Henschel Flugzeugwerke AG

Company Henschel and Son was founded in 1848, during the second half of the XIX century has managed to become one of the world’s leading manufacturers of locomotives. At the beginning of XX century, the company extended the range of products from heavy trucks and machine tools. In 1931, the top management of companies interested in the aviation business, when the firm Henschel tried to establish control over the concern Junkers Flugzeugwerke AG, on the verge of bankruptcy. Negotiators Henschel and Junkers did not succeed, then in February 1932 Oscar R. Henschel asked Walter Hormel manage the development of its own aircraft production.

Officially the “secondary” jet production at the company Henschel and Son was founded on Feb. 15, 1933 March 30 as head of “daughters” of the main company of the company Henschel Flugzeugwerke GmbH (Ltd.) took the engineer Erich Koch, as chief designer got Dipl. Friedrich Nikolaus. Under the production aircraft Take factory buildings of the former wagon factory in Berlin-Yohannestali. Work on the new facility began on Sept. 2, 1933, the number of campaign Henschel Flugzeugwerke GmbH (Ltd.) while there were 69 people, soon instead of consoles GmbH (Ltd.) in the title have appeared more solid letters AG.

Production aircraft for the Henschel was a novelty, so start with the release of licensed designs. Large production orders is relatively small plant in Berlin-Yohannestale do not have been required to expand production capacity. For the construction of a new plant chose a suburb of Berlin – Schoenefeld, construction began on Oct. 15, 1934, and December 22, 1934 the gates of the new plant rolled out the first aircraft assembled here – Junkers Ju-86D.

In parallel with the development of licensing structures were built design their own planes, biplanes delivery Henschel Hs-123 in units of the Luftwaffe began the summer of 1936 the first successes in the field of aircraft caused enthusiasm among company management, to encourage further expansion in the Henschel aircraft manufacturing market in Germany. In August 1936 the grand opening of the plant in Kassel for the production of aircraft engines: there is another “daughter” – a campaign Henschel Flugmotoren GmbH. For eight years, production complex Henschel in Kassel manufactured under license of more than 14 000 engines Daimler-Dentz DB-601 DB-605.

Instead, Ju-86D bomber plant in Schonefeld began to produce another license bomber – Dornier Do-17, and biplane own design Hs-123 on the assembly line changed monoplane reconnaissance Hs-126, the latter was based on two plants – at Schoenefeld and Yohannestale.

The simultaneous expansion of production and design office led to a sharp increase in the number of aviation branch of the company Henschel and Son. Together with the Deutsches Versuchsanstalt fur Luftfahrt (DVL) company participated in a number of ambitious projects – creating pressurized cabin altitude aircraft, corrected bombs, guided missiles, air-to-air and air-surface. In the field of development of corrected and guided bombs planning firm Henschel has achieved outstanding success, in fact becoming a pioneer in the creation of these weapons around the world.