Finally, the moment had arrived. On March 25, the small party set out in three automobiles from Herman Fokker’s house at Kleine Houtstraat to the Haarlem City Hall. It was a sunny Tuesday morning, around eleven. At 41° Fahrenheit (5° Celsius), it was cold for the time of the year. The first car, a modern, enclosed Peugeot, carried Tetta and Anthony, the happy bride and groom. In the second, older automobile sat the groom’s proud parents, Herman and Anna Fokker. The third car held Toos and her husband, Geert Nijland.
For an international wedding, the affair was remarkably Dutch. General Curt von Morgen was on the Allied list of suspected German top military staff and was not allowed to leave the country. His wife, Rose Lee Bolbrugge, and Tetta’s three brothers (Ernst Robert, Heinrich Joachim, and Hans Georg) had also been denied permission to travel to Holland, and Tetta’s other family members and friends were absent as well. Even the postcards to wish her well had been held up at the border.1
For the occasion, Anthony had a dark gray suit made. Over it he wore an open coat in the same color with a wide, dark fur collar. This way his simple white carnation stood out well. Rather uncharacteristically, he wore a black bowler hat to complete his outfit. Tetta, too, was dressed in modest gray: a layered dress that reached down to her booted ankles, its top lined with white embroidered lace. A plain pearl necklace graced her neck. Over this she wore a wide black coat lined with dark fur. A peculiar, outsized large carnation hung down from a pin that prevented the lapels of her coat from opening. The only playful element of her outfit was a light, flat hat with a wide brim, laced with a black ribbon. The attire was chic yet distinctly unfestive, as the local paper noted. “Oh, just getting married in a bit,” Anthony had remarked earlier that morning when people passing him in the street inquired where he was heading with the three-piece suit under his arm.2
The ceremony at the large oak table in the old reception room of the city hall was just as somber. Asked whether there were any objections to the marriage, Herman and Anna Fokker said they had none. The city clerk kept it brief, as requested. Two witnesses signed the marriage certificate: Frits Cremer, who had come home from Germany in the middle of the war and had lived at his parents’ estate since, and Geert Hoekstra, a young general practitioner from Utrecht.3 It was only when they left the reception room that Anthony let on that the ceremony and the solemn vows touched him too: he donated a thousand Dutch guilders to the city’s poor.4
When they reappeared, some twenty-five Haarlemmers, young and old, had gathered at the bottom of the staircase of the city hall so as not to miss anything of the wedding of their famous townsman. Passing by, Anthony merrily lifted his hat but did not slow his pace. A uniformed chauffeur held the door of the car open for him and Tetta. In just twenty-five seconds, the bride and groom were gone. There was no wedding in church to follow the civil ceremony, as was the custom in the country. Doubtless to the regret of his mother, a reverend’s daughter, Anthony had chosen to stick to the civil, administrative ceremony only. Religion meant little to him, and the whole wedding party had been organized to accommodate his wishes.
A reception followed, held in the back garden of his parents’ house on Kleine Houtweg, despite the cold. Anthony needed the light to have the event filmed, having hired a crew and camera to document it. Mother Anna was brief in her congratulations. Father Herman, in one of his customary informal suits and chomping a half-smoked cigar, was warmer in his wishes. In the short time that they had come to know each other, Tetta had taken a liking to her unconventional father-in-law, who did his best to charm and tease her and pretended to wipe a little tear from his eyes now that his unruly son was finally wed. Made up of the small circle of Anthony’s uncles and aunts and an occasional invited friend, the queue of well-wishers was short. Nonetheless, it was rather special that Prince Hendrik, the queen’s husband and an acquaintance of Anthony’s from the entourage of the Grand Duke in Schwerin, Hendrik’s brother, came to present his best wishes. Frits Cremer, as one of Anthony’s oldest friends, closed the roster of guests. Only the next day did the local paper carry the “absolutely only official message” that the marriage had taken place, including a spelling error in Tetta’s family name.5
Up to then, the couple had spent their days in Holland as the guests of Anthony’s parents at Kleine Houtweg. Now that they were married, Anthony wanted his privacy. In anticipation of finding a suitable house to live in, they moved to an apartment in the Hotel de l’Europe in Amsterdam, an expensive hotel located on Rokin, one of the city’s most prestigious streets. Anthony was used to living in hotels and furnished homes. It was in his interest to settle in Amsterdam, where he would be close to his new business associate, Henri Wijnmalen, Trompenburg’s director. In the past few weeks, the contacts between the two entrepreneurial pilots had developed rapidly. Six days after his arrival in Holland, on February 22, Fokker and Wijnmalen signed an agreement that Fokker would provide 98 D.VII fighter aircraft, 118 C.I reconnaissance planes, and a supply of BMW engines so that Trompenburg could fulfill a contract with the Dutch armed forces. The deal involved the sum of 6,406,000 marks (then $195,000).6 Wijnmalen profited greatly. He was eager to be rid of the old air corps contract and focus his company’s activities on building motor cars instead.
