Make-Parts Plan

Since World War II, the industrialists who built Hitler's Luftwaffe have kept a prudent silence. Beset by denazification tribunals, forbidden by the occupation to make plans, the aircraft manufacturers switched their lines to make a living: Messerschmitt turned to midget automobiles; Dornier fell back upon his construction interests in Spain and Switzerland; Heinkel put out machine tools and motor scooters from his Stuttgart factory. Two months ago, they formed an "Aero Union" to handle orders that might be coming from NATO, but thanks to the ban, and to French and British opposition to German rearmament, no orders came.

Last week a member of the Aero Union broke the prudent silence, suggested that the industry get back to work. Said shrewd, ambitious Ernst Heinkel, once a top bomber-builder: "Germany is too far behind and too poor to attempt developing its own aircraft. But Germany could well play her part in the Western defense program" by making parts (e.g., optical instruments) for Western aircraft.

The time, Heinkel implied, is short. The West still has the edge over the Russians on technicians and engineers, but the Russians are "improving," and they are putting more labor and materials into aircraft than the West. The Russians have also progressed with guided missiles that "could be very dangerous to American industrial centers."

Should the West accept his make-parts (Ersatzteile) plan, said Heinkel, the West German industrialists could get 120,000 men on the job within two years. And should the planemaking ban be lifted altogether, they could switch back smoothly to full operation, making Western aircraft under Western license.

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