Schmoll, P. Me 109. Produktion und Einsatz

Still legendary today, it is considered "the" fighter aircraft of the German Air Force in World War II. The book provides an overview of the production and use of the Me 109. In the second chapter, "Use of the Me 109", former pilots from the Second World War who survived the great death of the Luftwaffe have their say. They belonged to a young elite at the time and suffered enormous bloody losses. In view of the Allies' material superiority on all fronts, every mission was a rendezvous with death for them. Their gripping accounts of successes, injuries, hardships and death get under the skin of every reader and testify to the futility of war to this day.

At the beginning of World War II, the Me 109 was the Luftwaffe's standard fighter and ensured air supremacy on all fronts with its superior flight performance. In the course of the war, the wear and tear on aircraft increased steadily. In order to compensate for the losses, the Reich Aviation Ministry decided on a large-scale production of the Me 109 at the Erla-Maschinenwerke in Leipzig, the Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke and the Messerschmitt GmbH Regensburg. The biggest cuts in production resulted from the USAAF's devastating air raids on these three aircraft factories in 1943/44. As the war progressed, foreign and forced labourers as well as prisoners of war were used in production. Engineers report on sabotage and the problems associated with it under "Top Secret". A dark chapter is the production by concentration camp prisoners. The production of the Me 109 in the Flossenbürg concentration camp is examined as an example. More than 3000 concentration camp prisoners worked there in the armament production.