A very Dutch ceremony: On March 25, 1919, Tetta von Morgen and Anthony were married at the town hall of Haarlem in the Netherlands. It was a modest and very Dutch affair. None of Tetta’s family were able to attend, owing to Allied travel restrictions for German citizens. AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
For Fokker, the contract presented a golden opportunity: finally a buyer had presented itself for the stock of the superfluous fighter aircraft he was amassing in Schwerin. Trompenburg might serve as the official importer of the transports that Heinrich Mahn was organizing. Even the administration of the rented railroad carriages now became impeccable, since the German railways had an elaborate system by which they kept track of all rolling stock and what they had carried.7
On the planes thus exported, Fokker paid the taxes due in Schwerin.8 The deal was entered into the books as a normal international business transaction between two companies and remained outside the scope of the weapons exports ban that was issued by the Armistice Committee in Spa on March 14, 1919.9 Anthony Fokker, who was only marginally involved in the organization of the exports, could not even recall Mahn’s name later.10
The first transport of forty railcars crossed into Holland on March 18, a week before Anthony’s wedding, accompanied by all the necessary legal documents. The railway companies fully cooperated, which was helped on the Dutch side by the coincidental fact that Frits’s father Jacob Cremer had presided over the joint boards of control of the two Dutch railway companies until just a few weeks before the transport. The train itself ended at a siding in the Amsterdam Petroleum Docks.11 After March 18 three more transports followed. On May 17 part of the company stocks and factory inventory were shipped, along with two C.I reconnaissance aircraft. On June 10 another twenty-nine C.I aircraft followed, and on June 19 there was a smaller, final train transport of 11 C.I machines. According to Fokker’s own estimate, some 220 aircraft were transported from Schwerin to Holland: about 120 D.VII fighters, more than 60 C.I reconnaissance aircraft, and a number of D.VIII machines and some other planes, including Anthony’s personal two-seat D.VII. Along with them, some 400 aircraft engines went by train, as did a substantial part of the production tools and stores.12
On April 11 the Dutch cabinet discussed the issue, agreeing that Fokker would assume the responsibilities of the Trompenburg contract. Criticism of the government’s readiness to accept former German war materials was waved aside. The government and the army’s Munitions Bureau, which supervised the procurement of war materials, maintained that the terms of the agreement between private parties did not concern them.13 Foreign Minister Herman van Karnebeek informed the British ambassador to The Hague, Robert Graham, that the government could not be expected to supervise all imports from Germany by private parties and enterprises.14
Transportation by train: After a contract was signed between Fokker and the Dutch manufacturer Trompenburg, four trainloads of Fokker aircraft rolled across the German-Dutch border between March 18 and June 19, 1919. In both countries the authorities lent full cooperation. In Germany export duties were paid over the aircraft, which Fokker had bought back from the military authorities. COLLECTION MICHAEL SCHMIDT, MUNICH, GERMANY
Nonetheless, the government maintained that the matter at hand concerned the sales contract, drawn up before the Armistice, between the government and Trompenburg. Under the terms of the agreement, Fokker was to deliver the aircraft separate from a set of Clerget rotary engines. These were already held in storage by Trompenburg to be used for the contracted aircraft. Because they were completely unsuited for the D.VII or for the C.I, they were superfluous to begin with. The engines were taken on by the armed forces in order to be demolished immediately. Fokker, by contrast, offered his aircraft with BMW engines that came free of charge. It took a while before the details of the contract were hammered out, but by the end of June the parties agreed in principle. The actual deed for the Fokker aircraft then remained in the pipeline until January 2, 1920: Fokker was to deliver ninety-two D.VII machines at a unit price of 10,692 guilders ($4,193), with an additional ninety-two C.I aircraft at 12,784 guilders ($5,013) each. On top of this, Fokker paid Trompenburg 167,960 guilders ($65,866) as a fee for the company’s cooperation, plus 47,040 guilders ($18,447) in compensation for costs incurred.15
As the organizer of the special train transports, Mahn felt shortchanged. He had hoped that Fokker would at least be there to welcome the last trainload at the Dutch border station of Oldenzaal and hand him an amply filled wallet for his efforts. None of that happened. Moreover, in the summer of 1919 he was railroaded by Reinhold Platz, who considered himself company manager in Schwerin, after a row over a typewriter that had gone missing. A decade later, the conflict still raged in Mahn’s mind.16
Initially, all those who participated in the Trompenburg deal expected to gain quite a bit of money. Fokker paid Trompenburg 1,368,080 guilders ($536,500). He himself stood to gain 2,159,792 guilders (approximately $847,000) in additional income. The LVA had no reason to complain, either; it was to receive first-rate fighter aircraft for a rock-bottom price, with engines even delivered free of charge. Yet, early in 1920, the Netherlands’ government decided on big cuts in defense spending. Instead of buying 190 aircraft, it decided to buy no more than twenty D.VII fighters and sixty C.I reconnaissance aircraft. This was a major disappointment for Fokker, who now suddenly found himself left with a large quantity of unsold fighter aircraft. The value of the new contract was proportionally lower, too: 600,000 guilders ($207,000).17 But the aircraft themselves appeared on Fokker’s books at no more than 9,000 marks each (then as little as $158).18 For the 184 aircraft that were exported to Holland, this amounted to a total of 298,000 guilders ($102,759), equaling Fokker’s profit for the aircraft. The total proceeds of the arms sales were just over 300,000 guilders ($103,000).
