The Luftwaffe's "Air Force One" ...

[Mark Allen M]

... sort of anyway. (Focke Wulf Fw-200 Condor) I believe many of these photos were taken in 1942 in Finland? Just a guess as there's no captions. I'm sure you can recognize a few of these guys. The Luftwaffe experts I'm sure can pin down the who's, what's, where's, why's and when's. Nice clear photos of an interesting (yet tragic) time in history.

Part 1

Last edited by Mark Allen M on Sat May 07, 2016 11:54 am, edited 3 times in total.

[Mark Allen M]

Part 2

[Malo83]

German officers had some of the sharpest looking uniforms of the war, digging those crisp blocked hats

[Duggy009]

The photo's come from here -- http://sa-kuva.fi/webneologineng.html
A fantastic archive, the color photo's alone are worth the visit.

[John Dupre]

A high scoring Finnish fighter pilot was suddenly tasked with escorting a German transport plane to Finland. He made the rendezvous over the Gulf of Riga with his four aircraft formation to find the Fw 200 and an entire squadron of German fighter aircraft. On the flight to the destination the weather began to close in and the Fw 200 flew lower and lower until it was just above the tree tops. Suddenly the Finnish pilot realized the Fw 200 was making a beeline for the tallest smokestack in the area. There was no radio communication with the Luftwaffe transport so the Finnish pilot made repeated mock gunnery runs on the Fw 200 until it changed course. Only after landing did the pilot (either Eino Luukkanen or Eino Juutilainen) learn that Adolf Hitler was on board the Fw 200.

[Mark Allen M]

From a well knowledged fellow and grateful to him.

"These photos, from the Finnish archive, were shot in early June 1942 at Immola airfield, where Hitler arrived to ostensibly celebrate Field Marshall Mannerheim's 75th birthday (4.June). His pilot was Flugkapitän Hans Bauer.

The 'follicly-challenged' civilian in the plain coat and black hat was President Ryti. Wehrmacht Feldmarschall Keitel (note baton) is seen in several of the last pics.

Here's a bit of newsreel footage of this event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fyRYvw_ilc

GRM"

The photo's come from here -- http://sa-kuva.fi/webneologineng.html
A fantastic archive, the color photo's alone are worth the visit.

No, they came from here, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id ... 740&type=3
but they originally came from your well known link.

[Mark Allen M]

"Staggering amount of evil on that plane..."

Best post I've read yet.

[Mark Allen M]

Much more detail here. Courtesy again of the guy's who know their Luftwaffe 'stuff' much better than I ...

http://www.geocities.ws/finnmilpge/fmp_4_6_1942.html

[JimH]

German officers had some of the sharpest looking uniforms of the war, digging those crisp blocked hats

Thanks in part to Hugo Boss

Great post Mark...it's a reminder of the true, or should be true purpose of the warbird movement.

Jim

[Elwyn]

Interesting photos. Don't recall seeing many interior shots of a FW-200 before.

[Kyleb]

"Staggering amount of evil on that plane..."

Best post I've read yet.

Megalomaniac convention...

[Michel Lemieux]

I am still impressed by the amount of new material that still surfaces (for me at least!) on the WEB.

Tks Mark, as always, truly appreciate the pics and the story behind.

Michel

[L2Driver]

Interesting that the flight crew are all SS men, not Luftwaffe.

[shrike]

Interesting that the flight crew are all SS men, not Luftwaffe.

But not unexpected. The SS' origin was initially as a personal protection detail for the party. It was probably easier, operationally, to train a politically orthodox member to be a pilot than to vet all of the available trained pilots for security.