Messerschmitt AG

Messerschmitt AG
legal form	Corporation
founding	1938
resolution	1968 Merger with Bölkow GmbH to form Messerschmitt-Bölkow GmbH, 1969 further merger with Hamburger Flugzeugbau GmbH to form Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm GmbH (MBB)
Seat	Haunstetten (now Augsburg ), Germany
management	Willy Messerschmitt (CEO)
Branch	Planes and vehicles

The Messerschmitt AG was in Haunstetten (today after Augsburg -based amalgamated) German aircraft manufacturer , and later automobile manufacturer . It merged in 1969 to form Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm .

history

Messerschmitt Bf 109 E in the Deutsches Museum in Munich

The company's history begins in a different company: from 1927 Willy Messerschmitt worked at Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, where he gathered a development team that was conceptually and visionary at the time when it went completely new ways in aircraft development. With the Bf 108 "Taifun" touring aircraft and the Bf 109 fighter aircraft , Messerschmitt and his team won several development competitions up until the second half of the 1930s. The Bf 109 and Bf 110 models were the company's high-volume models and the Me 323 large-capacity transporter was the largest land plane of that time. On July 11, 1938, the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG became Messerschmitt AG with the main factory in Augsburg. Willy Messerschmitt became CEO of the new company. Together with Messerschmitt GmbH, which has existed as Bayerische Flugzeugwerke Regensburg GmbH since 1936, with plants in Regensburg and Obertraubling , the group's capacity was significantly expanded. As a branch of Messerschmitt AG, Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke GmbH (WNF) later joined the group of companies. Numerous prototypes were built that did not reach series production. The Me 210 designed as the successor to the Bf 110 turned into a complete debacle and brought the company into serious trouble. The Me 410 , which was further developed from this , was a better design, but came too late for the changed war situation. So the Bf 110 was built in the changed role as a night fighter. During the Second World War , however, Messerschmitt AG was also responsible for the development of some pioneering types of aircraft. With the Me 262 "Schwalbe" , Messerschmitt developed the world's first mass-produced aircraft with a jet engine and built the prototype of the Me 163 "Komet" by aircraft designer Alexander Lippisch , the only fighter aircraft with a rocket engine up to that point .

Since Messerschmitt AG was founded, all aircraft developed from then on have been given the abbreviation "Me" (instead of "Bf"). All aircraft types that existed to date officially retained their abbreviation "Bf", although there were overlaps, as, for example, the Bf 109 or Bf 110 sometimes appeared in documents as the Me 109 or Me 110.

Messerschmitt Me 262 "Schwalbe", first operational military aircraft with jet propulsion

On August 17, 1943, Messerschmitt GmbH in Regensburg was attacked for the first time by Allied bomber groups (see also Operation Double Strike ). Until then, the Bf (Me) 109 was produced there. From 1944, attempts were made to decentralize production and, as part of the so-called U relocation , to outsource it to hidden factories, for example to an underground tunnel system in Oberammergau . At least from the autumn of 1943 the Allies were informed of the exact location plans of the production facilities. The Austrian resistance group around Chaplain Heinrich Maier succeeded in submitting exact plans to the American Office of Strategic Services and the British secret service SOE. The allied bombers were able to make precise air strikes with the sketches of the production facilities. In 1944 and 1945, in cooperation with DEST , extensive and top-secret assembly line production was carried out at the Gusen II concentration camp near Linz under the camouflage name " B8 Bergkristall " . In 1945 the last Me 262 manufactured was flown to Munich .

Messerschmitt cabin scooter

In the 1950s, the Messerschmitt cabin scooter was also produced as a contribution to the mass motorization that was beginning at that time . The engineering of this original vehicle is thanks to the engineer Fritz Fend . From 1955 to 1957 Messerschmitt in Augsburg produced Vespa motor scooters under license. Here the main components were obtained from the manufacturer Piaggio in Italy and with parts from u. a. German suppliers (e.g. Bosch, Hella, VDO, Scharlach, Denfeld).

As part of the rearmament of the Federal Republic from 1955, Messerschmitt AG and Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke founded the Flugzeug-Union Süd GmbH (FUS) to manufacture the Fouga Magister . The final assembly took place between 1958 and 1961 at the new Messerschmitt shipyard in Riem . In addition, Messerschmitt was responsible for the maintenance of all Bundeswehr trainers at the time; in addition to the Magister, these were the T-6 and T-33 .

From 1961 a new shipyard and assembly company of Flugzeug-Union Süd GmbH was established at the Manching location and the Riem location was subsequently given up. The F / RF / TF-104G "Starfighter" fighter aircraft was assembled in Manching and looked after during - more than 10,000 flight hours accident-free - test operation. Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke GmbH, which specialized in projects in the space sector , belonged to Messerschmitt AG .

When the Heinkel family brought their shares in Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke to Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke in 1964 , Messerschmitt AG took over the 50% share in FUS, which became a 100% subsidiary of Messerschmitt AG.

Before the merger with Bölkow GmbH in 1968 to form Messerschmitt-Bölkow GmbH, in May 1967 Messerschmitt AG divided up its operating assets with holdings in Junkers-Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke GmbH, Hispano Aviacion SA , Entwicklungsring Süd GmbH , and Augsburger Flughafen GmbH and the Gesellschaft für Flugtechnik GmbH to the subsidiary Flugzeug-Union Süd GmbH (now Messerschmitt-Werke Flugzeug-Union Süd GmbH). Messerschmitt AG itself was not included in the merger, was initially retained as a real estate and property company and was later renamed Raulino Treuhand- und Verwaltungs-AG.

The further merger with Hamburger Flugzeugbau GmbH (1969), a subsidiary of Blohm & Voss , gave rise to Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), the largest German aerospace company at the time. In 1989, MBB was taken over by Deutsche Aerospace AG (DASA) . This went into 2000 in EADS (today Airbus Group ).

literature

• Peter Schmoll: The Messerschmitt Works in World War II. ISBN 3-931904-38-5
• Hans J. Ebert: Messerschmitt Bölkow Blohm: 111 MBB aircraft 1913–1973. ISBN 3-87943-292-9
• Willy Radinger, Walter Schick: Messerschmitt secret projects. Aviatic Verlag, ISBN 3-925505-14-8

Web links

Commons : Messerschmitt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Archives of the German Air Force 1935–1945
• Messerschmitt Club Germany
• Underground testing and production facility in Oberammergau (Bavaria), "Cerusit" underground relocation
• Underground production facility in Eschenlohe (Bavaria), "Ente" relocation to the underground

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Hansjakob Stehle “The spies from the rectory” in Die Zeit from January 5, 1996.
2. ↑ Peter Broucek: The Austrian Identity in the Resistance 1938-1945. In: Military resistance: studies on the Austrian state sentiment and Nazi defense. Böhlau Verlag , 2008, p. 163 , accessed on August 3, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Andrea Hurton, Hans Schafranek: In the network of traitors. In: derStandard.at . June 4, 2010. Retrieved August 3, 2017 .  ; Peter Pirker “Subversion of German rule. The British secret service SOE and Austria ”(2012), p. 252 ff.
4. ^ Rudolf A. Haunschmied , Jan-Ruth Mills, Siegi Witzany-Durda: St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen - Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered . BoD, Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8334-7440-8 . P. 107ff