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

[masmar]

Hi Marc and Roland

all that wiring, connectors and holders are mounting parts for the engine and do not belong to the engine directly but to the fuslage subassembly. Only the engines without attached parts were delivered by DB. I think you could be right with your theory, that the airframes were brought into that state that just the engine would have been needed and then delivered to an alternative assembly line like Wertheim. For me as well, it doesn't make to much sense that they brokeup the hole supplier chain. I think all the smaller parts were delivered to and installed within the closer Mtt. Regensburg network. Maybe the engine supply by rail took to long to the end of the war. So they looked out for a place closer to Daimler Benz in Baden-Württemberg. And Wertheim would be directly in the middle. Provided that DB still was producing in the Stuttgart area.
But thats just speculation, anyhow it sounds presumably to me.

I tried to google with "Daimler Benz U-Verlagerung"
and found the following site:
http://www.kz-denk-neckarelz.de/goldfisch/goldfisch.htm

DB was planning to move their production north into a underground facility near Neckarelz (see also Doggerwerk near Happurg for BMW engine production). That makes the distance to Wertheim even smaller (65km). I think that could explain a lot.


I hope I'll find some time to visit Cham municipal administration. It's not yet in my calendar, but on top of my to-do-list

Let me know what you think on that Neckarelz thing. New place new luck?

ps: Over a period the DB605s where attached in Bodenwöhr as well. I found some parts like fasteners which were directly fixed to the engine.

[masmar]

Hi again,

A short correction:
former production of DB was in Genshagen near Berlin and Mannheim:
http://www.luftarchiv.de/index.htm?/motoren/benz.htm

the underground production site "Goldfisch" was already producing and not only in the state of construction:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decknam..._Geheimobjekte
http://www.explorate.de/Forum/unteri...goldfisch.html

I'm looking forward to your answers.

Greez

Matthias

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Hallo Matthias,

Wow, great, simply great! I wasn't aware of this huge "Goldfisch" DB underground production plant at Neckarelz! And to know it was just 65 km away from Wertheim... Talk about piecing back some basic evidences, Congrats, Matthias!

There I found more precise informations:

http://www.kz-denk-neckarelz.de/gold...ldfischbro.pdf

Daimler-Benz Director Müller decided on 7 March 1944 to relocalize the Genshagen plant to the Gypsum mine of Neckarelz after visiting this place. The plan was to have the 50'000 square meters underground factory up and running within 7 weeks. The first 500 deportees to be used as forced labour were brought from Dachau by the SS around mid March; during late spring and early summer, an estimated 5'000 deportees toiled on a horrendous schedules in day and nightshifts to finish "Goldfisch" and "Brasse" underground factories. By 26 June 1944, the first 21 out of the 2'000 factory machines from Genshagen effectively arrived, together with the skilled workers, to Neckarelz; by the end of August, the first prodcution step was installed and production started at once; It was interrupted in septmeber by the collapse of part of the cavern's vault, with heavy loss of lief.

Finally, the first DB 605's were delivered to Mtt at the beginning of October. The planned-for monthly output of 500 new engines and 350 more repaired engines was never achieved though, even with the employment of 7'000 workers, mainly foreigners, on a double shift schedule, with about 3'000 deportees employed under atrocious conditions for developping the infrastrucures and suffering accordingly terrible loss of life rates. "Goldfisch" was also used to relocate the Slovak Rochen /Dubnica Daimler-Benz factory, and plans were drawn to relocate the Sindelfingen factory as well, but the latter move was never carried out. Thus Daimler-Benz managed to keep most of its production tool out of harm's way from incessant Allied raids. Production ceased by the end of March and this huge facility was overrun by the US Army on 2 April 1945, the very day T/5 Robert F Stubenrauch took his pictures of the Fulmann GbmH Wertheim assembly place.

For nowaday pictures:
http://www.explorate.de/militaria/goldfisch.htm

For more informations on Neckarelz and Daimler-Benz:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZ_Neckarelz



Between your infos, the ones of Carl and Roland, all elements of this thread do find their place within the following probable time frame:

- Summer 1944: Wertheim' Flumann GmbH becomes a Messerschmitt repair facility carrying repair work in their Schlossberg tunnel workshop. Acceptance flights are carried out (Carl, post #38).

