role A" was set up to record all types of aircraft. The aircraft were now labeled with the nationality code “D”, a one to four-digit number without a hyphen in front of it, but sometimes with a point.
Due to the large number of civilian war aircraft used by many small and very small companies, the Reich Air Office had to revoke all previously issued approvals (around 600) one year later due to the Peace Treaty of Versailles, which had now come into force , and subject the aircraft to a new approval procedure.
From May 22, 1920, the revoked registration certificates were replaced by new ones, whereby stricter standards had to be applied. With this new registration, aircraft that were already registered could now also receive new numbers. The best-known example is the first Junkers F 13 , the maiden flight of which took place long before the introduction of aircraft role A and which therefore only appears in it as D 183. In the newly issued "aircraft role B", it received the D-1 mark. The nationality code “D” with a one to four-digit number with or without a hyphen, sometimes with a dot, was to be attached to the aircraft. There was also a 75 cm wide strip in the direction of flight, with monoplane on the top and bottom of the wing, right and left, with biplanes on the top of the upper and the underside of the lower wing, also right and left. Furthermore, a marking by the Inter-Allied Aviation Monitoring Commission (ILÜK) was necessary, the so-called ILÜK star.
Third Reich
This type of marking, from 1926 without the latter two markings, was used until 1934. It had the great advantage that from the end of the 1920s the aircraft, which were increasingly being used for military purposes, could also be hidden inconspicuously. On the other hand, the soaring numbers assigned to the still suspicious victorious powers ( signatory states ) of the Versailles Treaty indicated the rapid growth of the German aircraft population, the highest number of which was 3463. That was probably the main reason for the change of the German labeling system. Before that, however, there had been a change in the external appearance of the German aircraft. In a Reichsgesetzblatt published on 8 July 1933 Act "aviation Flag Regulation" was on both sides of the vertical tail-operated hitherto Reich flag in the form of black-white-red horizontal stripes, now on the port side by the new swastika flag to replace.
With effect from March 20, 1934, the Reich Ministry of Aviation therefore issued an ordinance in which the previous numbers were replaced by four letters. The first of these now designated the class of the aircraft according to the following table:
| class | Registration mark | Weight | Engines | people |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | DY ... | up to 500 kg | single engine | up to 2 |
| A2 | DE ... | up to 1000 kg | 1 to 2 motors | to 3 |
| B1 | TUE ... | up to 2500 kg | 1 to 2 motors | to 3 |
| B2 | DO... | up to 2500 kg | 1 to 2 motors | until 6 |
| C1 | YOU... | over 2500 kg | single engine | more than 6 |
| C2 | THERE... | over 2500 kg | multi-engine | more than 6 |
The two C-classes merged into C around mid-1939, but this only had an effect on the entries in the aircraft license. The weight classes and the different letters U and A remained.
For seaplanes , the following values applied:
| A1 | up to 600 kg |
| A2 | up to 2200 kg |
| B. | up to 5500 kg |
| C. | over 5500 kg |
This type of civil license plate remained in use until the end of the war, although there was another, albeit not major, change on September 15, 1934. The black-white-red stripes on the starboard side of the vertical tail unit were also replaced by the swastika flag. From the beginning of the war, understandably, the number of aircraft that were still flying in the civilian sector fell sharply very quickly.
The aircraft, which were increasingly put into service for military purposes from 1933 on, could be accommodated well and inconspicuously with the new license plate form, as was the case with the number plates. Test aircraft of new types, which were developed from the outset for purely military purposes, had civilian license plates until mid-1942 as long as they were in test operation at the companies. From July 1942 onwards, all civil registration marks (the official name) on these aircraft have also disappeared and been replaced by military ones.
Military plates
In the military sector, too, there were initially no license plates. It was not until shortly before the beginning of the First World War that the Iron Cross was introduced as a symbol of nationality. Its various embodiments, including the so-called bar cross, must be treated separately from this illustration.
In the post-war period and because of Versailles, there were no longer any official military aircraft and, despite the lifting of all other building restrictions after 1926, none were allowed to be built. Nevertheless, the Reichswehr and the Navy tried in every possible way to lay the foundation of a "peace air force", as it was called in the planning documents at the time. Think of the cooperation with the Soviet Union , which provided the Lipetsk test and training facility from 1925 to 1932, of the activities of various German companies abroad, or of the Severa company, which was a disguised naval facility. All these airplanes, which were built for military purposes in the late twenties and especially in the first of the thirties and paid for with tax revenue, could easily be registered and fly under both the number and the new letter designations. So it is a fairy tale to say that the establishment of an air force only began with the creation of the RLM in 1933. From this point on, however, work was carried out specifically towards this and all existing plans were implemented with vigor in secret.
