By the way, there was not only an aviation school, but a tank school, as well, was organized in Lipetsk, Russia, within the German-Soviet cooperation. And most of yesterday's students invaded the USSR in 1941, following the well-known routes and roads where they trained just a few years ago.
Love your storytelling Ed. Your context isn't just filler, it's an essential part. Cheers. _My 3rd [and final!] copy about that sniper bloke arrived - I gave away 2 to old ⚓mates._
You may enjoy Ed talking about paint drying but thing of it from his point of view. He has to watch the paint dry without the benefit of his narration.
There is an interesting Mini Series “Turbulent Skies” from Dutch TV in last 2 years about the origins of KLM and how Anthony Fokker created the Original KLM fleet of planes . Very eye opening and discussed this “secret fighter “
This is such a fascinating story Ed. Many thanks. Did you ever see the excellent German drama series "Babylon Berlin"? This very tale is a major feature.
In the Autobiography of Me 110 Ace and night fighter pioneer Wolfgang Falck he recounts his training at Lipetsk with all its weird restrictions not least due to soviet paranoia about foreigners and the fact that the pilots had to retire from the military to go there.
There were some interesting stories from Soviet trainings from later decades also. In 60's Finnish Air Force pilots were learning about new MiG-21F13's. One morning all flights were cancelled suddenly without explanation. The Finns were then on their own for the rest of the day, when sky went bright on the horizon. Only at dinner were they told about the nuclear test nearby 🙂
The dutch gave a ton of knowledge on military equipment , Even the German Type IIA IIB VII where developed in the the netherlands . so one could say the dutch where the cradle for both the U-Boats and airforce.
Therefore, Russian propaganda ignores that the USSR played quite a large role in German armament, which was the basis for Hitler's expansion of the German armed forces. It was the Soviets who helped forge the sword with which the Germans wanted to conquer the world (including the USSR).
During WW2 a teacher had invited a pilot to talk to her class, the Pilot was saying I had a Fokker on my tail. The teacher hurriedly interrupts to say Fokker was a type of aircraft. The Pilot says this fokker was a Messerschmitt.
Old story. Different version- A lecture to a ladies group- Fokkers on the left of me, Fokkers on the right. Question, Fokkers were the type of plane they were flying, right? A. No those Fokkers were flying Messerschmitts!
Every time I hear about interwar German/USSR military cooperation, I get "NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!!" levels of comedy vibes. Imagine if modern Japan wanted to sneak around behind everybody's back and develop nuclear weapons, so they go to North Korea for help. It is that kind of silly-insane-clever.
I feel sorry for all the late-1920s fighters. Even the best designs just had a few years in the air before newer, faster, better designs took their jobs away.
I'm wondering how did Argentine react to this 'deal' - if it reacted at all. Because if they were showing it around on air shows, someone must have asked Argentinians about them. Or were they really so completely cut off from information back then?
Excellent video, thanks. With all the changes to official history being made to textbooks in Russia, I might send this to some friends for the Lipetsk story.
A great story! But considering all the effort that went into the subterfuge, training 120 pilots in 7 years at the "secret" air base in the Soviet Union does not sound very efficient. One imagines that most of those pilots went on to be instructors post-1933 but certainly some ended up in the Legion Condor.
No, the petard doesn't get hoisted. It does the hoisting. A petard is a little hand-thrown bomb with a fuse sticking out just like a cartoon bomb - an early grenade. Named from _peter_ (pet-ay), French for fart. If you have an oopsie with the fuse or butterfingers the throw, you are hoisted by your own petard. Probably in a few different directions. It's also amusing to imagine being lifted off the ground by a fart.
@@johnladuke6475 Petards were hung on fortified gates, to breach them. That's where the hoisting comes in. Mediaeval fuse technology wasn't always that reliable, so there was a distinct possibility that the defenders might capture it unexploded, and later return the compliment against your gate.
The USSR connection? The USSR was decades behind European standards in virtually every modern technology except fire arms and railways. Stalin was fascinated by technology and despite not being an engineer, he gathered quite a bit of technical knowledge. He quickly understood that being behind in almost every field of technology would soon become a huge problem for the empire he was about to erect. That's why he was happy to cooperate with the technologically much more modern German military. Exchange of technology continued until early 1940. The USSR had access to the vast majority of Luftwaffe frontline aircraft models all the way to the modern Ju88A-1 and Bf109E. Stalin believed that the USSR would benefit more from the cooperation than Germany, which in the end was proven right. The Germans believed that selling modern technology to the USSR wouldn't change anything because they believed that the USSR wouldn't be able to make use of it, which very quickly was proven wrong.
