FOKKER

A little bit of Fokkers history

Fokkers full name is Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker and he was born on april 6th 1890, Java. In August 1894 the Fokker family moved to Haarlem, so Anthony and his sister could go to good schools. Unfortunately Anthony didn't really care much for school. One day he spoke to his principal about a great invention. And he did actually invent something, an anti-bursttyre, with his friend Fritz Cremer. Unfortunately their invention was already patented by someone in France. 

1910

When Fokker was 20 years old, he moved to Germany to attend a school in Bingen where he could learn how to build cars. This school turned out to be a disappointment. But Anthony had already found something else to concentrate on; a school for drivers which also had a course that taught how to build an airplane and how to fly. The students had to build an airplane under supervision of  Bruno Buechner. He pretended to be a great aviator, but as it turned out he still had to learn everything about flying himself.

The first plane built by the students was much to heavy. The second, lighter one was wrecked by Buechner.

Anthony decided to build his own plane. The 50 year old Oberleutnant von Daum became his compagnon. Von Daum had the money for the engine and Anthony his knowledge, capable hands and 1500 marks. In an empty zeppelinhangar in Baden-Baden they built Fokkers first airplane; the Spider. The Spider didn't have a rudder; Anthony wanted to use the tail as a rudder. The Spiders tail could go up and down by pulling the steering wheel. The tail could also tilt. By combining these movements one was supposed to be able to steer the plane. In practice it didn't quite work that well. Still, by the end of 1910 Anthony could make his first "hops" with the Spider. He was ecstatic with joy!

When Anthony went home to Holland for X-mas, he got the message that Von Daum had taken the liberty to take the Spider for a ride and "parked" it against the only tree in the vicinity! It took the family a lot of effort to keep Anthony from returning to Germany immediately. For the second time someone else had taken the chance from him to learn  how to fly.

1911

The second Spider Fokker built with Jacob Goedecker. This one did have a rudder. On this Spider Fokker taught himself to fly. In the beginning of May he succeeded to make curves and a couple of days later he could fly a complete circle. On May 12th Von Daum got his moneys worth when Fokker took him for a flight as a passenger. On May 16th Anthony obtained his flying-certificate.

Of course this became known in Haarlem (Holland) and Fokker was invited to demonstrate at Queensday. Unfortunately he and Von Daum had the agreement that Von Daum would become the Spiders owner as soon as Anthony had obtained his flying- certificate. Anthony tried to persuade him out of the agreement so that he could go to Haarlem to make some money. But Von Daum was not very flexible and he insisted he'd fly the Spider. His take off wasn't too bad. But when he wanted to land the plane it looked like he'd forgotten everything about flying and he crashed from 10 meters high. Von Daum survived the crash and advised Fokker to take his damned plane and fly it to hell!

For 1200 marks Fokker bought out Von Daum. He was the proud owner of a wreck and a 50 h.p. Argus engine........

The third spider was already being built by Goedecker. Fokker demonstrated with this  Spider in Haarlem.That event started at august 11th 1911 and lasted for the three days. Everone went crazy with enthusiasm; they had never seen anything like that. For Anthony it was a victory; he'd left Haarlem as a failure and he returned being a hero!

In spite of the glory, Fokker could barely make ends meet. Fortunately his first customer for a plane and flying lessons showed up; his old schoolbuddy Fritz Cremer. Fokker also made some money with flying and instructing for Goedecker. By the end of 1911 Fokker left for Johannesthal, near Berlin; aviators paradise.

 1912

In Johannesthal Fokker was amongst the top of the bill and he didn't quite fit in; Anthony always looked as if he'd just crawled out from underneath his plane , which was probably true. His unusual plane without ailerons was ridiculed. Until Fokker demonstrated with his Spider. Suddenly he'd become one of the great aviators. 

On february 22nd 1912 Fokker registered his firm  at the Chamber of Commerce in Berlin. The name of the firm was Fokker Aviatik GmbH. It's capital was 20.000 mark.

Fokker traveled to Russia to sell airplanes to the Russian army. This mission was not succesfull. But he did meet Ljuba Galanschikoff. They fell in love with eachother. Ljuba bought a plane from Fokker and she earned a lot of credit for Fokkers airplanes by breaking the womens altituderecord in November. Their relationship was "doomed" cause Anthony could only talk about planes..... 

Fokkers school of aviation did quite well. Fritz Cremer, here's the old schoolpall again, was his chiefpilot and gave flightlessons. 

More important for the firm however, was the delivery of 2 airplanes for militairy purposes in 1912. In 1913 he'd deliver another 10. This resulted in many orders when WWI started. At the end of WWI Fokker had delivered nearly 4000 airplanes! Now he had a worldwide reputation. And he was only 28 years old!

I will add information about the following years until Anthony's death sometime soon.

1939

On december 23rd 1939 the newspapers came with this headline and article;

 "The greatest Dutch airplanebuilder passed away in New York 

After numerous bloodtransfusions, which couldn't help him anymore, Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker, passed away this morning at half past 9 (14 hrs Amsterdam time) in the hospital where he was taken care of.

Several weeks ago Fokker has had a nose operation. It went off smoothly  but an infection caused a very serious meningitis. After several days of unconciousness, Fokker passed away this morning, in the country where he'd spent the last years of his life."

Fokker remains were transported to the Netherlands, where he was buried in his family grave on February 3rd 1940 at Driehuizen - Westerveld.