By 1938 Junkers, even before it began its most dramatic period of expansion, already ranked alongside Daimler-Benz as Germany’s twelfth largest private employer. Further down the list followed Arado, Heinkel, Dornier, Focke-Wulf and Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, better known as Messerschmitt. What was distinctive about the aircraft producers was that, unlike ship-builders, gun- or tank-makers, the aircraft producers had no significant civilian production.92 The military aircraft they were producing by the late 1930s had little or no value as commercial products. There was thus no alternative
...more