He might have been in the USA. It is funny, his American Fokker company went on to be bought by GM and then cut loose to be North American Aviation....who made the Mustang. It is funny how the DNA of aero company's work
Fokker was already dead , Fokker died at age 49 in New York in 1939 from pneumococcal meningitis, after a three-week-long illness. In 1940, his ashes were brought to Westerveld Cemetery in Driehuis, North Holland, where they were buried in the family grave.
France and Belgium occuped the Ruhr industrial area, because of the repations clauses of the Versailles Treaty that were not honored and Poland got a piece of Czechoslovakia after the country ceased to exist because of the German occupation of the Czech part. No war in both cases. Yes you get what you got, too bad they didn't do the same thing when Germany started to grab lands agains in the 30s, but no 20/20 hindsight and other things got in the way.
That doesn’t really change the reality, and most treaties that involve a war where one side was clearly losing tend to involve said side signing at gun point. One can argue about the details and contents of the treaty being overly harsh and contributing to the rise of Nazism, sure, but not so much the method. The Japanese surrender in World War II was, ostensibly at least, signed at nuclear gun point (ostensibly since the US was kind of bluffing about their nuclear capability, and it would have taken awhile before they could have dropped anymore atomic bombs). However, despite that, Japan followed said treaty and it has largely been viewed as a successful one. Possibly because it was far less economically harsh than Versailles was to Germany, and efforts by allied powers in feeding and rebuilding Japan were fairly fast after the war, unlike in World War I, where the allied powers maintained trade embargoes and a literal blockade, including food, long after the ceasefire with Germany.
Given that Prussia and later the united Germany clearly had an expansionist agenda and had done nothing but cause trouble in mainland Europe for some considerable time, being forced to sign the treaty seems quite fair.
@@bigblue6917that’s… really debatable. As I previously said, most treaties ending wars where one side clearly lost can be described as being signed at gun point, and the Franco-Prussian war was no different. France lost that war, badly. But to put the blame of World War I entirely on Germany is ahistorical at best, and the same type of jingoism that led to World War I being what it was at worst. Austria-Hungary did not have to go to war with Serbia after the assassination of of their archduke, especially after Serbia had already given in to the extreme demands of the Austrians. Russia didn’t have to respond by attacking Austria, instead of sending reinforcements to Serbia and keeping it an isolated war. France didn’t have to pledge that they would attack from the west any power that attacked Russia. Germany didn’t have to respond to that threat by attacking on two fronts instead of attacking Russia while just fortifying in the west. Most importantly, Britain didn’t have to get involved at all. They were among the largest powers, but did not have a treaty obligation “forcing” them into the war in defense or opposition to any of the belligerent nations, yet chose to go to war anyways. The same was true of the Ottomans; nothing forced them into the war. The reality of World War I isn’t that it was Germany’s fault. If I had to lay blame to anyone, personally I’d blame the Hapsburgs for refusing to accept that Serbia had given in to their harsh demands, but I don’t think the Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary had any real idea what the repercussions of attacking Serbia would be. The reality of that terrible war was that governments on all sides wanted a war, and thought it would be “quick and glorious.” That was true of the British, French, Italians, and Russians just as much as it was for the Germans, Austro-Hungarians, and Ottomans.
If I recall correctly, Fokker offered his services to the allies first, but they were not interested in him or his designs. He knew he had great planes to offer, had a factory, responsibilities towards his employees... I blame the Dutch government for being so stupidly blind not to buy his airplanes. The government would repeat this stupidness 20 years later. I do not think Anthony Fokker is to blame here for having a "moral compass of a rat" @@TK421-53
And Anthony Fokker went to live in the US concentrating on the US arm of Fokker aircraft, that built up an excellent engineering team, was acquired by GM, who eventually acquired North American and merged their (GM's) aviation arms under the North American name but largely composed of the core Fokker staff. Who moved from the east to the west coast, and went on of course to build the B25, P51 and Sabre. So, lucky for the US Anthony moved there.