On top of this was the money that Fokker had managed to bring across the border. According to his own estimate, he rescued about a quarter of his personal fortune of 30 million marks (some $3.8 million), which still amounted to some 7.5 million marks (then about $954,000).19 After a first sleepless night in Holland, he had even been able to collect the money-stuffed suitcase in The Hague. Both the locks had sprung open, but to his immense relief the bundles of money were still inside. In the days that followed, he had driven to the port of Den Helder in the north of the country, where he had anxiously awaited the arrival of Captain August and the Hana—in vain, as it turned out. Only when he had nearly given up hope of ever seeing his yacht and his money again did he receive a message at his hotel in Amsterdam that his ship had finally come in and was safely moored along the quayside. Captain August had successfully managed to evade the remaining British sea blockades.20 Anthony deposited the money at the Unie Bank voor Nederland en Koloniën, conveniently located within walking distance of the Hotel de l’Europe in Amsterdam’s prestigious Nieuwe Spiegelstraat.
Regaining his Dutch nationality proved more problematical. That difficulties loomed had already become evident when Tony and Tetta had reported to the Haarlem City Hall on March 4 to comply with administrative requirements connected to their intended marriage. They were asked difficult questions. In December consul Jacob Wolff had sent enquiries from Berlin to the mayor of Haarlem, Anthony’s last known place of residence in Holland, for a “Declaration of Dutch Nationality.” Turning over such a document was a legal requirement for issuing a new passport. But before providing such an official statement, the mayor had been obliged to trace Fokker’s antecedents.21 Doing so, interim mayor Johan de Breuk had learned that Fokker had been naturalized as a German citizen. With this information, it became impossible for him to issue the required official declaration. Anthony, who had not counted on such “trivial” administrative problems at all, was outraged because of these “obstructions.” He had lived in Germany for more than eight years, but he considered himself Dutch. In December 1914, he had regarded the issue of his citizenship as a purely pragmatic thing. Circumstances had dictated his choice to become German. Now matters were just the other way around. Anthony denied having obtained his German citizenship of his own free will. After consultation with his council Jacques Oppenheim, a prominent law professor at Leiden University and an acquaintance of his uncle Eduard, he maintained that he had been coerced to cooperate in the nationality change, which he now said he had never recognized. In support of his argument, Anthony pointed to the letter of the German War Ministry dated January 13, 1919, which confirmed that his German nationality would be annulled.22 This decision had been communicated to consul Wolff in Berlin.23
Mayor De Breuk remained firm. The law left him no room to maneuver. It stated that Dutch nationality was automatically lost through naturalization into foreign citizenship. Coercion was not mentioned in the law, and as interim mayor, De Breuk was hardly in a position to reinterpret the law on his own authority. He referred the case to the province’s Queen’s Commissioner.24 Frustrated, Anthony appealed to Oppenheim, hoping he would be able to effect a breakthrough in the matter. Oppenheim, however, saw insufficient legal precedent for such a course of action. Anthony then tried a different approach. If Oppenheim could not help him, then maybe his family relatives could. After all, uncle Eduard had been a prominent member of Parliament and was still well connected in government circles. Anthony himself had been introduced in Schwerin to Prince Hendrik, brother of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV and husband to Dutch Queen Wilhelmina. Maybe he could help in the matter? It so happened that Hendrik had a warm interest in flying and had become the patron of the Royal Netherlands Aeronautical Society (KNVvL).
