Review:

German Aircraft Industry and Production, 1933-1945

by Ferenc-Antal Vajda and Peter Darcy
329 pp, large format, hard cover
B/W photos, line drawings
UK: Airlife, 1998


I finally received this long-awaited book, and, as I expected, the volume contains a tremendous amount of information, including tables and charts, and line drawings. It is illustrated with fair number of black and white photographs (not all of them of good quality), and copies of a few original documents.

At first glance, the book appears to be sloppily edited. But it contains a wealth of new and detailed information about a key aspect of German aviation—the subject of our affection—never before amassed in a single volume. It is definitively worth having. I surely have reading material for the next few weeks!

I am convinced that several well-founded myths will crumble and quite a few new facts will emerge as a result of this effort. Mr. Vajda, the Hungarian-Belgian author who compiled the lion's share of the book has given the serious scholar of German aviation a must-have reference on the period 1933-1945.

Recommended.


Text and illustrations © 1998 by Dénes Bernad

Dénes Bernad is an aviation historian with a strong interest in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Rumania. He is the author of Heinkel He 112 In Action, published by Squadron/Signal (Carrollton, TX, 1996).