The German civilian airline - Lufthansa - also helped a great deal with training both air and ground personel.
By the way, there was not only an aviation school, but a tank school, as well, was organized in Lipetsk, Russia, within the German-Soviet cooperation. And most of yesterday's students invaded the USSR in 1941, following the well-known routes and roads where they trained just a few years ago.
what a grim tale
WW2 really is more fascinating the more you understand the history
Soviets cooperated with germans because entire west refused to do anything with soviets leaving them no other partner but Germans.
Love your storytelling Ed. Your context isn't just filler, it's an essential part. Cheers.
_My 3rd [and final!] copy about that sniper bloke arrived - I gave away 2 to old ⚓mates._
Thanks man, really glad you enjoy the content and the book 😁
Great stuff! The "unequal span" is called a sesquiplane.
A sesquiplane can also be called a plane with wings of “unequal span”
While being an aircraft buff, I'm amazed by your knowledge. Thank you for your work.
Ed, I think I could enjoy listening to you describe paint drying!
Lol
@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters I hope that came across as the compliment it was intended to be.
You may enjoy Ed talking about paint drying but thing of it from his point of view. He has to watch the paint dry without the benefit of his narration.
what a lovely chap Fokker was
There is an interesting Mini Series “Turbulent Skies” from Dutch TV in last 2 years about the origins of KLM and how Anthony Fokker created the Original KLM fleet of planes . Very eye opening and discussed this “secret fighter “
Yep, was thinking about that TVseries too. It is not the masterpiece, but a good history flick
This is such a fascinating story Ed. Many thanks. Did you ever see the excellent German drama series "Babylon Berlin"? This very tale is a major feature.
I havent! I will have to keep an eye out for it.
In the Autobiography of Me 110 Ace and night fighter pioneer Wolfgang Falck he recounts his training at Lipetsk with all its weird restrictions not least due to soviet paranoia about foreigners and the fact that the pilots had to retire from the military to go there.
There were some interesting stories from Soviet trainings from later decades also. In 60's Finnish Air Force pilots were learning about new MiG-21F13's. One morning all flights were cancelled suddenly without explanation. The Finns were then on their own for the rest of the day, when sky went bright on the horizon. Only at dinner were they told about the nuclear test nearby 🙂
A wonderful video and airplane Mr.Ed.These 1920s-1930s airframes are utterly loveable.Have a good one.
Anything with a Napier Lion is...
Wow, never heard of this one. Fascinating.
Thanks for filling in a bit of the vacuum of information regarding the breather in the Great 20th Century War...
The dutch gave a ton of knowledge on military equipment , Even the German Type IIA IIB VII where developed in the the netherlands . so one could say the dutch where the cradle for both the U-Boats and airforce.
Therefore, Russian propaganda ignores that the USSR played quite a large role in German armament, which was the basis for Hitler's expansion of the German armed forces. It was the Soviets who helped forge the sword with which the Germans wanted to conquer the world (including the USSR).
How heart warming to learn more detail of the way Stalin prepared the ground to cut his own throat.
Fascinating - I was unaware of this piece of history. Thanks for the video
The Netherlands never signed the treaty of Versailles.. therefore it was only illegal in Germany and Fokker didn't do anything legally wrong.
During WW2 a teacher had invited a pilot to talk to her class, the Pilot was saying I had a Fokker on my tail. The teacher hurriedly interrupts to say Fokker was a type of aircraft. The Pilot says this fokker was a Messerschmitt.
Old story. Different version- A lecture to a ladies group- Fokkers on the left of me, Fokkers on the right. Question, Fokkers were the type of plane they were flying, right? A. No those Fokkers were flying Messerschmitts!
Douglas bader.
@@sugarnadssupposedly…nice story though.
Some Fokker has to retell this dusty old joke every time this aircraft company comes up.
The fat electrician just did a video on Bader
Every time I hear about interwar German/USSR military cooperation, I get "NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!!" levels of comedy vibes. Imagine if modern Japan wanted to sneak around behind everybody's back and develop nuclear weapons, so they go to North Korea for help. It is that kind of silly-insane-clever.
I feel sorry for all the late-1920s fighters. Even the best designs just had a few years in the air before newer, faster, better designs took their jobs away.
A droppable fuel tank???
The BF109 did NOT enter the chat...
Another I'd never heard of, Ed...
