Messerschmitt Me 209 - Der Weg zum schnellsten Propellerflugzeug der Welt

Ferdinand C.W. Käsmann, Aviatic Verlag GmbH, Oberhaching, Germany, 2012, ISBN 978-3-942645-03-4. Illustrated, hardcover, published in German.

Cover image © by Aviatic Verlag GmbH, 2012.

When I came across the news regarding the publication of this book last year, I felt elated. The Messerschmitt Me 209 record aircraft had always intrigued me greatly, and I also entertained a faint hope that the author might perhaps have managed to uncover some new information regarding the later and very elusive V5 and V6 fighter prototypes bearing the same Me 209 designation. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but not necessarily an unrealistic expectation.

It was thus a somewhat sobering moment when I finally held Messerschmitt Me 209 - Der Weg zum schnellsten Propellerflugzeug der Welt [Messerschmitt Me 209 - The Path Towards The Fastest Propeller Aircraft In The World] in my hands. To speak of a disappointment is perhaps too harsh, but in this day and age, one tends to expect more from a specialist publication, and, not least, from a publishing house that has provided the enthusiast with milestone works such as Vernaleken/Handig's indispensable Junkers Ju 388 or Kössler/Ott's Die grossen Dessauer (covering the Junkers Ju 89, Ju 90, Ju 290, and Ju 390 family of aircraft), to name but two.

The first impression was that Käsmann's Messerschmitt Me 209 was deficient in exactly the content advertised by its title. What usually fills an introductory chapter in monographs by Monogram Aviation Publications or Classic Publications, for example, takes the space of 47 out of a total of 119 pages in Käsmann's work. In other words, close to half of the rather slim book is dedicated to an introduction to the topic. It is understood that material on the Me 209 is somewhat scarce (not least given that only four prototypes of the original Me 209 design were built), and the book's subtitle hints at an examination of the larger context. Nonetheless, I don't think it is wrong to expect the majority of this book to be about the actual aircraft mentioned in the title.

Käsmann's description of the quest for speed in aviation and earlier high performance aircraft designs at least has a direct connection to the Me 209's gestation, and this is thus a far more consistent approach than the irritating practice implemented by authors such as David Myhra or Horst Lommel, whose books are often filled with vastly disjointed and unrelated material or badly rendered computer graphics, apparently to simply enhance the page count if no authentic and directly related material could be found.

Expecting the definite history of the Messerschmitt Me 209 will leave the reader feel strangely dissatisfied. In addition, the wording of the text is sometimes feels strange. At certain points, it's almost like a novel, rather than a documentation or factual report. Perhaps this may be explained by the simple fact that the author is of a different generation (he was 84 years old when the book was published) than many of the authors who have published the seminal Luftwaffe works of the past two decades.

Messerschmitt Me 209 does provide the reader with what is perhaps the most comprehensive collection of Me 209 photos in one single source. The illustrations include countless very interesting detail shots as well as period drawings, facsimile documents, newspaper clippings, and drawings by Günter Sengfelder. All illustrations are printed in black & white (even the photos of the sole surviving Me 209), and there are no color profiles. The layout of the book is utterly uninspired, however, and a far cry from what could be achieved today.

The Messerschmitt part of the book closes with scant information on the Me 309 (some of it contradictory) and a mere five sentences (along with the only known, familiar photo) on the Me 209 V5 and V6. The narrative then departs again for the final pages, to focus on the quest for aviation speed records after World War II.

It's not surprising, then, that one is prompted to have very mixed feelings about this publication. It's is nice to have a single, hardcover compilation of so many Me 209 photos and drawings. But given the page count of this book, I did expect significantly more comprehensive research on the aircraft itself instead of such a balance towards context.

Phoenix aus der Asche - Die Deutsche Luftfahrt Sammlung In Berlin

Michael Hundertmark & Holger Steinle, Silberstreif Verlag GmbH, Berlin, Germany, 1985, ISBN 3-924091-02-1. Illustrated, hardcover, published in German.

Cover image © by Silberstreif Verlag GmbH, 1985.

The Deutsche Luftfahrt Sammlung [German Aviation Collection] in Berlin has attained a near-mythical status within the field of German aviation history, not least due to the fact that this exceptionally unique and utterly irreplaceable collection of aircraft and aviation artifacts was scattered and/or destroyed during ravages of World War II. Only fragments of the formerly vast collection remain today, most of them stored in Poland. An equally important contributor to the myth is that not only the hardware has largely vanished but that relatively little information about the Deutsche Luftfahrt Sammlung has been published post-war.

While significant efforts have been made in Berlin in recent decades to at long last establish something akin to a successor collection (i.e., the outstanding permanent aviation exhibit of the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin-Kreuzberg) to preserve and display Germany's aviation heritage, the loss of the original Deutsche Luftfahrt Sammlung has irretrievably deprived Germany of some of its most precious and significant exponents of the country's aviation history.

Phoenix aus der Asche [Phoenix Arisen From The Ashes] grants us an at least fleeting look at the abundance of remarkable exhibits once hosted by the Deutsche Luftfahrt Sammlung. Moreover, the book provides an exhaustive history of the institution itself as well as of the site in Berlin where the museum once stood. The authors, Michael Hundertmark (an aviation historian) and Holger Steinle (who would be crucially instrumental in establishing the new aviation exhibit of the Deutsches Technikmuseum) spent years researching the former Deutsche Luftfahrt Sammlung. The resulting book is thus still the definitive (if inevitably vastly incomplete) landmark study on this topic, even 25 years after its publication.

Phoenix aus der Asche begins with a look at the so-called Pulvermühle-site in Berlin's Tiergarten district in the 19th century. The detailed text, along with numerous photos and drawings, depicts the construction of the building that would much later become the main exhibition hall of the Deutsche Luftfahrt Sammlung. Hundertmark and Steinle subsequently describe the establishment of an official German aviation collection as well as the formal opening of the associated new museum on June 20, 1936. The gloomy end of the narrative depicts the destruction of the building and some of its exhibits during the war as well as the scattering of those exhibits that had already been removed from the museum in anticipation of the impending obliteration.

The second half of Phoenix aus der Asche is dedicated to a closer portrayal of some of the noteworthy German and foreign exhibits of the Deutsche Luftfahrt Sammlung, such as Ernst Udet's Curtiss Hawk, Horten Ho II, Levavasseur Antoinette, Heinkel He 5 e, an engine nacelle of the Zeppelin-Staaken R IV, the Messerschmitt Me 209 V1, and many more. The book concludes with an attempt to provide what was probably the most comprehensive - but openly tentative - list of the exhibits at the time of the publication of this book.

Since this book saw the light of the day in 1985, a small number of complementary articles on the Deutsche Luftfahrt Sammlung have been published, such as

- Auf der Spur der Veteranen (Die frühere Deutsche Luftfahrtsammlung Berlin - viele Fragen und noch wenige Antworten), by Marian Krzyzan & Holger Steinle, in Flugzeug 5/1988,

- Wie die Do X ins Museum kam, by Prof. Dr. Dr. Holger Steinle, in Jet & Prop 3/1997,

- Die untergegangene Luftfahrtsammlung (Teil 1), by Heiko Müller, in Klassiker der Luftfahrt 1/2007, and

- Juwelen in Berlin (Teil 2), by Heiko Müller, in Klassiker der Luftfahrt 2/2007.

Phoenix aus der Asche, however, easily remains the definitive work on this fascinating and long-perished German collection of aircraft, in spite of what must be a wealth of additional information that has since been uncovered.

[Article updated November 15, 2011.]