- Title: Historic aircraft in German Museum may be Nazi-looted Dutch warplane
- Date: 24th March 2025
- Summary: WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES (FILE - JANUARY 20, 2025) (UNRESTRICTED POOL) VARIOUS OF VANCE WALKING TO LECTERN, JOINED BY HIS WIFE USHA AND CHILDREN WALKING UP FOR SWEARING IN CEREMONY (NOT A SOUNDBITE) SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, BRETT KAVANAUGH, ADMINISTERING THE OATH (CONTINUES OVER VARIOUS SHOTS OF VANCE TAKING OATH): “Please raise your right hand and repeat aft
- Embargoed:
- Keywords: Fokker Goering NAZIS WW1 WW2 fighter plane
- Location: OBERSCHLEISSHEIM, GERMANY
- City: OBERSCHLEISSHEIM, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Europe
- Reuters ID: LVA002117024032025RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:A historic Fokker D.VII fighter plane on show at a German museum may be looted property from Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
According to provenance researcher Bernhard Woerrle the Fokker, long thought to be a German World War I fighter, is actually a Dutch naval plane that was repainted and modified as a present for Hermann Goering, a principal architect of Germany’s Nazi police state under the Third Reich.
"The plane wasn't just repainted, the engine was also virtually rebuilt so that it really looked like a plane from the First World War, like a German plane from the First World War. And the reason for this was, of course, that they wanted to give this plane to (Hermann) Goering. Goering flew a German D VII in the First World War and then, of course, it had to look contemporary and not like a Dutch D.VII from the 1930s," Woerrle said.
The Dutch markings were discovered beneath German paint during a 1980 restoration with research indicating the aircraft was extensively modified during the Nazi era.
The German museum has arranged to loan the aircraft to the Netherlands' military museum in Soesterberg for five years while research continues.
"We will try to ultimately answer the question of whether it is a case of restitution, whether it is stolen cultural property or whether the aircraft came to Germany by mutual agreement," said aviation curator Andreas Hempfer.
A key question remains whether the plane is the Dutch D20 or D28 model. Hempfer noted this distinction is crucial: "The D28 was intended for a Dutch aviation museum before the war, whereas the D20 was actually aircraft scrap."
Recent examination revealed an engraving reading "D.28 – 13.9.1934” but researchers cannot say whether this refers to just one section of the plane that may have been added as part of ongoing repairs or whether it reflects the main bulk of the plane.
Complete identification is complicated by the 1980 restoration that removed historical paint layers.
"Unfortunately, a lot of paint residue that would tell us a lot about the history of the aircraft today was removed in the process," Hempfer said.
"In terms of restoration ethics, it was not customary at the time to regard airplanes as cultural assets. And that's why they were simply made beautiful again," he added.
Another element of the research is also an ethics question.
"We know it was decommissioned and that would be relatively harmless. There is, of course, a moral implication to the whole thing: the plane would not have come to Germany without the German occupation of the Netherlands," says Hempfer.
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