The outcome of this was that the issue of Fokker’s nationality ended up at the desk of Prime Minister Charles Ruys de Beerenbrouck. After some further consultation, the Prime Minister sent Anthony his assurances that the matter would be resolved favorably. On Anthony’s wedding day, the Cabinet decided to put legal impediments aside. Justice Minister Theo Heemskerk informed Anthony of the outcome. Thus Anthony was to receive a new Dutch passport. It was a peculiar decision, and it was whispered that it had been taken at the express wishes of Prince Hendrik.25 The exceptional nature of the case was evidenced by the fact that Dutch nationality did not extend to Tetta von Morgen, although article 5 of the Law on Dutch Citizenship stipulated that the nationality of a lawfully wedded female followed that of the husband. It was also a sign that the government held high expectations for Fokker and believed that he would found a new Dutch aeronautical industry that would be an asset to Dutch neutrality and autarky.26
Even behind closed doors, business came before pleasure. The dream of sailing the world in the Hana that Anthony and Tetta had entertained in Berlin evaporated. A week after they had moved into Hotel de l’Europe, Anthony’s personal D.VI machine arrived on the train from Schwerin, and he had it readied to fly from an Army airstrip just north of Amsterdam. Several enthusiastic reporters witnessed him making his famous aerobatic maneuvers. He announced his intention to found a large aircraft factory in Holland.27 That he was serious about starting anew in his native country was illustrated two weeks later, when, around 7 p.m., the Air Corps duty officers at the Soesterberg aerodrome were alarmed by the sound of an approaching airplane. Moments later, Bernard de Waal and his flight mechanic, Karl Pohl, landed their C.I reconnaissance plane. They had left Schwerin early that afternoon without telling anyone where they were going. Hours later, mist and a malfunctioning compass had got them lost over the north of Holland, forcing them to make an emergency landing near the town of Meppel when their fuel ran out. Pohl was interned and then extradited to Germany because of his illegal border crossing, while De Waal was welcomed with open arms by his old aeronautical friends and soon reunited with Anthony.28
On April 29, 1919, Fokker reported as promised at the Haarlem flower pageant. From the military exercise grounds at Halfweg, between Amsterdam and Haarlem, he took off for a series of spectacular flying demonstrations over his home town. Above the Frederikspark, in front of his parents’ home, he made several loops so that they could see his stunts from their front window. After landing again at Halfweg, he and Tetta got into a white car decorated with dark blue hyacinths and joined the flower pageant, chased by groups of excited children who yelled after their hero, “Long live Fokker!” The enthusiasm of the organizers was almost boundless. Anthony was presented with a special jury prize, which he received with laughter, stating it had been a pleasure to see Haarlem again from above.29 A week later, admiration and fascination for the city’s very own airman resounded in a poem printed on the front page of the Haarlems Dagblad newspaper:
The swallow parts the air,
The seagull turns with a wing to spare,
The lark rises fast,
The eagle floats high past,
The vulture dives steeply to the ground,
Flies, turns, flashes to and fro,
As secure as all birds do.30
Giving flying displays was one thing, but setting up a complete new company was something else. Above all, it required time. Initially, Anthony had intended to start a flying school on the beach at Scheveningen near The Hague. The plan did not progress beyond a series of plane rides for tourists, watched anxiously by the local police. The risk to the public that these flights by “Fokker’s Air Tourism” presented was soon deemed far too great, and they grounded Fokker’s recently hired Dutch pilot, Willem van der Drift, ending the venture.31 A second plan to open an “airplane garage” in The Hague also came to nothing.
Every train that arrived from Schwerin made a decision on the future more urgent. At the end of May, Anthony took Tetta along to Soesterberg to witness the delivery of the first C.I aircraft to the Dutch Air Corps. He also took her up for an extended aerobatics display, flying all the way to the Dutch North Sea coast and back.32 Meanwhile, Anthony’s days became crammed with preparations for his new company. Meetings with officials, industrialists, bankers, and investors filled his days. He spoke at several fundraising events to convince the public of the great future that was in store for aviation, not just in commercial air traffic but also in aerial photography of unexplored regions of the earth. Along with this “big future,” he also envisioned something like a “small future” for aviation; whenever he found the time, Anthony tinkered with his new friend Willem van der Drift on the construction of a lightweight glider that could be towed behind a powered plane.33
Anthony also worked on his public image, sponsoring such things as the construction of a facility in Haarlem for patients suffering from tuberculosis. He also acted as co-organizer of a lottery to collect more funds for patients suffering from the then-incurable disease. Building on the idea that the reduced air pressure at higher altitudes above the clouds might have beneficial effects, Anthony came up with a plan to take patients on special flights.34 For the Haarlem sports week, organized on the occasion of peace festivities, Anthony offered to give a flying display, with proceeds going to charity. A lottery was organized in which participants could win the privilege to accompany Fokker on one of his flights. In all, 2,028 lottery tickets were sold, which brought in 1,200 guilders ($470). His father managed to persuade him to lend his name to a raffle to collect money for the victims of the eruption of the Kelud volcano on Java, which had occurred on May 20. After all, the Fokkers had worked the slopes of the Kelud at Njoenjoer for years.35
