Gerhard Fieseler : The Man Behind the Storch
The Fieseler Storch is the most famous slow-speed aircraft of the Second World War. It was a remarkably versatile reconnaissance plane, as well as a Nazi showpiece and diplomatic gift - and even, in post-war British hands, a tool in helicopter design. Furthermore, as Nigel Holden suggests in this first complete biography in English of Gerhard Fieseler (its creator), no other plane had a comparably equivalent role in that war.
Making use of Fieseler's own autobiography and other material never reproduced in English, Holden chronicles Fieseler's life against four distinct, interlocking German contexts: the Reich of the erratic Kaiser Wilhelm II; the unloved years of the Weimar Republic; the Nazi era; and the anxious Federal Republic. He also traces Fieseler in the context of aviation development in the first 50 years of the 20th century.
Göring appointed Fieseler to his inner circle of Germany's top industrial leaders and, during the Second World War, his company manufactured under licence Messerschmitt 109s and Focke-Wulf 190s.
Fieseler - according to his own account - was the driving force behind the development of the V1, which is widely regarded as the forbear of the cruise missile.
Holden's biography argues that Fieseler may well have been a better fighter pilot than the renowned Richthofen and reveals some uncanny parallels between his life and that of Germany's greatest wartime aircraft designer, Willy Messerchmitt, as well as describing his time as an indicted war criminal and his subsequent quest for post-war respectability.
Auteur: | Nigel Holden |
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Uitvoering: | 324 blz, 25.5 x 18 x 2.6 cm, hardcover |
Illustraties: | 30 z/w foto's |
Uitgever: | Helion & Company (GB, 2017) |
EAN: | 9781911512745 |
Gerhard Fieseler : The Man Behind the Storch
Taal: Engels
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