Renowned German aviation specialist Manfred Griehl has collected a
unique and valuable selection of photographs of Luftwaffe projects that
never made it into battle. They remained on the drawing board or at
prototype stage either because they were deemed unsuitable or the
developers simply ran out of time and the projects never went into
production.
Most photographs come from the development sites and testing grounds of
the major manufacturers of Nazi Germany: companies such as Dornier,
Junkers, Focke-Wulf and Heinkel all received funding from the government
to develop bigger and faster aircraft. A huge amount of private testing
went on with major organizations such as Daimler-Benz, BMW and Siemens
investing huge amounts in new engine systems and other advances such as
radar.
This book also details the innumerable alterations that were made to
existing service aircraft to equip them for new roles. There are
examples of Fw190s developed for the delivery of chemical and toxic
weapons, the high altitude Junkers EF 61, the early prototype WNF 342
helicopter as well as numerous examples of developmental jet fighters
that could very well have been realized had it not been for the
effectiveness of the Allied bombing campaign in restricting the supply
of necessary materials.
