Piston Aeroengines
There were a number of aircraft and engine manufacturers active in Germany in 1930s and 1940s. Some were quite well known, e.g., Messerschmitt (former Bayerische Flugzeugwerke), Focke-Wulf, Junkers, Dornier, etc. Some others were rather obscure, e.g., Hamburger Flugzeugbau, Klemmflugzeugbau, etc. The Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM) had a rather convoluted designation system (they thought that it was an improvement over the older one, of course) to provide a (supposedly) simple and unambiguous identification of every German civilian and military aircraft and its corresponding airframe design. Manufacturers were represented by two letters: the first letter in upper case, the second usually in lower case. A selection of the most famous ones is listed in Table 12-1. It should be noted that a mass-production model by a certain manufacturer, say, Messerschmitt Bf 109, were manufactured in the factories of other manufacturers (e.g., Fieseler or Gotha) under license. This system was under the control of the RLM (later in the war, starting in early 1944, under the supervision of the Armament Ministry – see below).