Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger

The Museum has several Fw 190-type aircraft in its collection. These range from original airframes awaiting restoration to modern replicas employed in regular flying demonstrations. Each of them shares a fearsome legacy representing one of the finest fighter aircraft of WWII. Many Luftwaffe pilots regarded the design with great respect; some for its firepower (far greater than a Bf 109’s), while others loved its improved performance at low-to-medium altitudes. 

Whether as a day fighter, fighter-bomber, ground-attack aircraft or nightfighter, the Fw 190 was active across Europe during WWII. One of the Museum’s original examples, known as ‘Blauen 4’ (Blue 4), was recovered from its crash site on a Norwegian mountainside in 1984 and restored to static condition. Originally built at Oschersleben in the summer of 1944, the aircraft was lost on February 9th, 1945 during a fierce duel with RAF Mustangs and Beaufighters which were attacking German shipping at anchor in the Vevringefjord. Leutnant Rudi Linz of JG5 was aboard Blauen 4 that day, and had just scored his 70th aerial victory when he himself was shot down and killed. 

Also present in the collection are a pair of modern, Flug Werk-built replicas, one configured as an Fw 190A-8 and the other as a “long nosed” Fw 190D-9. The Dora, as the latter variant was known, featured a liquid-cooled, 12-cylinder, inverted-v Jumo 213A-1 engine equipped with an annular radiator just behind the propeller spinner. 

The museum’s Dora is painted to represent Schwarz 12 (Black 12) of 10./JG54, as flown by Leutnant Theo Nibel. On January 1, 1945, Lt. Nibel took part in Operation Bodenplatte, a massive, last-ditch ground-attack mission to halt the Allied advance on Germany. A Junkers Ju 88 guided Nibel’s swarm of 64 Fw 190D-9s against sites in Grimbergen, Belgium. During the low-level attack, a bird-strike damaged the radiator on Nibel’s aircraft, forcing him to make a belly landing in a nearby field. The British captured Nibel and his aircraft; the fighter being the first intact Fw 190D-9 to fall into Allied hands.