Bodenwöhr Waldwerk - Mtt Bf 109 K-4 assembly lines 1944 - 1945

[Karl]

Hi gents,

I remember to have seen another photograph showing a GI standing along a row of DB 605 engines still mounted on their trolleys at Wertheim. I have to check my books...

Karl

[masmar]

Hi there,

another idea, wherever this assembly line was, labor force would have been needed. So, we could try to check if there was any listed camp or branchlet of a narrow concentration camp. As far as I remeber Bodenwöhr and Vilseck were listed as Flossenbürg outposts for examble. May that be a point where we could start? I checked the terrain of the Wertheim ambit. Especially the pictures with that "heap" of fuselages won't fit into that area,
where's no 100 meter of flat field.
I would like to see what this GI is seeing when looking into that tunnel.

regards

Matthias

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Dear Karl,

Your mention of DB 605D's stacked on trolleys sent me spinning once more through my bookshelves, and there I found them:

Hildebrandt, C. (1988), Broken Eagles 2, Bf 109G/K, Fighter pictorials, p. 9.

I scanned as a whole both published pictures - the DB 605D's and the wing sets in front of the northern Schlossberg tunnel entrance. Thanks for all your excellent data, Roland, they help so much to get a correct picture of the Wertheim scene. As you can see, Hildebrandt's caption also clearly states a "near Wertheim" location for the DB 605D's. Analysing the surrounding on this photograph, one notices they are parked on quite a steep street amdist partly damaged houses. Checking on GoogleEarth, I do see a possible location immediately east of the Schlossberg tunnel northern entrance: a steep road with buildings matching the position of the ones seen on the 1945 photograph. The closest trolley would be next to the grouped buildings standing between the road following the Main bank and the steep street.

Masmar, your query is very much to the point, your scenario interesting. Obviously, a lot did happen in supply channels between March and April 1945... I would be of course highly interested to see your current Bodenwöhr pictures!

Cheers
Marc

[RolandF]

Hello gentlemen,

the engines are standing here (Google coordinates):

49.760023,9.525061

Watch the slanted building and the road slightly running uphill.

The trolleys almost certainly had been equipment meant for factory use and not for use in open air. Looks like a makeshift application of the whole thing and might have something to do with clearing of production areas due to the beginning of the Me 262 production in full scale. The placement of production into subterranean facilities was common practise of this time.

Matthias might not be wrong concerning the Waldwerk "Gauting"-Hagelstadt production of the Bf109. Schmoll quotes that "at least a part of the Bf109 production was moved to Bodenwöhr and Cham in September/October 1944".
A newspaper article mentions air attacks on Nittenau and Bodenwöhr-Mappach on 28, December 1944:

http://www.mittelbayerische.de/index...5&pk=12924&p=1

Cham-Micheldorf was attacked on 4, November 1944. Maybe the reason to get underground...

Regards

Roland

Btw, I´ve identified different photographs in common publications frequently captioned as "Bf109K-4s from Mtt Regensburg" as showing KZ Flossenbürg facilities. Anyone interested?

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Hallo Roland,

Excellent, we're getting really in a great team work here! Engines and wings are now precisely located, now I'm getting real curious as to in which forest patch were the wingless and engineless fuselages dispersed... Logically, they should be further east in the forest where the steep road leads, but no precise clue can be gathered from the three pictures we have to work with (Noro 2009, pics #135 - 136; Poruba and Mol 2000, p. 40).

And yes! I would love to see your Bf 109K-4 photographs in KZ Flossenbürg facilities.

Cheers
Marc

[masmar]

Hi all,
hi Marc, thank you for the picture with the DB 605 engines mounted on their tolleys! For me that's really the most convincing picture when proving an assembly line and not only fragmented airplanes. I starting to belive you guys
It's interesting that the engines are already sub assembled. The lower engine coping with the oil cooler flap and possibly the regulation devices which don't belong directly to the engine are already mounted. That's very uncommon. Normally this happend, when the engine was allready mounted to the fuselage.
Roland, me too! I would love to see that pictures!

Regards
Matthias

[Charles Bavarois]

Gentlemen,

a lot of new information here and a really inspiring thread. The mist around Wertheim seems to get clearer now, but please have a look at the attached pictures:

Picture "wing" shows, that the wings in front of the Wertheim tunnel have small wing-bulges and so are not intended to be fitted to K-4s. The same with the picture "engines": the large tank in front of the engine is of the smaller Fo 897 type, not the large Fo 970 shown in picture "cowlings". I also think, that the small bulges under the nose are missing. Therefore the engines are DB 605 AS and not DB 605 D type. AFAIK no AS-engines were fitted to K-4s.

As for the K-4s standing in a row within a wooded area: the camouflage is of the segmented "Flössenbürg" pattern and has no "snake" at the bottom of the fuselage. Just have a look at the attached picture "row". I have to apologize for masking this foto, but I can't remember, where it´s from and perhaps it is copyright protected (any hint on its owner wellcome!).

HTH

Carl

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Hi there the Wertheim Waldwerk gang,

I just received from Kees Mol the original caption for the Schlossberg tunnel northern entrance picture (Noro, 102, pic #137). This photograph is part of a serie of six pictures taken by T/5 Robert F Stubenrauch on 2 April 1945 illustrating the Bf 109K-4's and subassemblies found "near Wertheim".

