Blohm + Voss - History During The Third Reich

History During The Third Reich

With the rise of the Nazi Party to power in 1933 Germany's rearmament in violation of the Versailles Treaty was begun. This began a sudden change in fortune for the company, run then by brothers Rudolf and Walther Blohm, which was taken out of a deep crisis. Blohm & Voss, which had until then specialized in shipbuilding, also began to design and build aircraft for use by both the German state airline, pre-war Deutsche Luft Hansa, and the air-force, Luftwaffe. The aeronautical section of the company was named Hamburger Flugzeugbau, therefore the first planes it produced had the code "Ha", but in September 1937 the aviation subsidiary was renamed Abteilung Flugzeugbau der Schiffswerft Blohm & Voss which was later replaced by "BV". Particularly noteworthy were the large flying boats the company produced-especially the largest aircraft designed built and flown by any of the Axis forces, the Bv 238, as well as ingenious approaches to aircraft building that even featured asymmetric designs.

From July 1944 to April 1945 Blohm & Voss used inmates of its own concentration subcamp at its shipyard in Hamburg-Steinwerder. The camp was a subcamp to the Neuengamme concentration camp. Now a memorial stands in the former site of the camp and the company keeps paying an undisclosed amount to the Fund for Compensation of Forced Laborers.