Lufthansa, pre-WW2, S. America?

[cooperplace]

I've just finished reading Ernest Gann's fabulous 'Fate is the Hunter" about his experiences flying DC2/3 etc pre-WW2. In this great book he mentions that at the start of WW2, the US Govt forced Lufthansa out of S America, and to compensate the govts of Brazil and other places, Uncle Sam gave them some nice new Lockheed Lodestars, some of which Gann flew down there. Does anyone know anything about this? It's a fascinating bit of history.

[A30yoyo]

Ganns account is based on truth but Lufthansa hadn't followed their exploratory flights to South America with a regular commercial service across the South Atlantic .However the Italian LATI airline had opened a regular mail/passenger landplane South Atlantic service from late 1939 to December 1941 and it was LATI that the Americans got the Brazilians to shut down after (reportedly) a dirty tricks campaign involving British intelligence. Lufthansa had big financial interests in several South American airlines including Syndicato Condor in Brazil and Ju-52s and F-W Condors were in service down there .

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/u/0/asset/rome-rio-italian-airline/RwHCcEqLULefuw?ms=%7B"x"%3A0.5%2C"y"%3A0.5%2C"z"%3A10.524869803698973%2C"size"%3A%7B"width"%3A0.8472647064068272%2C"height"%3A0.4342231620334989%7D%7D (printed mirror-image, F-W Condor visible at rear)
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/u/0/asset/lati-passengers-in-rio/PgF7hmIKb5wtYg?ms=%7B"x"%3A0.5263906975583054%2C"y"%3A0.49989450087645876%2C"z"%3A10.363985159145637%2C"size"%3A%7B"width"%3A0.9472186048833893%2C"height"%3A0.485449535002737%7D%7D
The German influence was removed as the South American countries realigned around the time of Pearl Harbour and the Brazilians received some Lodestars including a luxury fit C-66 model for the Brazilian President with the Americans also funding an airfield program down there. A curious result of these events was that the American forces in the Panama Canal zone just after Pearl Harbour, short of transport aircraft were briefly equipped with 'acquired' Ju-52 and Savoia-Marchetti trimotor transports the Ju-52 being designated a C-79
18)LOCKHEED LODESTAR C60 - FAB (31 Pages / 100 Images) - BRAZILIAN AIR FORCE * - Articles - Sixtant - War II in the South Atlantic (http://www.sixtant.net/2011/artigos.php?cat=brazilian-air-force-*-&sub=fab-(31-pages--100-images)&tag=18)lockheed-lodestar-c60)

[cooperplace]

that's very interesting, thank you very much. Gann's experience there was remarkable.

[Spooky 2]

Have a friend who passed away many years back, He was a TWA flight engineer and along TWA and number of other people participated in a technical assistance program with Lufty and their restart after WWll. Somewhere in there they were flying the Connies to SA. I think it was Rio, but not sure. This must have been in the early fifties?

[A30yoyo]

Lufthansa (http://www.zoggavia.com/Lufthansa.html)
Spooky2.....Germany wasn't permitted to run air services till 10 years after the war...Lufthansa got their first Super Gs in 1955 and started Rio services in 1956

Cooperplace...thanks for prompting me to dig out my 10p copy of 'Fate is the Hunter'...Ganns account of the first time he saw the Greenland ice cap from a huge distance is a classic

[cooperplace]

oh yes, his account of flying to Greenland is amazing; very good reading.

[Spooky 2]

A30yoyo, thanks for the correction. I was not sure exactly of the time frame other than it was in the 1049 series Connies. My friend was very impressed with the operation and that is what struck me most.


As a side bar, I think you might notice the light switches on the Lufthansa aircraft were back or up for on as opposed to down or forward for on. That was a TWA induced design that somehow got carried forward to the Lufthansa aircraft.

[WHBM]

The pre-war German-owned air services in South America were operated, with German aircraft, under the name of Condor, based in Brasil but extending to other countries. The US government moved against Condor, willingly aided by Juan Trippe at Pan Am who desired to become the major airline of the region himself. Although almost all passengers were within South America, Condor linked up with the Lufthansa service operated by airships through the 1930s (principally with the "Graf Zeppelin") between Friedrichshafen and Rio, which was airborne for several days each way. When Brasil joined WW2 Condor was nationalised by the Brasilian government, being renamed Cruzeiro, which lasted until the 1990s when it merged into Varig.

Lufthansa restarted operations with Constellations in the mid-1950s, and Rio etc were among their earliest routes. It was common at the time for major US airlines to take out management contracts with new national carriers around the world (Northwest did the same with Japan Air Lines, for example). TWA were of course the pre-eminent Connie operator so an obvious choice when the new Lufthansa selected the aircraft, and I think TWA may have been with Lockheed's sales team on the initial deal. The Rio route began I believe at the end of 1956; here's an early (1957) timetable, done in the extraordinary "graphical" style of pre-war Lufthansa timetables

http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/lh/lh57/lh57-2.jpg