Kees kindly agrees to uploading this caption which settles the following issues:

- Place and date of the photographs
- Wertheim was considered as an assembly place for Bf 109's by the US Army
- Engines and wings were stored in the Schlossberg tunnel
- 25 airframes, covered with tarpaulins and branches were "in new condition", dispersed in the surrounding woods.

All my thanks to you, Kees!


Dear Carl,

You're correct, we have an issue here... Unless one thinks about the hectic situation the German industry tried to upkeep. A naive question first: Was there any real impossibility mating those wings and engines to Bf 109K-4's fuselages? The patchwork Bf 109K-4 "Black 1" of 10. /JG 51, Ronne stadium, 4th May 1945 (Poruba and Mol 2000, 70 - 73) certainly tells another story. It would be thus no surprise to have patchwork airframes assembled in Wertheim as a last desperate effort to finish some more machines with what was availaible; just my two cents, ofc!

- And thanks for the other pic showing those Flossenburg Bf 109K-4's neatly lined up in another forest... Roland, any other pics in this respect (I'm discreetly pointing towards your morning offer;-)))

Cheers
Marc

[masmar]

Hi guys,
in addition the promissed pictures of the Bodenwöhr Waldwerk remains. There's not much left beside some transportation tacks in crossed arrangement, grooves in the ground where kind of conveyers might have been installed, a helmet left by a guard, some barbwire, the former shooting range is still visible and a lot of 13mm bullets can be found at it's end. The areal is pretty big. From it's center you can go 300 metre before reaching the border. Assembly stand can be identified by relics which are still in the ground. This has nothing to do with the Wertheim assambly, but might be interesting as well.

Thousand thanks to Kess for making that picture available and thank you Marc for posting it. I demonstrate respect for how you all fixed that pieces of the puzzle together.
So, Wertheim is proven as a further chain link in this end-war Messerschmitt production complex.
Questions which are still open are:
- In which degree was produced and when did it start?
-Why are the in Wertheim found fuslages within the Cham Werknummern-block?
- Was there a sub-assembly as well or did they recieve the finished wings an fuslages for final assy. That's especially important on the question where this "snake-painting-style" came from and where is the link to that pictures with the heap of K-4- fuslages?
-Who delivered the devices?
-Where they integrated into Mtt. Regensburg
Perhaps this might be the next steeps, now that we see the Wertheim situation much clearer. I know that's no easy task, but i would wish, that we can find some more details, maybe at least fractional.

Matthias

[RolandF]

Hi Marc,

I didn´t forget my offer. My scanner is in my office, so I´m able to scan the pics tomorrow.
All I can say up to now is - the fuselages wear classic Flossenbürg-style camouflage. Sprayed on all its surfaces with RLM 76 on the belly, RLM 83 as background for the Balkenkreuz, the rest segmented in RLM 75.
The difference to the "snaked" version seems to me the absence of RLM 76 for the belly, thus showing bare aluminum. The "snake" is a spray of RLM 76 to raise the division line outside of the Balkenkreuz for unknown reasons.
According to Schmoll producers for fuselages were
- "Gauting"-Hagelstadt
- KZ Flossenbürg
- KZ Mauthausen-Gusen

Interestingly Gusen delivers to
- Bodenwöhr-Mappach
- Vilseck-Heringnohe
- Obertraubling
but also to
- "Gauting"-Hagelstadt
- KZ Flossenbürg
Where the paintjob was done, is very confusing, the photographs being contradictory to Schmoll´s statements. Schmoll speaks about camo being applied in Vilseck, but I have almost fully-camouflaged Bf109s standing at Flossenbürg railway station. KZ prisoner Jan Szopa tells about spraying jobs in Flossenbürg. So Vilseck may have added only some corrections after having attached the wings. This may point to where such "snake"-painting may have been done...

It seems to me some parts of the final assembly originally located at Obertraubling, Cham-Micheldorf and Vilseck-Heringnohe was externalized to Wertheim.

Regarding this the "Gauting"-Hagelstadt/Obertraubling line is the main suspect for me because they were eagerly involved into the changeover towards Me262 production.

The Bf109G-14 and G-14/AS have been produced in Cham, too until March 1945. Was the Bf109K-4 final assembly taken out to Wertheim?

Considering this arguments this is my hypothesis:
-The full-camo fuselages originate from Flossenbürg and were almost completed at Vilseck and the semi-completed parts sent by rail to Wertheim for final assembly.
-The "snake" camo fuselages originate from Bodenwöhr-Mappach and were almost completed at Vilseck etc.etc.
-The pile of fuselages are roughly completed fuselages from Bodenwöhr intended for semi-completion at Vilseck. The landscape has many similarities with the countryside between Vilseck and Heringnohe. The railway on a dam at the horizon may be the Weiden-Nuremberg line passing Vilseck.
-With a certain probability you can exchange "Gauting" for Bodenwöhr.

Any corrections are welcome.

Regards

Roland

Nice photographs, Matthias. Here you can see what´s left of this "Waldwerke" after 64 years...