Messerschmitt Bf 109 in Action, Part 1 - Aircraft No. 44

By the time the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, the Messerschmitt firm had produced some 34,000 examples of the legendary Bf 109, making it the most prolific aircraft of the era. Key to this tremendous output and to the plane's longevity was a simple design that allowed rapid production - even by unskilled Zwangsarbeiter - forced laborers - and gave Messerschmitt an advantage over the Focke Wulf Fw 190. The Nazis came to power in January 1933 intent on scrapping the Versailles Treaty that banned Germany from having an air force. Issued on 15 February 1934, the request by the new Reichsluftfahrtsministerium (RLM/Air Ministry) for a single-seat daytime air combat fighter with a top speed of 400 km/h brought a new lease of life to the financially strapped Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG (BFW). BFW began work on the plane, its first military aircraft, that December, and in May 1935 the Bf 109 V1 prototype took to the air - 10 months before the first Spitfire - launching the career of an iconic plane whose numerous versions would serve the Reich until the end of World War II.