- From October 1944 onwards: the "Goldfisch" Daimler-Benz underground facility in Neckarelz, 65 kilometers away from Wertheim, starts to turn out new and repaired DB 605/AS or D (Matthias, post #46-7)

- End of January 1945: due to operational priorities, acceptance flights activities in the Amberg-Schafhof-Vilseck area are shut down (Roland, post #39).

- From February 1945 onwards, part of the Bodenwöhr airframes production is sent to Wertheim for engine and wings outfitting, final assembly, test and acceptance flights.

Now remains to know:

- Why only Bodenwöhr "outsourced" part of it's Bf 109K-4 fuselages production to Wertheim, and not Flossenbürg.

- To where was sent the engineless part of the Flossenbürg airframes production, "outsourced" for engine and wing outfitting, test and acceptance flights?
Let's hope that geographically more revealing or better captioned pictures of those engineless Flossenbürg camouflage patterned fuselages lined up on a "location unknown" Holzrückerweg will show up!

So long for tonight, and thanks to all for bringing this complex chain of events back together!

Cheers
Marc

[Charles Bavarois]

Marc,

please let me add a few thoughts to your great scenario on Wertheim.

Quote:
“Summer 1944: Wertheim' Flumann GmbH becomes a Messerschmitt repair facility carrying repair work in their Schlossberg tunnel workshop. Acceptance flights are carried out”

Flugzeugwerke Mannheim “Flumann” was doing repairs on Bf 109s at least since 1942. Flumann always was an independent plant with its own leadership, workers, infrastructure and budget. It never was a subcontractor of Messerschmitt. I have acceptance-flights of repaired a/c from 1942 up to March 1944 at Mannheim and from Juli 1944 from Wertheim.

Quote:
“End of January 1945: due to operational priorities, acceptance flights activities in the Amberg-Schafhof-Vilseck area are shut down”

We can verify a lot of acceptence-flights at Vilseck, Amberg and Cham up the the end of March and even early April 1945 what is very near to the absolute cessation of Bf 109 production itself. As for Amberg-Schafhof: Sharing an airfield with an operational flying unit was not unusual. Just remember München-Riem, Neuburg/Donau, Schwerin, Leipzig-Mockau a.s.o).
BTW: IV./SG 151 was not an operational flying unit, but a mere advanced training group and stopping activities of A/B 43 and A/B 121 has no conection to Messerschmitt, but was part of the general reduction of training due to fuel-shortages.


Quote:
“From February 1945 onwards, part of the Bodenwöhr airframes production is sent to Wertheim for engine and wings outfitting, final assembly, test and acceptance flights”..

This points towards a general shift of final-assembly to Wertheim. Actually it was a small-scale and unique stopgap measure. Hauptausschuss Flugzeugbau filed a report on the situation on a/c-deliveries on 14. February 1945 and said:
“Zur Entlastung vom Mtt.R wurden den Reparaturwerken Flumann Wertheim und Wels im Januar für je 30 Flugzeuge die Großbauteile übergeben. Eine Ausbrigung von diesen aufgerüsteten Flugzeugen erfolgte bis 10.2.45 nicht“
(rough translation: to relieve Messerschmitt-Regensburg in January 1945 major subassemblies for 30 a/c each were handed over to repairworks Flumann at Wertheim and Wels”. None of these rigged-up a/c was delivered up to 10. February 1945”

The term “Großbauteile” regularily is connected to larger prefabricated parts of an a/c, for example the fully equipped fuselage including the cockpit, the complete wings, the engine with all necessary equipment and with its cowlings attached (“Triebwerk”). This explains, why the K-4s at Wertheim were without engines. Flumanns task was to fit “ready to use” Triebwerke and wings to the fuselage, to built in weapons and radio and to do the regular works on Einflug and Abnahme. Also “aufgerüstet” points towards some “putting together” of parts, not real production of any kind.


Another thing:

Looking at the foto of the tunnel-entrance, I consider, that the tunnel itself was quite narrow. The tunnels at Tisnov or at Gevelsberg were much broader. Installing machines and tools for wing-repair perhaps was possible, but not for fuselages and certainly not for wings and fuselages at the same time. I think, we have to look for other facilities around the Schlossbergtunnel, perhaps some wooden buildings in the forrest or some of the hangars of the Wertheim Fliegerhorst.