The napier lion was an engineering marvel in its day.
Short and to the point. Excellent. Carry on.
That was a nice design
Thanks Ed Nash.....
Shoe🇺🇸
Am I correct in observing that what appears to be a radiator can be slide into and out of the fuselage? Was this to control the amount of cooling?
I just wanted to say I love this channel.
For the Almighty Algorithm
The ones made in "mother Russia" could have been labeled "Mother Fokkers"
Versailles Treaty: "You can't have fighter planes!"
Germany: Its actually an "agricultural" plane!
Versailles Treaty: .....ok
Soviet Union: It's tractor parts for Germany...
Excellent history lesson yet again! You ever thought about doing the Curtiss-Wright C-76?
I'm wondering how did Argentine react to this 'deal' - if it reacted at all. Because if they were showing it around on air shows, someone must have asked Argentinians about them. Or were they really so completely cut off from information back then?
Interesting! Lots of detail here I didn't know.
Excellent video, thanks.
With all the changes to official history being made to textbooks in Russia, I might send this to some friends for the Lipetsk story.
A great story! But considering all the effort that went into the subterfuge, training 120 pilots in 7 years at the "secret" air base in the Soviet Union does not sound very efficient. One imagines that most of those pilots went on to be instructors post-1933 but certainly some ended up in the Legion Condor.
Hi Mr Nash! "Germany" "Secret"..... One ingredient is missing in the title! 😄
Meanwhile in Britain the Sopwith company was forced into liquidation by the war excess profits tax.
As always Ed , you come up with yet another aircraft we know nothing about ......and apparently no one else did either !!!🤣🤣🤣
Another of the "Short term gains" for "Long term pain" in European history.
Another example of the right plane at the wrong time.
Nash, shhh!!! It's supposed to be a secret!!!! Do you want to Fokker things up for Hans?
Another petard hoisted upon its originator, considering the role the Luftwaffe played in the invasion of the USSR.
No, the petard doesn't get hoisted. It does the hoisting. A petard is a little hand-thrown bomb with a fuse sticking out just like a cartoon bomb - an early grenade. Named from _peter_ (pet-ay), French for fart. If you have an oopsie with the fuse or butterfingers the throw, you are hoisted by your own petard. Probably in a few different directions. It's also amusing to imagine being lifted off the ground by a fart.
@@johnladuke6475 Petards were hung on fortified gates, to breach them. That's where the hoisting comes in. Mediaeval fuse technology wasn't always that reliable, so there was a distinct possibility that the defenders might capture it unexploded, and later return the compliment against your gate.
Strange collaboration...
The USSR connection? The USSR was decades behind European standards in virtually every modern technology except fire arms and railways. Stalin was fascinated by technology and despite not being an engineer, he gathered quite a bit of technical knowledge. He quickly understood that being behind in almost every field of technology would soon become a huge problem for the empire he was about to erect. That's why he was happy to cooperate with the technologically much more modern German military. Exchange of technology continued until early 1940. The USSR had access to the vast majority of Luftwaffe frontline aircraft models all the way to the modern Ju88A-1 and Bf109E. Stalin believed that the USSR would benefit more from the cooperation than Germany, which in the end was proven right. The Germans believed that selling modern technology to the USSR wouldn't change anything because they believed that the USSR wouldn't be able to make use of it, which very quickly was proven wrong.
Was Anthony Fokker in Amsterdam when the Luftwaffe bombed it I wonder?
He might have been in the USA. It is funny, his American Fokker company went on to be bought by GM and then cut loose to be North American Aviation....who made the Mustang. It is funny how the DNA of aero company's work
@@marklittle8805 Learn something new everyday...that is truly fascinating. Thank you.
Fokker was already dead , Fokker died at age 49 in New York in 1939 from pneumococcal meningitis, after a three-week-long illness. In 1940, his ashes were brought to Westerveld Cemetery in Driehuis, North Holland, where they were buried in the family grave.
Yes, France and Belgium invaded Germany between the wars. Poland also invaded Czechoslovkia. Nobody cared. So, you get what you got.
France and Belgium occuped the Ruhr industrial area, because of the repations clauses of the Versailles Treaty that were not honored and Poland got a piece of Czechoslovakia after the country ceased to exist because of the German occupation of the Czech part. No war in both cases. Yes you get what you got, too bad they didn't do the same thing when Germany started to grab lands agains in the 30s, but no 20/20 hindsight and other things got in the way.
