Hugo Junkers

Aeronautical work

Junkers's aeronautical work began in earnest at age 50 when he worked with engineer Hans Reissner in Aachen. Reissner had developed an all-metal aircraft, on which work first started in 1909 at the Brand Heath, equipped with corrugated iron wings built by Junkers & Co. in Dessau. The iron wings were patented one year later. Junkers had a wind tunnel built and invented a hydraulic brake.

He had far-sighted ideas of metal aeroplanes and flying wings, but the necessities of the war held him back. During World War I, the government forced him to focus on aircraft production. In 1915, he developed the world's first practical all-metal aircraft design, the Junkers J 1 "Blechesel" (Sheetmetal Donkey), which survived on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich until WWII. His firm's first military production design in 1916–17 was the armored-fuselage, two-seat, all-metal sesquiplane known by its IdFlieg designation, the Junkers J.I, considered the best German ground attack aircraft of the war. During this time, the German government's IdFlieg military aviation inspectorate forced him to merge his firm with Anthony Fokker's to form the Junkers-Fokker Aktiengesellschaft on 20 October 1917. By 1918, Junkers's firm, with its previously demonstrated preference for monoplane-pattern airframe designs, had created the world's first production low-winged, single-seat monoplane all-metal fighter aircraft, the Junkers D.I, which pioneered the use of Alfred Wilm's 1906 invention of duralumin throughout a production airframe. The D.I did not enter production until 1918. He also produced a two-seat monoplane fighter, the Junkers CL.I. Both postwar Soviet aviation pioneer Andrei Tupolev and American aviation designer William Bushnell Stout owed much to Hugo Junkers in the designs of their earlier aircraft, which benefited from Junkers's corrugated, light-metal construction technique.

The Junkers F.13 of 1919 was the first of several successful civil aircraft designs produced by Junkers Flugzeugwerke: later designs include the Junkers Ju 52/3m from 1932. Through a variety of business initiatives, Junkers was active in founding and developing airlines around the globe, initially intending to sell them aircraft. Airlines where Junkers played a pivotal role in early phases of their development include Deutsche Luft Hansa and Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano. Several business ventures failed from wider economic or political problems that hampered sound engineering plans. Junkers always had more ideas: the massive four-engined G.38, nicknamed "Der Grosse Dessauer", delivered to Luft Hansa, made no commercial trips for many months as he repeatedly recalled it to the factory for improvements.

When the Nazis gained control of the German government in 1933, Junkers opposed their goal of re-armament. They responded by demanding ownership of all patents and market shares from his remaining companies, under threat of imprisonment on the charge of high treason. He was placed under house arrest in 1934 and died on the 3rd of February 1935 (his 76th birthday) after a visit from Nazi officials.