The winners of the lottery were to be taken on their flight on June 24, but that day did not suit Anthony, and he sent Van der Drift instead. Haarlemmers were disappointed that he did not show. In a letter to the editor of the Haarlems Dagblad, he answered his critics:
The possibility that I might have other demands on my time and would have to send a replacement is something I expressly told the organizers in advance….The public completely disregards the risks a pilot runs in such performances, not to mention that he that gives such demonstrations purely for the benefit of the committee that organizes the festivities. After all, I am personally fully responsible for any accidents, to the pilot as well as to other persons or properties, even without considering possible damage to the value of my plane and of my name. Every demonstration results in a desk full of requests from enthusiasts of all ages and sexes…to hold a similar demonstration, preferably in the North and in the South of the country at the same time. It is purely for charity and for Haarlem interests that I agreed to this aerial demonstration, by exception, which I hope has lived up to expectations.36
Anthony’s departure to Holland had not entailed a sudden and complete disconnection from his German past. In Berlin, Wilhelm Horter explored possible new options for the Fokker Works, which resulted in an effort to earn money in commercial aerial photography. But the time was not right for such an endeavor, and Luftbild GmbH was dissolved before 1919 was out. Nonetheless, the Fokker Central Office at Unter den Linden continued to function, even if layoffs turned out to be unavoidable. At the end of the year, only Horter and Fokker’s private secretary, Martha Moslehner, were left. The expensive office across from Hotel Bristol was sold off, and the Fokker Central Office moved to rather more modest dwellings in the suburb of Charlottenburg.
In the first postwar months, Schwerin still employed some 800 people, but their number fell rapidly. In February 1919, a large part of the remaining workforce was sent home. Fokker did his best to preserve his reputation as a good employer, and those who were laid off received three months’ pay on top of the legally required severance money.37 The compensation was also intended as an encouragement for other workers to leave. Between April 1919 and June 1921 the number of employees diminished from 680 to 140.38 Those who were kept on received compensation for the general increase in prices, although their job security did not extend beyond August.39 Fokker interfered as little as possible in what went on in Schwerin. Yet he indicated again that he intended to continue to build aircraft there, even if he had no firm plans for how to effect this. But since company revenues were gravely disappointing, paying those who remained behind soon presented serious problems. Clearly, new measures were called for.
For starters, it had to be decided who would be in charge, exactly: former balloonist Karl Hackstetter, who had been appointed by the War Ministry in July 1918; Fokker’s own general manager, Carl Burgtorff; the head of sales, Richard Just; chief technology officer Curt Neubauer; engineer Reinhold Platz; or somebody altogether different. Fokker, who always preferred to work with people whom he considered personal friends and acquaintances, appointed his new brother-in-law, Hans Georg von Morgen, as general director.40 This appointment did not go down well with the company employees, many of whom considered the company to be overstaffed at the top anyway.41 Only in June did Anthony Fokker bring himself to intervene personally in the affairs of the company, when it could no longer be denied that some 4.5 million marks had evaporated in Schwerin since the beginning of the new year.42 Fokker became convinced that there was no other option but to shut down the company, preferably as early as September 30, 1919. But that idea denied the new conditions that had emerged from the revolution, which required the cooperation of a council of employee representatives as well as permission from the local authorities. Neither occurred.43 Nonetheless, Von Morgen tried to clean up shop, which resulted in the departure of Hackstetter and Neubauer in October. The more laid-back Platz fared better. He received permission to dedicate a small team of technicians to the development of a commercial transport plane. Most of the other remaining employees were transferred to the company’s new department of motorboat construction—a short term proposition the management came up with, inspired by Anthony’s love of sailing. As lessor of the factory buildings, the Aerodrome Company gave the green light for this change in manufacturing.44
Consequently, Fokker’s obligations to his factory workers continued. Money primarily came in the shape of a promise of government compensations for orders that had been annulled because of the end of the war, 3.2 million marks in all. It was to be spent on back payments to Fokker’s workers and in recompense for the rapidly rising costs of living. Anthony Fokker was personally charged to put up an equivalent amount so that all employees would receive their due.45 Such local arrangements at his expense took Anthony by surprise, and he was very much opposed to them. Government compensations were in the end limited to aircraft that were left behind in Schwerin or dismantled as a result of postwar actions instigated by the Allies. They did not amount to the promised sum and only totaled 350,000 marks.46
One arrangement that did come true was with Junkers. In April 1919 Hugo Junkers took over all assets and debts of the Junkers-Fokker joint venture to continue the company under the name Junkers Flugzeugwerke AG (Junkers Aircraft Works Plc.). According to Fokker’s own estimate, the enforced cooperation had cost him a million and a half marks, which represented but a modest sum for the acquisition of a wing design and construction technology that brought him many times that amount in profits. Junkers, on the other hand, was fully compensated by the German government and ended up paying nothing at all.47 Nonetheless, the two rivals were not quite done with each other yet. Until the end of the 1930s they were entrenched in legal proceedings over patent rights, a conflict that soon spanned the Atlantic. Fokker kept a special account to pay his patent lawyer from Berlin, Paul Brögelmann, who continued to be busy with the various cases.48