@@Balrog2005 So, basically, it's not an invasion and occupation when WE do it. Good to remember in the current middle east crisis.
@@whiskey_tango_foxtrot__ Try to read it... and not put again the same thing.
I'm sure folks at the League of Nations cared, but they were even more ineffective than the UN.
Gliding clubs
Millennials for you lol.
Fokker was a right Fokker lol
:)
Violation of international law is a bit harsh, given that the Versailles Treaty was dictatated at gun point.
As are most laws, or didn't you realise?
That doesn’t really change the reality, and most treaties that involve a war where one side was clearly losing tend to involve said side signing at gun point.
One can argue about the details and contents of the treaty being overly harsh and contributing to the rise of Nazism, sure, but not so much the method.
The Japanese surrender in World War II was, ostensibly at least, signed at nuclear gun point (ostensibly since the US was kind of bluffing about their nuclear capability, and it would have taken awhile before they could have dropped anymore atomic bombs). However, despite that, Japan followed said treaty and it has largely been viewed as a successful one. Possibly because it was far less economically harsh than Versailles was to Germany, and efforts by allied powers in feeding and rebuilding Japan were fairly fast after the war, unlike in World War I, where the allied powers maintained trade embargoes and a literal blockade, including food, long after the ceasefire with Germany.
To be fair that was their own fault. And they had done the same to France after the Franco-Prussian War.
Given that Prussia and later the united Germany clearly had an expansionist agenda and had done nothing but cause trouble in mainland Europe for some considerable time, being forced to sign the treaty seems quite fair.
@@bigblue6917that’s… really debatable. As I previously said, most treaties ending wars where one side clearly lost can be described as being signed at gun point, and the Franco-Prussian war was no different. France lost that war, badly.
But to put the blame of World War I entirely on Germany is ahistorical at best, and the same type of jingoism that led to World War I being what it was at worst. Austria-Hungary did not have to go to war with Serbia after the assassination of of their archduke, especially after Serbia had already given in to the extreme demands of the Austrians. Russia didn’t have to respond by attacking Austria, instead of sending reinforcements to Serbia and keeping it an isolated war. France didn’t have to pledge that they would attack from the west any power that attacked Russia. Germany didn’t have to respond to that threat by attacking on two fronts instead of attacking Russia while just fortifying in the west. Most importantly, Britain didn’t have to get involved at all. They were among the largest powers, but did not have a treaty obligation “forcing” them into the war in defense or opposition to any of the belligerent nations, yet chose to go to war anyways. The same was true of the Ottomans; nothing forced them into the war.
The reality of World War I isn’t that it was Germany’s fault. If I had to lay blame to anyone, personally I’d blame the Hapsburgs for refusing to accept that Serbia had given in to their harsh demands, but I don’t think the Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary had any real idea what the repercussions of attacking Serbia would be. The reality of that terrible war was that governments on all sides wanted a war, and thought it would be “quick and glorious.” That was true of the British, French, Italians, and Russians just as much as it was for the Germans, Austro-Hungarians, and Ottomans.
Shameful new story about out 'national pride' Fokker.
I'm amazed that Anthony Fokker wasn't jailed after WW1. The guy had the moral compass of a rat.
Why?
He designed and built airplanes, just like the British and French.... (and don't forget that all countries wanted that war....).
Yes, please elaborate on your statement. Jailed by whom, the Germans, the Dutch or the Entente, and what’s the accusation?
If I recall correctly, Fokker offered his services to the allies first, but they were not interested in him or his designs. He knew he had great planes to offer, had a factory, responsibilities towards his employees... I blame the Dutch government for being so stupidly blind not to buy his airplanes. The government would repeat this stupidness 20 years later. I do not think Anthony Fokker is to blame here for having a "moral compass of a rat" @@TK421-53
And Anthony Fokker went to live in the US concentrating on the US arm of Fokker aircraft, that built up an excellent engineering team, was acquired by GM, who eventually acquired North American and merged their (GM's) aviation arms under the North American name but largely composed of the core Fokker staff. Who moved from the east to the west coast, and went on of course to build the B25, P51 and Sabre. So, lucky for the US Anthony moved there.
He had the moral compass of a capitalist.
Onest
"almoest" ;-)