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

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Hallo Matthias and Roland,

Without daring to talk of "neutral Swiss authorities", it's a real and extraordinary pleasure to pinpoint collectively locations of our recent Past. Teamwork is best!

As a lifelong biker, I do feel with you Roland;-)))

Back to the link you give us and the picture it contains, I would contend all depicted airframes were closer to where the secondary line meets the main railway line and thus beneath the lower edge of this picture; they must have been actually quite close to the road which travels on the lower left of your aerial picture.

Matthias, Roland, if I snatch a few days leave, I would love to pop over to your part of Bayern! Of course AFTER having checked with the opening hours of the Cham municipality!

Cheers
Marc

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Hallo Roland,

For the sake of completeness regarding your post #31, here is the link to the Flossenbürg assembly shop photo showing the front half of the already engine equipped Bf 109 K-4 fuselages:

http://www.flossenburg.be/historischefotob.html

And the same interior shot with a better resolution; just above an overview of the assembly barracks:

http://www.cjvma.org/e/albums/kleinmann/069-080.html

Caption: The Messrschmidt factory in Flossenbürg, and the interior of this factory where Peter worked assembling engines. (KFF Archives; Interior, courtesy Stanley S. Marcus)

Cheers
Marc

[RolandF]

Thanks, Marc for these websites.

I already know those photographs, but the resolution of the Bf109K pic is excellent!

The photo of the assembly barracks is captioned wrongly concerning the assembly of wings or fuselages - they´re much too small at all. This assembly took place elsewhere. Maybe the pre-assembly of components took place in these barracks or the fabrication of Me 262 parts towards the final months. I haven´t found photos of the Nazi-era depicting Mtt assembly halls - seems to be the urge to keep it secret. Even on official KZ photos you can see some halls faintly in the background of one pic. Most photos come from the US - maybe they´re still filed as "Mtt Regensburg"

Another pic from the 50s-60s show a train passing Altenhammer. The gap left of the engine marks the site of the Mtt assembly hall already torn down at this time.

I´m quite sure the archives of EADS (successor of MBB and/or Mtt) contain photos of those secret production sites. IMO they´re not revealed because it would not be PC to draw any connections to a wartime production of the company based on slave labour. And the KZ Flossenbürg archives understandably are mostly interested in the suffering of the people and not in their products.

Regards

Roland

[Fliegerhorst]

Greetings from Wertheim
I live close to the former airfield Wertheim-Reinhardshof.
The former Luftwaffe depot can be accessed.
Do You know the former flak tower, called "Turm"?
May be I can do some research for You. There is the "Historischer Verein", I can ask them, can ask elder people, reaearch in archives.

By the way Wertheim Flugplatz was usually a subsidiary of Giebelstadt Flugplatz

[Fliegerhorst]

Wertheim was connected to Bavaria/Kreuzwertheim Würzburg via railroad via Lohr.
Schlossbergtunnel closed meant either stop at Kreuzwertheim and ca. 1km by road.
The road with the engines seems to be "Eichelsteige". The railroad was abandonned in 1976. The tunnel still exists.
Eichelsteige is very close to the tunnel´s entrance, ca. 50m .
as a child I was told that Messerschmitt airplanes had been built beside Eichelsteige.
The other two railroad connections, still existing is from the south, Stuttgart, also to Odenwald (Neckarelz area) and via Miltenberg beside the main river also to Odenwald via Amorbach.
Thus parts could have been delivered to the other tunnels´s entrance, if not via Kreuzwertheim.

There is one photographer having many pictures from Wertheim´s history.

There is Staatsarchiv in Kloster Bronnbach, part of Wertheim.

There are stories that a guy of Wertheim made a Stuka flight under the bridge
to the tunnels entrance.

Come to Wertheim and I organize a meeting.

Would be a pleasure

[Fliegerhorst]

also very interesting, got to know today, there was ca.
10-max 15 km another Luftwaffe Airport. did not know.
Höpfingen, called Dornberg

this might also have been a reason to assemble airplanes in Wertheim


Dornberg: Einsatzhafen 1. Ordnung, Arbeitsplatz für Wertheim. Flugplatz nach 1945 aufgegeben, seitdem landwirtschaftliche Nutzung, nur noch wenige Spuren vorhanden: Ehemaliges Liegeplatzgebäude jetzt bäuerliches Anwesen (Ferienhof), einige Bunker (Mun- Depot) im nahegelegenen Wald. Landstraße nach Dornberg folgt dem Verlauf der ehemaligen Fliegerhorstringstraße. In letzter Zeit hat sich der Heimatverein Höpfingen um eine Aufarbeitung und Dokumentation der Geschichte des Platzes bemüht.

[Fliegerhorst]

there was a railroad from Walldürn to Hardheim, also a special railway from Walldürn to the now forgotten airport.

[Fliegerhorst]

www.schlemperthof.de

sie "Geschichte"
stunning description of Dornberg Airport, which was subsidiary of Giebelstadt and Wertheim Flufgplatz
Giebelstadt is located in Bavaria, closer to Messerschmitt.
The "chief" airport of Wertheim and of Wertheim´s smaller partner airfield Dornberg.
Aircraft parts were delivered from Bavaria and motors from Baden-Württemberg where Wertheim and Höpfingen are.
Dornberg was

[Fliegerhorst]

Dornberg was closer to the Western front than Wertheim.
Thus Eichelsteige assembly was a little more protected, additionally behind mountain

[Fliegerhorst]

the railway providing the motors from Stuttgart runs nearly in South to North direction protected by the Tauber Valley.

http://web2.cylex.de/stadtplan/werth...helsteige.html

see the road cossing the river. it was a combined railway road bridge.
on the northern side of the river Kreuzwertheim Railway station.
Tunnel entrance is just at the South of the bridge, the assembly of Messerschmitts was at Eichelsteige, at least the motors were stored there