MARCH 2021 VOLUME 14 - No 6 GLIDINGlNTERNATIONAL March 2021 1 March 2021 VOLUME 14 - No 6 Editor: John H. Roake Manager: Janice Armstrong Correspondents: lNTERNATIONAL GLIDING Aldo Cernezzi Robert (Bob) Downe Joseph King Myles Hynde Arthur Liddington Gliding International published by: Gliding International Ltd From Offices At: 79 Fifth Ave, Tauranga, New Zealand Phone +64-7-571-4161 Office email: [email protected] Editor’s email: [email protected] The magazine’s web pages can be viewed at www.glidinginternational.com You can subscribe through our web page Subscriptions: Printed Version Air Mailed: INDEX 1 Year: $136 ($US82) or equivalent Germany and Japan Unite 4 2 Years: $259 ($US165) or equivalent (all prices quoted in NZ Dollars) or Wings and Wheels 18 the equivalent in your currency. One Way Ticket – Pandemonium 19 Digital Version emailed: Summing up - Wollf Hirth 21 1 Year $86 ($US56) or equivalent Gliding and the Olympic Movement 25 2 Years $163 ($US106) or equivalent Unresolved Battery Problems 26 (all prices quoted in NZ Dollars) Rebuilding a Wrecked Sailplane 35 or the equivalent in your currency. Personal cheques acceptable. New From Europe – Ground Marshalling 37 Obituary – Hans-Werner Grosse 38 New subscriptions can be originated International News For Glider Pilots 39 through the magazine’s secure web site Instrument Buy of the Month 39 by using a Visa or MasterCard credit card at: www.glidinginternational.com Cumulus Soaring 47 Advertising: Cover: Photographer, Tobias Barth tell us that this unique flight over the roofs of the Contact the magazine’s advertising megacity, Hamburg, Germany, was only possible due to the Corona Pandemic. Where usually big airliners from all over the world approach the city, the airspace was free for this planned department by email at: photo flight with a brand new JS3 made by Jonker Sailplanes, South Africa. Tobias took off [email protected] 30km away in his current hometown Stade, whereas the JS3 took off directly in Hamburg from a glider airfield named “Boberg”. We met in the air exactly on time at the agreed meeting point. By radio and hand signals Tobias directed the pilot to the right place. Thus this unique picture became a reality. 2 Gliding International March 2021 3 war on Germany. By the end of 1941, German forces and the from 1933 to 1945 (Fuhrer from 1934 to 1945). He was central to European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa. the perpetration of the Holocaust and his actions and ideology are Germany and Japan were These gains were gradually reversed after 1941, and in 1945 the regarded as evil. His racially motivated ideology called the “Nazi Allied armies defeated the German army. On April 29, 1945, he Regime” was responsible for the genocide of millions of Jews and married his longtime lover Eva Braun in the Führerbunker in Berlin. other victims. He and the regime were also responsible for killing Two days later, the couple committed suicide to avoid capture by an estimated 19 million civilians and prisoners of war, and more Closer Than Ever Imagined ! the Soviet Red Army. Their corpses were burned. than 28 million soldiers and civilians died from military action. Hitler’s father, Alois Hitler Sr. (1837–1903), was the illegitimate Hitler was earning over $1 million a year from Mein Kampf royalties child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register does at his peak. (That’s the equivalent of $12 million a year in today’s not show the name of his father, and Alois initially bore his dollars). In total, Mein Kampf sold over 10 million copies. Pre World War mother’s surname. Hitler earned enough money from his royalties to accumulate a II Gliding $10 million tax bill which he promptly forgave the day he became Germany’s involvement in aviation was rescinded under the Chancellor. Treaty of Versailles and therein became the catalyst that promoted research into gliding with strong support from the Japanese, Hitler used his new found wealth to purchase several lavish homes o history on the development of gliding would although historically little has previously been written on this including one that became the main headquarters of the Nazi be complete without reference to the Hitler subject. The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and party, the Berghof. Hitler invested millions of his own dollars into Youth movement, the organisation set up by political conditions in Germany after the World War I were later purchasing and renovating the Berghof property from what was NAdolf Hitler in 1933 for educating and training male exploited by Hitler for political gain. once a small chalet into what we would today consider a massive youth in Nazi principles. Under the leadership of Baldur luxurious estate complete with