In Schwerin, talks with the Aerodrome Society over the sale and trade of various plots of land continued, even though in 1919 the Fokker Works had run out of the funds required for such property transactions and indicated its loss of interest in such matters. For the Aerodrome Society, in its turn, this presented a very disappointing turn of events, and reason for legal action.49 But if the maneuvering with property rights was complex, matters became substantially thornier in September when Fokker received a deferred claim from the German tax authorities. The state seized all of his remaining assets in Germany in payment for a total sum of 14,251,000 marks in unpaid taxes (then worth $434,000) that, the government claimed, had remained at the end of the war.50 For such cases a complex set of rules, dues, and payment facilities existed. Often payment was effected in the form of goods that were either seized or sold under duress.51 However, the sum of more than 14 million marks was well beyond the average scope of such tax suits. If the Fokker Works, sued in conjunction with its owner, wished to have any kind of future at all, it was imperative to cut all ties with Anthony Fokker forthwith—at least formally.
Anthony therefore parked his company shares with the Unie Bank in Amsterdam, which thus became financially responsible for running the Fokker Works in Schwerin while acting as a shield against claims that emerged from his ownership. Despite this arrangement, however, he intervened in company affairs from Amsterdam. To emphasize the legal changes that resulted from the bank deal the Fokker name was changed to the more neutral-sounding Schwerin Industrial Works (SIW: Schweriner Industrie Werke) on January 23, 1920. Thus SIW, of which the Unie Bank acted as major shareholder, severed all ties with Anthony Fokker. Yet the company could not avoid being dragged into the legal proceedings surrounding the dissolution of Fokker’s German affairs. After protracted negotiations through Fokker’s lawyers in Berlin, an agreement was hammered out with the German tax authorities regarding a reduction of the deferred tax claim to some 6 million marks (then worth $105,000).52 Until an agreement could be signed, Anthony discovered to his dismay that he could not travel to Germany, even on his Dutch passport. If he had been unable to leave Germany without special permission since becoming a German citizen in 1915, he was now stuck with his German wife on the other side of the border.
In the meantime, the Unie Bank appointed another Dutchman, Jacob Lioni, as a supervising administrator to SIW. This was done on Fokker’s advice. Fokker and Lioni knew each other from the First Air Traffic Exhibition Amsterdam (ELTA: Eerste Luchtverkeer Tentoonstelling Amsterdam) that had been held in August 1919. Lioni, a decommissioned Air Corps lieutenant, had been one of the exhibition’s administrators.53 In turn, the city of Schwerin, which hoped to keep the local aircraft industry afloat, came up with a proposal for a profitable real estate trade-off in return for which SIW would receive better access to the lakeside. After all, the company was now building boats. In July 1920 this resulted in a complex deal between the city, the Aerodrome Society, and SIW.54 At and around the Görries aerodrome a similar property arrangement was reached. Because SIW no longer needed the land, several large plots were sold off at Fokker’s behest. A small number of houses that Fokker had bought near the aerodrome during the war were also sold.55
Despite his ban from Germany, Anthony’s private affairs in the country also continued. He kept his membership in the Wannsee Sailing Club, with which he exchanged a series of letters in the spring of 1919 over the conditions of membership. That correspondence went through the Fokker Central Office in Berlin. Since he could no longer enjoy personal possessions that remained in the clubhouse, he had them sent to Amsterdam in August.56 Such trivia took a long time to arrange, perhaps because of Anthony’s uncertainty whether Amsterdam was the best place to send them to. Although now legally again a Dutchman, Fokker continued to invest in Germany as well. The world of the stage and of filmmaking especially fascinated him. On May 3, 1919, he was among a select group of entrepreneurs that invested in founding the Scala Theatre in Berlin. It opened its doors a year later and would shortly attain top billing in onstage variety shows. In the 1920s, Berlin was to become world-famous for its entertainment. Fokker’s contribution was substantial; he controlled half the votes on the Scala’s board.57 He also remained as owner of the Perzina building in Schwerin and of the smaller Adolf Nützmann piano factory. The buildings themselves were rented to the Berlin entrepreneur Otto Libeau, a manufacturer of furniture and musical instruments. Anthony also continued his shareholding in the engine manufacturer Oberursel.58
His prime interests now focused on the Netherlands. In the first week of May 1919, he opened an Amsterdam office at 84 Rokin, built in 1883 as a richly ornamented edifice with three floors, a roomy attic, and a basement. Fokker rented the first two floors for his new company’s administrative staff. In doing so, he stuck to the pattern that had evolved in wartime Berlin. Anthony had a keen eye for whom to keep close. He rented the top floor of his office to Prince Hendrik. For years, Hendrik kept a personal pied-à-terre in Amsterdam above the Fokker offices.59 Realizing that his German past would not easily be forgotten, Anthony made sure that his new company emanated a Dutch character.
