Hugo Junkers

Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 – 3 February 1935) was a German engineer and aircraft designer. As such he is generally credited with pioneering the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. As founder of the Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG, he was one of the mainstays of the German aircraft industry in the years between World War I and World War II. In particular his multi-engined all-metal passenger- and freightplanes helped establish airlines in Germany as well as all over the world. Although his name is also linked to some of the most successful German warplanes of the Second World War, Hugo Junkers himself had nothing to do with their development. He was forced out of his own company by the Nazi government in 1934 and died in 1935.

As well as aircraft, Junkers also built both diesel and petrol engines and held various patents on thermodynamic and metallurgical subjects. He was also one of the main sponsors of the Bauhaus movement and facilitated the move of the Bauhaus from Weimar to Dessau (where his factory was situated) in 1925.