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LUFTWAFFE MEMORIES
Munich's Deutsches Museum

Messerschmitt and Germany's aviation Past and Future
A Stroll Down Heinkel Lane

For those who love to fly (like me - when I'm at the controls) and have ever built a model Stuka, a trip to Germany can be a chance to follow the trail of those dark and wonderful flying machines of the Luftwaffe's WWII past. Much of Germany's aviation engineering was based around Munich and can still be found there today. A visit to BMW's gleaming downtown showroom by Maximilliansplatz, displays the heritage of Germany's engine and design technology, and get a free glass of wine while you look at the current lines of cars and motorcycles. But to journey to the flying past, make your way to the middle of the Isar River, just outside the central city’s eastern Isartor gate to the Deutsches Museum, a monument to engineering and technology, where all things technological can be found, from glassblowing to the development of the earliest musical instruments, with floors of displays from model railroads to diorama figures following the processes of coal mining and the beer brewing of Germany's most recognizable industry. Find a Fokker Triplane like the one flown by the Red Baron hanging from the ceiling, a pristine Messerschmitt Bf109 fighter resting majestically on the polished floors, along with the Messerchmitt 262, the twin jet fighter that was the terror of America’s P51 Mustang.

Not enough airplane grease to sate your aerial appetite? Head out to Freising near the Munich Airport to the the Flugwertt Schleissheim, one of the oldest airstrips in Germany, now part of the Deutsches Museum collection, with of 60 more historic aircraft and helicopters on display. Or drive to the Flying Museum at Augsburg, a restored Luftwaffe airfield and one-time testing ground for the Third Reich’s secret air power rebuilding program of the 30’s. A variety of displays trace Germany’s air flight development history, and watch through the observation windows of the machine shop where craftsmen painstakingly restore period aircraft like the Junkers J52 tri-motor transport.

And for the determined enthusiast, head north-east by car to Manching, near Ingolstadt off the A9 to where the primary factory works of the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke’s (Bavarian Aricraft Works) and other manufacturers were located and where the BFW chief designer Willy Messerschmitt designed and built his masterpiece and later, both the plane and the company were named after him. As you turn from the autobahn heading toward the airfield you head up Messerschmitt Street and turn past Heinkel Road commemorating the names of German aviation’s past greatness.

But here is where you find past meets future and the trail becomes clouded by secrecy. For those who thought Messerschmitt as a going concern died out with their odd little three-wheel cars, the company still exists, but is now a division of Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace EADS Group and the old airstrip from whence growling rotary piston motors strained to gain climbing airspeed is now home to the JG 74 "Mölders" German Air Force Wing, named after early WWII Lufftwaffe ace Werner Mölders, and a closely guarded secure military airfield where advanced NATO development aircraft roar over groves of hops from a runway hidden behind electrified fence. You can now find the Willy Messerchmitt Museum in a former hanger with some excellent examples of his designs on display, several still air worthy. Unfortunately it is only open to groups in advance as it is actually on the military property. Plans to build a public facility outside the gates are about a year away. But nearby on the main road can be found a (replicated) WWII era Luftwaffe airfield with sandbagged bunkers, mostly ignored except by the farmers driving by in tractors.© Bargain Travel Europe

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Deutsches Museum
Museumsinsel 1 D-80538 Munich
+49 (0) 89 2179 1
www.deutsches-museum.de

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See Also:

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CASTLE AIR MUSEUM
WWII and Cold War Era Aircraft

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