Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau
Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG
(German pronunciation:
[ˌfɔkəˈvʊlf])
was a German manufacturer of civil
and military aircraft before and
during World War II.
Many of the company's
successful fighter aircraft designs
were slight modifications of the
Focke-Wulf Fw 190.
The company was founded in
Bremen on 24 October 1923 as
Bremer Flugzeugbau AG
by Prof. Henrich Focke,
Georg Wulf and Dr. rer. pol.
Werner Naumann Almost
immediately, they renamed
the company
Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG
(later Focke-Wulf
Flugzeugbau GmbH).
Focke-Wulf merged, under
government pressure, with
Albatros-Flugzeugwerke of
Berlin in 1931.
Albatros-Flugzeugwerke
engineer and test pilot Kurt
Tank became head of the
technical department and
started work on the Fw 44
Stieglitz
(Goldfinch).
Dr Ludwig Roselius became
Chairman in 1925 and handed
over to his brother
Friedrich in early 1933. In
1938 Roselius' HAG combine
increased its shareholding
to 46% and Lorenz A.G.
secured 28%. The company was
reconstituted as Focke-Wulf
Flugzeugbau GmbH and no
longer had to publish its
accounts. A substantial
capital injection occurred
at this time.
In August 1933 Hans Holle
and Rudolf Schubert were
given power of attorney over
the Berlin branch of
Focke-Wulf. Then in October
1933, Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau
A.G. Albatros Berlin was
officially registered with
the Department of Trade.
Dr Roselius always remained
the driving force of
Focke-Wulf. He and his
closest collaborator,
Barbara Goette, often met
with technical director
Professor Kurt Tank. When
Roselius died in May 1943,
Heinrich Puvogel continued
handling the financial
affairs of Focke-Wulf as
chief of Seehandel A.G.
Hanna Reitsch demonstrated
the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the
first fully controllable
helicopter (as opposed to
autogyro), in Berlin in
1938.
The four-engined Fw 200
airliner flew nonstop
between Berlin and New York
City on August 10, 1938,
making the journey in 24
hours and 56 minutes. It was
the first aircraft to fly
that route without stopping.
The return trip on August
13, 1938 took 19 hours and
47 minutes. These flights
are commemorated with a
plaque in the Böttcherstraße
street of Bremen.
The Fw 190
Würger
(butcher-bird), designed
from 1938 on, and produced
in quantity from early
1941–1945, was a mainstay
single-seat fighter for the
Luftwaffe
during World War II.
Repeated bombing of Bremen
in World War II resulted in
the mass-production plants
being moved to eastern
Germany and Poland, with AGO
Flugzeugwerke of
Oschersleben as a major
subcontractor for the Fw
190. Those plants used many
foreign and forced
labourers, and from 1944
also prisoners of war.
Focke-Wulf's 100-acre
(0.40 km2) plant
at Marienburg produced
approximately half of all Fw
190s and was bombed by the
Eighth Air Force on October
9, 1943.
Many
Focke-Wulf workers,
including Kurt Tank, worked
at the Instituto Aerotécnico
in Córdoba, Argentina
between 1947 and 1955.
Focke-Wulf began to make
gliders in 1951, and in
1955, motorised planes.
Focke-Wulf, Weserflug and
Hamburger Flugzeugbau joined
forces in 1961 to form the
Entwicklungsring Nord (ERNO)
to develop rockets.
ITT Corporation, which had
acquired a 25% stake in the
company prior to the war,
won $27 million in
compensation in the 1960s
for the damage that was
inflicted on its share of
the Focke-Wulf plant by WWII
Allied bombing.
Focke-Wulf formally merged
with Weserflug in 1964,
becoming Vereinigte
Flugtechnische Werke (VFW),
which after several further
mergers it is now part of
European Aeronautic Defence
and Space Company N.V.
(EADS).
Source:
Wikipedia
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