Luftwaffe maintenance hangar 1946

Recently a number of pictures were discovered of the maintenance hangar at E-Stelle Thomasburg. This base was used to test a number of top secret prototypes during the second half of the forties. The pictures were probably taken at the end of 1945 when the base was only just establised.

The pictures show one of the hangars at the base with a number of test aircraft present. The aircraft in the hangar are:

• A captured P-51 Mustang (under the tarpaulin on the left)
• The Dornier Do-335 V-032
• The Messersschmitt Me-329A-01
• The Messerschmitt P-1101 V-3
• The Henschel Hs-132 V-8
• The Lippisch P-13b prototype
• A totaly unknown aircraft (grey aircraft, right of centre)

On the roof of the office there is what appears to be a WW1 Albatros fighter and on the floor are a couple of Me-109 fuselages.

After the capture of Thomasburg by US Troops in the spring of 1947, this hangar was found empty. At the time it was suspected that it had once housed a number of secret prototypes but proof was never found. Only the find of these photographs give evidence to the fact that the aircraft were once there.

Most of the photographs depicted here were never found after the war and their fate remains a mystery until this day.

The models

The models are from Revell, F-Toys, Anigrand and SRAM. The hangar is a box from Ikea with a glass top.