libraries, screening rooms, pools, von Schirach, head of all German youth programs, Hitler’s book (an autobiography and political manifest) entitled tennis courts, multiple car garages and much more. the Hitler Youth included by 1935 almost 60 percent Mein Kampf was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926. He of German boys. On July 1, 1936, it became a state sold 228,000 copies between 1925 and 1932. One million copies And so our research goes on - The connection with Japan prior agency that all young “Aryan” Germans were expected were sold in 1933, Hitler’s first year in office. (For the record, when to World War II plus a story in our next issue that involves the to join. Gliding under state control was an important the U.S. stock market crashed on October 24, 1929, the impact development with the Japanese, the creation of the German facet of Hitler Youth, and played a very strategic part in Germany was dire: millions were thrown out of work and several Youth gliding division, and a story about a German student who in the creation of gliding as a world sport. major banks collapsed). spent a large portion of his youth in the U.S.A. prior to returning Upon reaching his 10th birthday, a German boy was to Germany, joining Hitler Youth, and then back to U.S.A. again. registered and investigated (especially for “racial Adolf Hitler at the time of his suicide had a net worth equal to purity”) and, if qualified, inducted into the Deutsches $150 million at the peak of his power (adjusting for inflation). He ENJOY ! Jungvolk (“German Young People”). At age 13 the was the leader of the Nazi Party and was Chancellor of Germany youth became eligible for the Hitler Youth, from which he graduated at age 18. Throughout these years he lived a spartan life of dedication, fellowship, and Nazi conformity, generally with minimum parental guidance. From age 18 he was a member of the Nazi Party and served in the state labour service and the armed forces until at least the age of 21. Two leagues also existed for girls. The League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel) trained girls ages 14 to 18 for comradeship, domestic duties, and motherhood. Jungmädel (“Young Girls”) was an organisation for girls ages 10 to 14. HITLER YOUTH RALLY, BERLIN 1933 Adolf Hitler, the Nazi party leader (who was undoubtedly he joined the German Workers’ Party, the precursor of the Nazi a major behind the scenes promotor of gliding), was born April 20, Party, and was appointed leader in 1921. In 1923, he attempted 1889 and committed suicide at 56 years of age on April 30, 1945. to seize governmental power in a failed coup in Munich and was He was an Austrian-born German politician (born in Braunau am imprisoned with a sentence of five years. After his early release Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary in present-day Austria). in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism and He rose to power as the chancellor of Germany in 1933, then anti-communism frequently denouncing international capitalism. as Führer in 1934. He initiated World War II in Europe invading Poland on September 1, 1939. Central to the perpetration of the By November 1932, the Nazi Party had the most seats in the Holocaust, he was declared responsible for the genocide of six German Reichstag but did not have a majority. He was appointed million plus Jews. Germany’s chancellor on January 30, 1933. His first six years in power resulted in rapid economic recovery from the Great He moved from Austria to Germany in 1913 and was decorated Depression, restrictions imposed on Germany after World War I. during his service in the German Army in World War I. In 1919, His invasion of Poland resulted in Britain and France declaring 4 Gliding International March 2021 5 much-needed pool of young pilots who had the knowledge, skills, and spiritual readiness to fight Japan’s air wars. Studying Japan’s emerging “We must learn from Germany” glider movement offers an opportunity to re-examine the mechanisms technology transfer from Germany to Japan. Previous studies increased knowledge about the transfer of cutting-edge technology during the This - from Japan, 1935. interwar and wartime years. xploring the prominent role of Germany in the The Japanese eagerly adopted German know-how about the skilful emergence of Japan’s pre world war II gliding arrangement of fabric, wire, and wood and built several thousand boom, few appreciate that Japan actually had gliders based on German blueprints. In addition, the successful E nationwide diffusion of glider technology reveals the central role a (then sophisticated) gliding development program in the mid 1930s. of an underlying ideology of “air-mindedness” that Japan readily imported from Germany as well.