To bring the new company about financially, his old Haarlem circle of family and acquaintances once again stepped in. Through the intervention of Jacob Cremer, he managed to get support from the former governor-general of the Netherlands East Indies, Joan van Heutz, who also took up the position of chairman of the board of the new Dutch Fokker company. The other members of the board reflected whom Fokker had met and spoken with since his arrival in the country: Cornelis Vattier Kraane, the director of the Nederlandsch-Indische Steenkolen Handel-Maatschappij (Netherlands Indies Coal Trading Company) and of the Amsterdam based trading company Blaauwhoedenveem Vriesseveem; the millionaire and investor Frits Fentener van Vlissingen, a key figure in Dutch enterprise and finance, who was also involved in the ELTA exhibition and acted as one of the founding fathers of KLM; Johan van der Houven van Oordt, a former secretary general of the Ministry of Colonial Affairs; the banker Daniël Patijn; and Anthony’s uncle Eduard. To avoid the politically sensitive name “Fokker,” the new company took the neutral name NV Nederlandsche Vliegtuigenfabriek (Netherlands Aircraft Factory Plc.). On July 21, 1919, the founding papers were signed before a notary in Amsterdam. The Unie Bank, with whom Anthony had opened an account to park the money he brought from Germany, acted as founder of the company, together with the stockbrokerage Patijn, Van Notten & Company. Both the Unie Bank and Patijn, Van Notten & Company invested 275,000 guilders. Anthony Fokker remained consciously shielded from view at the signature of the founding papers and was referred to only as company director.60 The total founding capital of the company was registered as 1.5 million Dutch guilders ($600,000). The founding papers stated the purpose of the venture as “the production of, and trade in, aircraft and fast-running boats, and parts thereof, and everything that is connected with such; the foundation and operation of flying schools, airports, landing strips, and repair workshops, either under its own account, or on the account or with participation of third parties, and organizing and providing airshows. The operation of traffic in the air for persons, letters, goods, and so on, the provision of aerial photography for exploration and for topographical purposes, either under its own account, or on the account or with participation of third parties.”61
Ultimate control over the company resided with Anthony Fokker. For all their expertise and resounding names, the members of the new board of control would have hardly any influence. In the months following the official signature, Anthony took over nearly all the shares of the group of founders. This gave him complete control over the Nederlandsche Vliegtuigenfabriek, soon known far and wide as the Fokker Factory. This development was to have far-reaching consequences. Fokker’s way of conducting his business affairs was impulsive and unstructured; most of the time he was absent from the office, traveling across Europe on business. Over the years the company capital and his private capital became so entangled that no one could tell what was what. His financial manager, Frederik Elekind, whom he had inherited from Trompenburg, had a full-time job keeping even a semblance of order.62 Although Anthony put himself on the company payroll for a modest 18,000 guilders annually, he declared expenses well over 50,000 guilders per year. Most of these were travel costs, connected to his many business trips.63
Of course, Anthony presented himself at the largest aviation spectacle ever organized in Holland, the ELTA, held in August 1919. Queen Wilhelmina officially opened the festivities. Two Air Corps lieutenants signed up for the organizing effort, Albert Plesman and Marinus Hofstee. They had managed to get substantial financial support for the venture from business circles, from local authorities in Amsterdam, and from the government in The Hague. The ELTA festivities lasted full six weeks and drew over half a million paying visitors from all over the country to the marshy fields north of Amsterdam where the event was held. For Anthony, it presented an ideal opportunity to show off his skills as an aerobatics pilot and demonstrate his aircraft before a national audience.