On February 26, 1935, the time had come for the unmasking of the "Risk Air Force", which had been built up until then under the strangest camouflage names. Risk because they were not sure about the behavior of the main signatories of Versailles in the face of this clear violation of the treaty. This early German Air Force would have had no chance against the intervention of these highly armed states . Except for diplomatic protests, nothing came of it ... The construction, albeit always accompanied by difficulties of all kinds, could continue. A distinction between military and civil aircraft by the number plates was no longer possible.
Only an order from the Reich Minister of Aviation and Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force (RdL and ObdL) on August 8, 1935 brought about a fundamental change. The black bar cross with white edging on its long sides, similar to what was customary towards the end of the First World War, was for those who were already ready for use, in the order as “upgraded, ie. H. permanently equipped with weapons or bombing devices ”was introduced as a new national emblem. In addition, there were their own license plates, which now replaced the civilian ones that were still used up to now. You now saw z. B. looks like this:
21 + B 83
where the 2 designated the air circle and the 1 said that the aircraft belonged to the first squadron set up in this air circle. The B behind the Balkenkreuz indicated that it is the second aircraft in the squadron, namely in the 8th squadron, which is part of the III. Group (= 3) of the squadron. There were also special features, the treatment of which would lead too far here.
All training, training, instruction, travel and transport aircraft of the Luftwaffe kept their previous civil registration plates. Training aircraft that were equipped with weapons or bomb devices, however, had bar crosses on the outside of the top and bottom of the wings and on the fuselage sides in the middle of the letter number, behind the class letter, in addition to these license plates.
School license plate
Another order dated January 26, 1937, concerned the aircraft of the flying schools, flying replacement departments and flying training centers, which were "constantly upgraded". You now received an S as the first letter, followed by the number of the air circle, the bar cross and a consecutive number made up of a letter (AZ) and a number (01-99), e.g. B.
S4 + A 11
In the same order it was stipulated that “all other aircraft retain their previous registration numbers with D and letter groups”.
Transfer indicator
In 1937 the production of aircraft in the now fully operational aircraft industry was so great that the issuance of the registration number no longer threatened to keep pace. Therefore, with an ordinance dated September 23, 1937, the RLM transferred to the industry the responsibility for issuing its own, only temporarily valid license plates for military aircraft for transfer from the headquarters of the manufacturer or repair shop to the military offices, where the aircraft then received their final association license plate. These license plates, which were only used for a short time, were therefore initially only to be painted on the undersides of the wings with washable black or white paint. It was only in a supplement dated January 16, 1939 that these transfer marks were also ordered to be attached to both sides of the fuselage. They consisted of two groups of 2 letters each, the first of which was derived from the company name, e.g. B. DO for Dornier, HE for Heinkel or FO for Focke-Wulf. This first group of letters could never begin with a vowel in order to avoid confusion with the D mark. So stayed z. B. only TG left for the ATG company. The second group, after the Balkenkreuz, basically consisted of a consonant and a vowel in any order. A transfer number for a He 46, which was delivered by Bücker to a reconnaissance unit, saw z. B. looks like this:
BU+RE.
This method was used by almost all companies involved in the manufacture, maintenance and repair of aircraft. Each of these marks could of course be reassigned from time to time because they were only used for a short time, which also happened frequently. There was also another type of release plate that was used for delivering aircraft abroad from about 1938 onwards. The corresponding order or the order to do so have unfortunately not yet been found. Their existence can therefore only be proven from the accumulation of corresponding entries in flight logs. They were normal civil license plates of the corresponding aircraft class, which differed from the mass of the others only in two peculiarities. The second letter was always an X, a Y or a Z. But the third was also one from the very bottom of the alphabet, mostly V or W, but also again X, Y or Z. The earliest identifier of this type was D-AYWI, with which almost all Do 24s built for the Netherlands were brought there. But also very many Bü 131 and Bü 133 were transferred to Hungary with similarly structured license plates, such as B. D-EYZE or D-EYWA. D-AXVN to D-AXVV were also used for the transfer from Do 17 to Bulgaria. Naturally, all of these terms could be used multiple times.
Change of the national emblem on the rudder
By order of December 8, 1938, but with effect from January 1, 1939, the red ribbon of the swastika flag on both sides of the rudder was removed. The black swastika remained in its place, was now only set off by a white border and this in turn by a thin black line from the now camouflaged background. This now fixed form of sovereignty and license plates and their locations was implemented by the major manufacturers for their aircraft in factory standards. At the same time, all military aircraft that previously flew with the D and the four letters have now been made recognizable as military. With them the D got through
WL-. . . .
replaced. All new aircraft delivered by the manufacturers after January 1st were given license plates that were changed in this way, but by no means all of the aircraft that were already in use at schools and used in flight operations were repainted. The D- has also been replaced by WL- on all military training, training, instruction, travel and transport aircraft of the Air Force with registration numbers according to number 1, last paragraph.
