Luftstansa pre-war Ju-52 names?

[Matt Roberts]

just got done watching the old 'Wings of the Luftwaffe' episode (god, I need to get back to work!) on the Ju-52 and almost all pre-war airframes were named.

Who were the planes named after? And this appeared to be a standard prior to the Nazi era, so they wouldn't be Nazi 'heroes' (Horst Wessel-types)

Thanks

Matt

[CliffB]

Hi Matt

I don't really know the answer to this, but the few pre-war Lufthansa aircraft that I know were named after people (others were named after places, for example), seem to be named after German heroes of WW1 - i.e. Hindenburg, Richtofen and Billik (the limit of my knowledge!).

Have you got any other names to play with?

Cliff

[Boelki]

Hi Matt,

the Ju 52 planes were named after Lufthansa pilot who gave their lifes for the company. There are some exceptions (e. g. Manfred von Richthofen D-ABIK, another Pour le Merite owner Hans Kirschstein, ....). Other Lufthansa planes like He 70/F13 are named after birds, Ju 86 after mountains, He 111 after Cities.....

[Dr.Bunsen Honeydew]

I´m not a fan of the third-reich stuff, but I have a book about the airports of Berlin from 1974, titled "Gelandet in Berlin". On one page there is a picture of various Ju52/3 at Berlin-Tempelhof dated 1936. I tried to google the names. Among them is D-AQIT ""Major Dinklage", D-ALUN "Kurt Wintgens"(WWI pilot), D-ALAN "Eduard Dostler"(WW I pilot), D-AHIH "Rudolf Kleine", D-AFES "Franz Buchner"(non-flying high ranking Nazi),D-AMIP "Fritz Ers", D-ABA? "Emil Thuy"(WWI pilot). So they named them not only after aviators. At least durring the third reich.

Doc Bunsen Honeydew

[Boelki]

Hi,

one mistake with the last reply. The Ju was named after "Franz Büchner" not "Franz Buchner". Büchner was a WW1 Pour le Merite pilot as well and not a Nazi. He died during the great war.

"Fritz Simon" was the origin name of the famous D-AQUI which is still in service with the Lufthansa. There were 196 pilots who gave there lifes for Lufthansa.