In March, 1916, the runner for a Bavarian regiment zigged when he should've zagged and was killed by a shellburst. So ended the short, anonymous life of one Adolf Hitler. Germany and the world would be forever changed.
In 1928, the
Doppel-Deutsch Partei won a majority of seats in the
Reichstag and took power.
Doppel-Deutsch was mis-translated in English as "Double-Dutch" by the
Berliner-Amerikaner Zeitung which caused no end of diplomatic embarrassment between the U.S. and Holland.
The two leaders of the
Doppel-Deutsch Partei, the Twitler twins, were committed to making Germany a world power again.
Believing two is better than one, they insisted on a biplane design for the new Junkers attack aircraft. Thus the Dükka dive-bomber was born.
The biplane layout pleased Germany's dual-führers and was ordered into production. Soon the Dükka became a common sight in the skies over
Deutschland.
Here the famous biplane dive-bomber is wearing 1935 Brenner Pass "crisis" camo and the new markings of the resurgent German Air Force featuring tri-color rudder-stripes of the restored German flag. While the Dükka had a powerful engine, heavy machine-gun armament and was capable of carrying a good bomb-load, by far it was most noted for its incredibly intimidating, streamlined spatted landing gear which was the envy of air arms world-wide.
The spats were so intimidating that three regiments of elite Italian mountain troops retreated at the mere sight of Dükkas in the distance. This was lucky because some ham-handed guy at the factory glued the bomb crutch on a bit crooked which may have made the Dükka less than an ideal bombing platform.
The Dükka's fortunes rose and fell with those of the Twitler twins. The aircraft was retired from service in 1940, the same year the Twitlers were ousted during a farmers' rebellion and executed by pitchfork. The only thing left of the Dükka is this long-neglected wind-tunnel test model.
Brian da Basher