Introduction of the association markings
Around July 1939, the identification numbers of the task forces were changed again. Each of them was assigned an association number consisting of a letter and a number, which could also be in the reverse order. By the beginning of the war, all of these units' aircraft, which had been combined into air fleets since February of that year, had been repainted in the new shape. So had z. B. the first active transport wing of the Air Force, the
Kampfgeschwader z.b.V. 1 1Z+. .
received as association mark. The abbreviation z. b. V. stands for for special use . This form was used by all associations until the end of the war, with the exception of the fighters, for whose aircraft, as before, completely different rules applied. It took a chapter of its own to go into them.
The oversized bar crosses
The experiences at the beginning of the attack on Poland had shown that the early recognizability of the nationality plates of the German aircraft in the previous shape and size was not guaranteed. In many cases, their own aircraft had also been attacked by their own fighters or, what happened even more frequently, were attacked or even shot down by their own flak. The countermeasure that was taken went so far beyond the target that it was quickly withdrawn. Only the white angles on the crosses, which were much wider than before, remained in the end.
First, however, the order of September 29, 1939 ordered the installation of oversized crosses on the upper and lower sides of the wings. This was expressly valid for "all Wehrmacht aircraft (including training, training, courier and liaison aircraft) and government aircraft" (the latter with a few, individually listed exceptions). On the other hand, all other aircraft (industry and scheduled air traffic) were spared this arrangement, which certainly caused high costs, but was clearly nonsensical. Well-known pictures of such disfigured aircraft show that any camouflage painting had become meaningless. The measure was taken back to "normal" just three weeks later.
Trunk identifier
In a very extensive order dated October 18, 1939, all machines now designated as "war aircraft", ie. H. practically for all aircraft of the Luftwaffe, the previous civil license plates, as far as they were still in use, replaced by completely new, purely military license plates. These markings, known as trunk markings, had a lot of similarity in appearance to the transfer markings mentioned under point 3. They also consisted of four letters, the first of which was still not allowed to be a vowel in order to avoid confusion with the still valid civil registration marks. However, there was no longer any connection with company names. His life record was kept under this master number (Stkz.), Which was firmly connected to the aircraft like its work number, regardless of which association number it had in the course of its life. The manufacturing companies received Stkz for their newly built series aircraft. allocated in blocks, e.g. B. Fieseler CQ + QA to CQ + QZ or VA + UA to VA + UZ for Fi 156 aircraft. Not all of the 26 possible combinations were always used. Schools, where almost all planes still flew with the D or WL letter markings, received stamped blocks for them. The repainting and attachment of crosses took some time, so that until the summer of 1940 aircraft with civil registration numbers can still be found in the flight logs. From the entries in it, however, the number plate blocks assigned to them can also be determined for many schools for this period of time, from which the affiliation to or the origin of a certain school or institution can be deduced in many aircraft on pictures, but only for the time of the changeover .
The association numbers were used until the end of the war, not quite as long as the Stkz. In July 1944, probably in the course of radical austerity measures and simplifications, they were completely abolished and replaced by the serial numbers that were to be painted on both sides of the rudder unit with numbers up to 25 cm high in white or black. The various modifications of the national emblem (swastika) on the rudder unit and the bar crosses on the wings and fuselages will not be discussed further here.
See also
literature
Books
- Kössler: Transporter, who knows them?
- Heinz J. Nowarra : Iron Cross and Balkenkreuz
- Ries: Markings and camouflages of the Luftwaffe , Volumes I to IV
- Ries: Research on the German Aircraft Role , Part I 1919–1934
- Ullmann: Surface protection processes and coating materials of the German aviation industry and air force 1935–1945
Trade journals
- Luftfahrt International (small booklets), No. 6/887 and 25/3957
- Luftfahrt International , issues 6 to 8/80, 2 to 8 and 10 to 11/81
- Jet & Prop 6/01 and 1/03
- Federal Archives Freiburg
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Marian Zgórniak: Europe on the Abyss-1938 . In: European Academy (Hrsg.): Documents and writings of the European Academy Otzenhausen . tape 100 . LIT Verlag Münster, 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6062-0 , ISSN 0944-7431 , p. 57 (374 p., Limited preview in Google Book search).