Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke
| Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke GmbH (WNF) | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | 1935 (as Wiener Neustädter Flughafenbetriebs GmbH ) |
| resolution | 1945 |
| Reason for dissolution | Air raids on Wiener Neustadt |
| Seat | Wiener Neustadt (then " Ostmark ") |
| management | Erich Meindl |
| Branch | Aircraft manufacturer |
The Wiener Neustadt Flugzeugwerke (WNF) was an aircraft manufacturer in Wiener Neustadt (then " Ostmark "). It emerged from Wiener Neustädter Flughafenbetriebs GmbH , which was taken over by Berliner Luftfahrtkontor GmbH , a trustee of the German Empire , after the "Anschluss" of Austria . After order company name of the airport operations GmbH in Wiener Neustadt Aircraft Works, the company has been greatly expanded.
As part of the armament of the Wehrmacht , the operation as a branch of the state-owned Messerschmitt AG became the main supplier of the German standard fighter Messerschmitt Bf 109 alongside Messerschmitt GmbH in Regensburg and the Leipzig Erla machine works . From 1939 the first Bf 109 in version E rolled off the production line at WNF. By the end of the war in 1945, the factory had produced 8,545 fighter aircraft in numerous versions, which corresponds to a quarter of the 33,000 Bf 109s built. The highest number of employees was 15,000.
history
Aircraft construction in Wiener Neustadt initially began at Oesterreichische Flugzeugfabrik AG (Oeffag), which was founded in 1915, and continued until the end of the war in 1918. After the aircraft production was discontinued by the Allies, the company produced car bodies for Austro Daimler . In 1928 Oeffag merged with Austro-Daimler and the Puch works to form Austro-Daimler-Puchwerke AG ; these in turn formed from 1934 together with the Steyr-Werke AG the Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG , which closed the plant in Wiener Neustadt in the same year.
The Wiener Neustadt airport operations GmbH was founded in 1935 by the Austrian fighter pilot of World War Julius Arigi and Benno Fiala of Fernbrugg founded. The company acquired the closed Oeffag plant in Wienerstrasse from Steyr-Daimler-Puch. The Hungarian aircraft designer Ing. Arpad Lampich was hired as the technical director and Julius Arigi as the works pilot. Ing.Erich Meindl took over the management. The following types of sport aircraft were built:
- Lampich L 9 (85 HP), NL XXI (95 HP), NL XXII (150 HP)
- Bànhidi Gerle 16 (100 HP), Gerle 17 (100 HP), Gerle 18 (125 HP)
- Meindl / van Nees "Kadett" A VIIb (95 hp)
- RWD-13 S (Polish ambulance aircraft)
Aircraft of the Austrian Armed Forces were also serviced there.
When Austria was " annexed " to the German Reich, Flughafenbetriebs GmbH went into the administration of the Reich Ministry of Aviation (RLM) and was taken over as trustee by Berliner Luftfahrtkontor GmbH on March 13, 1938 , which it renamed Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke .
Factory expansion and operation until August 13, 1943
In addition to Plant I (Wiener Neustadt - Wienerstraße), plants II (Wiener Neustadt - Pottendorferstraße), III ( Fischamend ), IV ( Ober-Grafendorf ) and V ( Klagenfurt - former tobacco factory) were also operated.
Outsourcing and breakdown
see also: Air raids on Wiener Neustadt
The importance of what was now the largest Messerschmitt factory in the German Reich led to the WNF becoming a main target of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). In particular, the Allies were soon informed about the exact location plans of the production facilities, because the Austrian resistance group around Chaplain Heinrich Maier succeeded in sending exact plans to the American Office of Strategic Services and the British secret service SOE. In a secret investigation report by the Vienna Gestapo from July 1944 it says: "In September 1943, Maier and Messner decided to surrender the most important armaments factories to the enemy powers, on the one hand to make a contribution of the Austrian resistance movement to the victory of the Allies and on the other hand to prevent the industries important for peaceful production and open cities would be destroyed by the enemy air force. " The allied bombers were able to perform precise air strikes with the sketches of the production facilities. The first air raid by Allied bombers on Austrian territory took place on August 13, 1943, when 61 Consolidated B-24 bombers of the US 9th Air Fleet attacked the WNF aircraft works from bases in North Africa, killing 181 people and injuring 850 . The second attack on October 1st claimed thirty dead and 22 injured in the plant itself, as well as 66 other fatalities in the vicinity. A total of 29 bombing raids took place on Wiener Neustadt, the last on April 1, 1945. Of 4,000 houses in the city, only 18 were undamaged on that day. The aircraft factory itself did not fare much better. In order to maintain production, the plant was divided into numerous aboveground and underground locations from Carinthia to Moravia . The largest outsourcing was in Markersdorf near St. Pölten, another was three railway tunnels in Moravia under the code name Diana .
As early as 1943 extensive bunker systems were planned to be built under the airfield.
Plant I: In Plant I the final assembly of the Bf-109 took place with parts from Plant II, e.g. B. engine installation, wing assembly, painting, weapon tests, compass calibration and the approach.
Plant II: Plant II was set up a little southeast of Plant I in a former engine factory. Here individual parts such as wings, fuselages, cockpits, tail units etc. were manufactured and assemblies were pre-assembled.
Own aircraft types
Photo gallery
A Messerschmitt Bf 109, which was assembled from original parts, is on display in the Aviaticum aviation museum in Wiener Neustadt . Among other things, it contains parts that have been verifiably manufactured in the Wiener Neustadt aircraft factory. The original WNF nameplates were discovered during the restoration of the elevator . An inscription made with pencil was found on the inside of the left horizontal fin planking : 9/11/42 piece 3 Stefan u. Else .
Replica of a Messerschmitt Bf 109 with original parts
Some parts come from a crashed JG 54 machine
Side view of the pulpit and engine
Side view of engine
literature
- Wernfried Haberfellner, Walter Schroeder: Wiener-Neustädter Flugzeugwerke Gesellschaft mbH (creation, construction and decline of an aircraft factory). 3. Edition. Weishaupt, Graz 1999, ISBN 3-7059-0000-5 .
- Bertrand Perz: Armaments industry in Wiener Neustadt 1938–1945 on www.erinnern.at (PDF; 329 kB)
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Hansjakob Stehle "The spies from the rectory" in Die Zeit from January 5, 1996.
- ↑ 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 .
- ↑ Andrea Hurton, Hans Schafranek: In the network of traitors. In: derStandard.at . June 4, 2010. Retrieved August 3, 2017 . ; Peter Pirker "Super version of German rule. The British secret service SOE and Austria" (2012), p. 252 ff.
- ↑ Austria experiences the first Western Allied air raid of the war on www.wien-vienna.at
- ^ Air raid on Wiener Neustadt on October 1, 1943 , website regiowiki.at, accessed on November 22, 2014