Bauaufsicht Nr.13 at Fokker Flugzeugwerke

[Varese2002]

A few points

• Translating these documents - which are quite lengthy (79 pages) - will be a hell of a job as the originals will make use of necessity of many technical words which translate difficult into English. This is no Kriegstagebuch as already published by OTF.

• I have not seen the books in the flesh, but it may be in the 'old' German fraktur writing, which makes it again somewhat more difficult

Sure Mr. Grosz had one of the biggest collection on German aviation from the earliest days till about 1918 / 1920, I think. His book collection was fabulous, with many rare items (perhaps the only ones still in existence). His picture collection amounted to about 50.000 pieces. Everything has been donated to the Deutsches Technik Museum Berlin.

There is a world of difference between the rules set by the IdFlieg (B.V.L.) and the true world, where cost - profit - speed were of the essence. So the Control structure set up by IdFlieg did get the worst things, but lesser things were not noticed first and all by lack of time. Fokker was probably not worse or better than the average German aircraft manufacturer.

Interesting is the following quote from A.R.Weyl - The Creative years about the workmanship of the Fokker E.V as a result of a serious crash which was investigated by the Idflieg. Weyl gives a long history of the whole story, where I quote .....

At the Perzina works, which made the wings for Fokker's aircraft, supervision and inspection were lax. Speedy production was all: everything made was good enough for aeroplanes regardless of its condition or how it had been made. This policy of quick production suited Fokker.
That the Bauaufsicht continued to tolerate suh skimped and shoddy workmanship was indefensible. So seriously did this official body fail in its duty that its members inevitably seemed to be suspected of being in Fokker's pay.

To round of, I found another interesting volume in the library of the Technisches Museum Berlin, which incidentally is marked as GEHEIM (Secret).



This covers at least 87 pages of designations (abbreviated type designations) of aircraft and engines. Could be interesting to look at. Incidentally this book did not come from the Peter M. Grosz collection.

Have a fine day

Kees

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Hi Lloyd:
You should get a book on the German language, their senteence construction is entirely different than English. A simple example, we would say, "I am going home". In German, the verb ius at the end, they would say, "Home I am going." Also they have compound words which we don't in English.
Anyhow some added thoughts.
I have wondered, who decided who was going to get the new Fokker D.VII aircraft? I had thought it might be within the structure of Idflieg. I have read through the material I have, and I think it was in Luftstreitkräfte Headquarters.
In the General Staff organization is a Section, called
Flieger.
Chief of Section,
Adjutant and below are three Offices:
Fl.1 Personnel of the Airplane Service..
Fl.2. Co-operation other arms and Services.
Fl.3. Technical and Replacement of Materiel.
This is the Office where technical questions are resolved, and is responsible for the replacement of Materiel. This mean they decide who gets what when. When a new aircraft comes out, they arrange the delivery to with Jasta , Fl.Abt. etc. They inform the Flugzeugmeisterei with the distribution of the new machines as well as the distribution of replacement equipment and in what order and the order of preference. This is connected with Section IA. Operations within each Armee in the field.
With this control, equipment is going where it is needed. I have wondered about this for some time, I I think I have the answer.
Blue skies Lloyd,
Dan-San

[Laserlloyd]

Again this is great information... Thank Dan-San.

I see looking now at some of the documents that I have that the Flugzeugmeisterei is listed as Flz.

There are a lot of departments or sections of the Flugzeugmeisterei listed
Flz.A.Stab (Staff)
Flz.A.1
Flz.Z.A.K (Zentral Abnahme Kommission-Central Acceptance Commission)
Flz.Z.A.K
B.Ad.FA. (Bauaufsicht der Firma- Production Supervision of Company)
Flz.A.3
Flz.A.5
Flz.A.6
Flz.B.Stab
Flz.B.3
Flz.B.6
Flz.D

Lloyd...

[Varese2002]

Be aware that in the 1920 - 1930's much research had been done (in Germany) on the organisation of the German army (inclusive the 'Luftstreitkräfte'). All this research was based on documents in the German archives.

The most notable are

Cron, Hermann. Die Organization des deutschen Heeres im Weltkriege. Dargestellt auf Grund der Kriegsakten. 1923. 208 pages. Part 5 in: Forschungen und Darstellungen aus dem Reichsarchiv.

pp. 88-110 cover the Luftstreitkräfte

Dieckmann, Wilhelm: Die Behördenorganisation in der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1914-1918 (Schriften zur kriegswirtschaftlichen Forschung und Schulung), Hamburg 1937.

pp. 96-97 give ... Die Geschäftseinteilung der Jdflieg und Jdluft, Stand 1918

Note that Idflieg is sometimes written in German as Jdflieg (as is Idluft / Jdluft).

It would help you great when you have a look at these parts of the books, which I think are available via the Library of Congress. You need to have copies of only the pages given.

As stated the organization of Jdflieg / Jdflug is given as per 1918. Do realize that since the beginning of the war the organization was (constantly) changing. The status at 1916 was quite different from 1918. Do realize when you 'know' how the organistional structure was in 1918 that you cannot assume that this organization was in effect during the whole of 1914-1918.

Your problem as a non-German reader will remain of course.

Kees

[Varese2002]

Originally Posted by Dan_San_Abbott

Hi Kees:
I am wondering if copies are available?
Blue skies Kees,
Dan-San

Hallo Dan-San. As promised I contacted the library of the Deutsches Technik Museum in Berlin via mail. As often happens, a week has passed without any response whatsoever When ordinary mortals like me, without heavy titles (Herr Dokter usw.) try to get something done in a big institution the result is mostly nill (a marvellous exception is the NASM who reply and help with information ). The library of the late Peter M. Grosz is certainly cared for by the DTM Library, but it will be next to impossible to get hold of a single page in copy.

My apologies to you for that, but the answer will be that realistically copies are not available from the DTM Library.

Kees

[Laserlloyd]

I just read an article in OTF V.5N.3 "Reinhold Platz and the Fokker Company" by Peter Grozs. Peter has a photo of Friedrich W. Seekatz (Fokker's right had man) with two Bauaufsicht. The background has a early D.VII. Fokker Factory no.1295.

If I had a copy of this I would post it here but I don't. I can clip the one from the article but I would need OTF premonition do so.

Does anyone have photo no.1295?

Thanks...

Lloyd...