The Baade 152: East Germany’s Unsuccessful Jetliner

By the end of the Cold War, West Germany was (by a considerable margin) the most technologically advanced of the two Germanies. However, in the years shortly after World War II, East Germany tried to build an early jetliner called the Baade 152 (or Dresden 152). The design was similar in many ways to the American Boeing B-47 Statrojet – a post-war American bomber/aerial reconnaissance aircraft that entered service in 1951 (the first jetliner was the de Havilland Comet that flew in 1949). The East Germans successfully built and flew the Baade 152, but it was eventually canceled partly due to pressure from the Soviets.