Power and Initiative in Twentieth Century Germany
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POWER AND INITIATIVE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY GERMANY THE CASE OF HUGO JUNKERS by RICHARD WILLIAM EDWIN BYERS (Under the direction of John Morrow) ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the relationship between private enterprises and nation states in high technology research and applications. As the twentieth century progressed, this relationship became more contentious as state organs, citing national security priorities, attempted to assert their influence on private manufacturers. Nowhere is this relationship better illustrated than in the aircraft industry, and Germany’s geopolitical circumstances during the first half of the twentieth century provide an excellent framework to explore this intersection of interests. The dissertation focuses on the relationship between Professor Hugo Junkers and three successive state regimes in Germany between 1914 and 1934. Already a successful businessman and entrepreneur by the beginning of the First World War, Hugo Junkers continued to pursue plans for all- metal aircraft designs after war began despite wartime supply difficulties and widespread skepticism that such a craft would ever fly. Successful flight trials in 1915 lead to increased official interest in the Junkers firm as a possible military aircraft supplier, and military representatives began negotiations with Junkers over possible production of his aircraft designs. When these negotiations foundered, state officials accused Junkers of pursuing selfish objectives at the state’s expense, and increasingly intervened in the firm’s production processes. Professor Junkers fiercely resisted these incursions, and this resistance permanently damaged relations between the two parties. Throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, Junkers and state officials fought to control the firm’s production and design priorities. Eventually the state tired of Junkers’ machinations and applied coercion in conjunction with financial pressure to remove Hugo Junkers from control of his firm, a process completed by the National Socialist regime in 1934. This national takeover characterizes the loss of individual initiative within high technology sectors considered crucial to national security throughout the twentieth century. INDEX WORDS: Hugo Junkers, Weimar Republic, Aviation. POWER AND INITIATIVE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY GERMANY THE CASE OF HUGO JUNKERS by RICHARD WILLIAM EDWIN BYERS Honours Degree of Bachelor of Arts, University of Adelaide, Australia, 1995 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2002 ã 2002 Richard William Edwin Byers All Rights Reserved POWER AND INITIATIVE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY GERMANY THE CASE OF HUGO JUNKERS by RICHARD WILLIAM EDWIN BYERS Approved: Major Professor: John Morrow Committee: William Leary David Roberts Joshua Cole Kirk Willis Electronic Version Approved: Gordhan L. Patel Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2002 2002 Richard William Edwin Byers All Rights Reserved POWER AND INITIATIVE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY GERMANY THE CASE OF HUGO JUNKERS by RICHARD WILLIAM EDWIN BYERS Approved: Major Professor: John Morrow Committee: William Leary David Roberts Joshua Cole Kirk Willis Electronic Version Approved: Gordhan L. Patel Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2002 iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my wife, Ashley, who has suffered through the long years of Graduate school cheerfully and without malice, and my daughter Riley, whose birth encouraged this dissertation’s completion v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people contributed to the construction and completion of this dissertation. I would like to thank Dr. John Morrow who conceived the project and guided it to completion. Dr. William Leary also shares responsibility for this project, as well as thanks for providing his expertise and assistance during the long years of Graduate School. Dr. David Roberts and Dr. Joshua Cole taught me much of what I know about Modern European History, and this dissertation could not have been completed without them. Dr. Kirk Willis provided an example as a teacher, writer, mentor and colleague throughout my time in Athens that greatly enhanced the quality of this work. The staff of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, in particular Director Dr. Helmuth Trischler, Chief Archivist Dr. Wilhelm Füssl and Special Collections Archivist Dr. Eva Mayring deserve thanks for tirelessly pulling manuscript collections and searching for relevant material. All other archival staff at the Deutsches Museum also deserve my thanks for the wonderful Bavarian hospitality they provided me during my research. Special thanks also go to Denise Wright, Robert Smith, Peter Moore, and the faculty, staff, and graduate students of the history department who created an atmosphere of collegiality and friendship that made my experience at the University of Georgia productive and rewarding. Finally, I would like to thank my Honors Professor, Dr. Jackson Hughes, for inspiring my graduate work, and my parents, Ann and Alan Byers, who provided critical financial support throughout Graduate School. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Ico Junkers & Co. Idflieg Inspektorat der Fliegertruppen (Inspectorate of Flying Troops) Ifa Junkers-Fokker Flugzeugwerke A.G. (1917-1918), Junkers Flugzeugwerke A.G. (After) Jumo Junkers Motorenbau G.m.b.H. RLM Reichsluftministerium RVM Reichsverkehrministerium RWM Reichswehrministerium vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................. v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS......................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: THE WAR YEARS.......................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER TWO: THE RUSSIAN AFFAIR ................................................................................ 42 CHAPTER THREE: DIVERGING PATHS.................................................................................. 79 CHAPTER FOUR: ON THE EDGE ........................................................................................... 125 EPILOGUE.................................................................................................................................. 184 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................ 209 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................ 216 1 INTRODUCTION Munich’s Englischer Garten winds through the city center. Only seconds from the business district, the Garten provides an escape from work’s anxieties. Trails run for miles through copses of oak trees, stretch out over mowed soccer fields and wide meadows, and follow diverted streams of the Isar river. After lunch on February 2, 1934, Professor Hugo Junkers walked through the Garten toward his office on Königinstrasse. Junkers, seventy-four years of age, continued to maintain a daily walking schedule even when at work. As he approached the Garten’s edge, two policemen stepped off a small bridge and moved toward him. Minutes later, Hugo Junkers sat in a police car bound for his home in Bayrischzell, in the snowy foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Munich police officers instructed him to remain at his house and await further instructions. The same police officers returned the next day, cut Junkers’ telephone line, and established permanent surveillance. They informed the Professor that any travel from the residence, including skiing, required police escort. All contact with employees of his former firms, even his son Klaus and his lawyer, was forbidden. It was Hugo Junkers’ seventy-fifth birthday. Twelve months later he died, leaving behind assets that included his aircraft complex in Dessau and the results of twenty-five years in aviation research. These assets now passed into the hands of the Reichsluftministerium (German Air Ministry) as it rearmed Germany and prepared for war. By 1938, the state-owned Junkers Flugzeugwerke employed over 45,000 workers and served as the foundation factory for the Third Reich’s aerial rearmament programs. During the twentieth century, international aviation development owed a fundamental debt to the nation state. As awareness and recognition of the aircraft’s military potential increased, nation states intervened and fostered their indigenous aircraft industries in an attempt 2 to sustain and enhance national military power. Intrinsic to this process was a gradual increase in state involvement in the aircraft industry from client, to supervisor and patron, to owner of many formerly private firms. From the state’s perspective two circumstances justified these actions; first, increased threats to national security and the industrial demands of modern war, and second the recognition that the nascent civilian market lacked the means to sustain private manufacturers. Within aviation history, these developments have received considerable attention.1 However, the consequences of this involvement, particularly its effects on private industry’s freedom of action, have attracted less attention. Aviation technology’s rapid technological progress brought with it increased