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Flying Man: Hugo Junkers and the Dream of Aviation by Richard Byers

2019; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 60; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tech.2019.0045

1097-3729

Daniel Uziel,

History of Science and Medicine

Reviewed by: Flying Man: Hugo Junkers and the Dream of Aviation by Richard Byers Daniel Uziel (bio) Flying Man: Hugo Junkers and the Dream of Aviation. By Richard Byers. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2016. Pp. 264. Hardcover $39.95. Hugo Junkers was one of the most important aviation pioneers, and this book can be viewed as his business biography. The influence of Lutz Budrass's monumental study of the German aviation industry from 1918–45 is obvious in this book, and it is a pity that his recent research about Lufthansa was published too late for inclusion in Byers's bibliography. The basic assumption of Flying Man is that the state plays a dominant role in aviation production: "State participation in the industry rose during the fifteen years after the end of World War I while the ability of private manufacturers to chart their own courses commensurately fell" (p. 3). In this respect, Junkers makes an excellent case study. Junkers's activities during WWI set the stage for these troubled relations, especially when the Inspektion der Flieger coerced Junkers and Fokker into a merger in order to rationalize the production of Junkers's designs. The author describes in many details (sometimes a bit too many) this unhappy triangle of industrial cooperation, which the partners terminated abruptly once the war was over. Despite this merger and despite his minor role in Germany's total aviation production during WWI, Junkers emerged from the war in a better shape than most other German aircraft producers. His success was based largely on his technological edge. Not only he was able to convert his all-metal construction technology into civilian aircraft design, he did it within a far-reaching vision regarding the role of civilian aviation in the postwar era. Byers writes, "He was the first among his peers to see global opportunities emerging from the war in general and commercial aviation that transcended the narrow vistas above the battlefields, [End Page 637] and promised the development of a new, interconnected aerial future that would shrink the world." (p. 36). Vision and advanced technology were no guarantee of survival, let alone profitability in Germany's aviation business in the early 1920s. As a result, the aviation sector mostly relied on different forms of state support. For instance, the Reichswehr was heavily involved in Junkers's attempts to establish production facilities in the Soviet Union. This enterprise formed part of the clandestine military cooperation between the two countries, but the author emphasizes that Junkers was more interested in opening the Soviet commercial market and establishing his own airlines there. Furthermore, like Budrass in his study of Lufthansa, the author points to the unprofitability of most early commercial aviation enterprises and the resulting reliance on state subsidies during the 1920s. It is little wonder thus that Junkers's venture into commercial air transport was a flop. Junkers invested large amount of resources in research and development throughout his life, and the ensuing patents were seen as central to his firm. Sometimes it resulted in a clear advantage over his competitors, and sometimes it caused losses. The issue of patents also caused conflicts between Junkers and the state, which sought to gain control of them. The tension between long-term investment in R&D and short-term profitability based on focused production is ever-present in this book, and perhaps could have been discussed a bit further in theoretical terms. Perhaps the most important contribution of this book is in showing that the poor relations between Junkers and the state during the 1920s contributed to his downfall, when the Nazi state nationalized his firm. Milch, an old enemy of Junkers from the 1920s, played a central role in this respect. Therefore, here we have another example of the continuity between the Weimar Republic and the Nazi dictatorship (p. 170). Here and there some mistakes and typos have sneaked into the text. For instance, during WWII, slave labor at Junkers was not restricted to "Eastern Europeans" (p. 2). A nit-picking remark concerns the wrong use of hyphens in German aircraft designations (thus Ju 52, not Ju-52). It is also pity that the author failed...