HTH

Carl

[ouidjat]

Hello,
At least, Carl, Marc-André last post (#48) has the advantage to make the point of the situation, and yours to point there is a little bit more to dig further in these "fouilles curieuses"! Sorry pals it's a french archeologist joke (I don't know in Swizerland), cannot translate... except "strange diggings" but it's not a joke anymore.
Anyway, do you know, friends, any picture showing (belly landed for example) a BF109K-4 in full/complete assembled condition wearing this famous snake band?
Regards,
Franck.

[RT]

Seems Ouidjat, learn french with a girl, seems to me more an erotic expression..

remi

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Dear Carl,

Thanks for your thorough and methodical analysis of my latest guesswork, I really appreciate it.

It is most interesting to fully know the meaning of "Flumann GmbH", also precising the start of acceptation flights in Wertheim.

-Also good to know that the Vilseck-Amberg-Schafhof flight acceptances were upkept that long; thanks for enlighting us all about Roland's question and hypothesis.

- As for my statement for the shifting of final assembly from Bodenwöhr to Wertheim, I always meant "partial shifting", ofc not general shifting. Thanks for your precision about the small size of this delocalization and confirming engineless fuselages, wing sets and engines with cowlings, like the ones documented near the Schlossberg tunnel, do fully illustrate the term of "Grossbauteile". I still remain with my question about easier engine availability in Wertheim then in Bodenwöhr for the time frame March - April 1945 as the root-cause for this Mtt outsourcing.

As for your last point, we can but concur, see my post #45); no chance to mate wings and fuselages within this narrow one-track tunnel, hence the fuselages photographed in the surrounding woods on 2 April 1945:

Quote (post #45)
"What can we deduce? In both locations, the Bf 109 K-4 airframes do show the same level of fitting out: wires and boxes are already substantially fixed on the bulkhead's lower part; lower engine bearers only fixed. Evidence so far is thin, but on this basis, there is no indication that those airframes had their engines fitted at Bodenwöhr and then removed at Wertheim prior their dispersal in the woods. In the contrary, the fact that both the engines on trolleys and the wing sets were all located either next to or at the entrance of the Schlossberg tunnel does speak for sub-assemblies arriving there by railroad, being offloaded and readied in the tunnel workshop before being transported to the uphill forrested areas for mating on the waiting fuselages. Let's also remember the latter were dispersed in the woods surrounding Wertheim's airfield where the fly-ins and handing over tasks were carried out. "

Thanks again for your much valued input

Cheers
Marc

.

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Dear Ouidjat,

I always highly appreciate the "rabid balls" of Professeur Choron ;-)))

More seriously, checking out the by far the best current reference book on the Bf 109 K (Poruba and Mol 2000, JaPo) I did find three machines which likely sport thise "snake" Bodenwöhr patterns (look at my post #9):

Quote:

"One last point to take into account when thinking on this "near Wertheim" typical camouflage pattern. I perused all published Bf 109K-4 pictures available to me and found at least three operational machines with this same camouflage pattern:

"- Bf 109 K-4, W.Nr. unknown, "Black 1" of 10. /JG 51, Ronne stadium, 4th May 1945 (Poruba and Mol 2000, 70 - 73).
- Bf 109 K-4, W. Nr unknown, JG 52 (?), Ceske Budejovice, May 1945, (Poruba and Mol 2000, 63).
- Bf 109 K-4, W. Nr unknown "White 8", JG 52 (?), May 1945 (Poruba and Mol 2000, 46 - 47). This one is illustrated by stills of a colour fim shot by the US Army; the film can be seen on Youtube."

Cheers
Marc

[ouidjat]

Believe me or not but she really was an archeologist working on Carcassone area while I was reabilitating some antics as stone mason...
Yes Marc, Thank you.
Means the one I got looks exactly what it seems to be.
Regards,
Franck.

[masmar]

Hey guys,

Marc, thank you very much for the further information on the "Goldfisch" underground facility. Really interesting facts you provide.
As well thanks for summing up what we got so far.

Carl, thank you for the facts and figures on that Bodenwöhr-Wertheim relation. They're really helpful to underline our theories.

I want to add another point which is still open. Namely the question where the picture ,showing the unfinished fuselages stacked on each other was taken. In post #30 Roland propose Vilseck as a probable location. Maybe we can prove that in a way. I think it's an really fascinating picture and it would be great if we could get some more background on it. But first things first
Wish you all a nice sunday!

Matthias