Did the Wehrmacht buy Spitfires?

[Richard Aigner]

Fritz Molden , in his autobiography "Fepolinski & Waschlapski", p.193 writes:
"The maddest deal struck at my time there (Deutscher Beschaffungsstab in France, Nov. 1942 - Feb. 1943) was the swap of 2 or 3 Spitfire fighters, which the British had made available to the Portugese Air Force, in exchange for spare parts for Ju52 passenger planes and considerable sums in convertible currencies. The dismantled planes were to reach a workshop south of Paris via Spain."
The clumsy translation, some abbreviations, and the insert in brackets are mine. For those interested the German Text:
" Das tollste Geschäft, das zu meiner Zeit abgewickelt wurde, war der Tausch von 2 oder 3 Spitfire Jagdflugzeugen, die die Engländer der portugiesischen Luftwaffe zur Verfüpgung gestellt hatten und die nun zerlegt und auf komplizierten Wegen über Spanien und das unbesetzte Frankreich zu einer Werkstätte südlich von Paris gebracht werden sollten, gegen Ersatzteile für Passagierflugzeuge deutscher Provenienz, nämlich Ju52 und auch beträchtliche Summen in konvertiblen Währungen, Schweizer Franken und Pfund."
What do you think? Vero o ben trovato?
Richard

[Graham Boak]

I can't point my finger to it, but I'm sure I've seen an article dealing with the Portuguese Spitfires individually - possibly in Spitfire International - which doesn't mention any such deal. Those available this early could only be Mk.Is, which would hardly be of any great interest to the Germans.

[RossGmann]

Hello Richard, don’t know if this is of any help/interest if you type in “wings palette “open it then click on World War II, Fighters, then scroll down the page until you see “supermarine spitfire” on the left click on this and then click on Portugal you will get a list of 10 spitfires.

Kind regards Ross Geissmann