On Sunday, August 3, he made sure all public attention focused on his personal, bright red D.VI biplane, which he flew over the ELTA terrain as well as over the 24-hour cycling tournament at the Stadionbaan elsewhere in Amsterdam. The races were specially interrupted so that all might see and enjoy his aerial performance. The national newspaper Algemeen Handelsblad reported with awe:
One saw the red wings, one saw under the lower wing the letters FOKKER. For a second the light of the sun setting touched the machine, and it was as if a golden miracle buzzed in the last light of the day. Then the aviator descended. For a moment he was out of sight. But suddenly he leapt with roaring sound over the wall of the stadium and came in low over the center field. We cheered. He greeted. And again and again he came back, suddenly carving upward through the blue sky, then again rolling, flying loops, coming down in a tailspin, sharply turning on a wing, and then zipping back full speed, all along the stadium, so low that the grandstand eliminated the machine from view. It was fantastic. It was frightening and yet grand. It was awesome and touching.64
Anthony himself was rather soberer on the matter of his performances. Over the years flying had become for him “one of the most boring and unexciting pastimes. I seldom fly longer than ten, fifteen minutes and I fly…when something has annoyed me intensely, or when I have to test a new airplane, because then I only have to concentrate on the technical characteristics of the machine. From time to time I derive pleasure from letting the aircraft make strange movements, but all these ‘miracles’ are in the end not more than proof of the technical perfection of modern aircraft….Bravery is really not necessary for such aerial maneuvers.”65
That did not apply to everyone. From the flights she made with Anthony Tetta returned pale and fragile. In the few photographs that remain she gave the appearance of an extra in the wrong movie scene in her thick leather flying coat and with her helmet on. Nonetheless, she managed the required smile for the cameras, be it somewhat timid. Anthony also took his parents up for a ride. On August 9, he even made a loop with his father onboard. Herman Fokker was truly impressed:
You lose all notion of time and speed and direction, speeding forward, suddenly a colossal turn to the left, to the right, descending at an angle, then you see the water, then ships, blocks of houses, the parking grounds, the exhibition, the aerodrome with next to the commercial stalls this square black mass that is supposed to be people…suddenly he really gives full throttle, your speed becomes enormous and then you go up and stand on your head, seeing nothing but sky, so you look up to see the earth and there you see Amsterdam upside down….It all goes so incredibly fast that you just cannot understand. I later heard that one of the loops had gone wrong because the engine had stopped and we fell down vertically….To have experienced something like this, is beyond imagination.66
Anthony, however, soon tired of demonstration flights. In the third week of August he packed his bags and departed for the seashore at Domburg in the southwest of the country for a quiet holiday with Tetta. After the closure of the ELTA, he rented the grounds from the city of Amsterdam and bought the wooden exhibition buildings to act as his new factory buildings. Thus, the Nederlandsche Vliegtuigenfabriek started its business activities on September 16, 1919.67 The location, however, was far from ideal and in fact wholly unsuited for airplane construction since the factory had no airstrip of its own. During Fokker’s life, all aircraft had to be taken from the ELTA facilities to Schiphol Airfield by barge for final assembly in Fokker’s hangar there. Flight testing then followed. It was a cumbersome procedure, but then again the ELTA facilities came cheap, which for Fokker was paramount.
Having delivered his first series of aircraft to the Dutch Air Corps, Fokker was left with the question of what to do with the remainder of the aircraft he had brought from Germany, 140 machines in all. As a temporary solution, they were stored in a large warehouse in the Amsterdam docks so that they would at least be shielded from the weather. Meanwhile, Anthony devoted himself to get his new company running. This took quite a bit of time since he did not really have an idea of what he wanted with the new endeavor. In January 1920 the organization, then employing eighty-eight people, was still in a quandary.68
Quite a few of Fokker’s early band of employees in Holland, the supervisory staff in particular, had been recruited at Fokker’s German companies and at the Fokker Central Office in Berlin. The most important among them was Wilhelm Horter, who now became general manager in Amsterdam. From Schwerin came Bernard de Waal. Anthony appointed him to supervise the flight testing facility at Schiphol Airfield. In 1921, he also brought Reinhold Platz to Holland as his head of construction. This was a decision with far-reaching consequences, because at the beginning of the 1920s, Platz, never educated as an airplane engineer, had reached the limits of his capacities. Bruno Stephan, Fokker’s deputy director from 1925 to 1935, described Platz as a narrow-minded man with “really limited mental capacities” who showed little understanding or respect for theoretical aerodynamics and disregarded all ideas that transcended his personal understanding.69 His presence and final responsibility in design and construction acted as an impediment to technological innovation, which put Fokker’s market position under increasing pressure.
Meanwhile, Horter’s first concern was to sell the remaining stocks of D.VII and D.VIII fighters abroad. It was obvious that the company would depend on exports if it wished to survive in a small country like Holland. Yet initial foreign sales efforts largely remained unsuccessful. Anthony then presented the idea to convert the planes to sports aircraft and machines for aerobatics, but that did not work either. The German inventory remained with the factory until Anthony managed to bring in Friedrich Seekatz as head of sales in June 1921.