Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen

About

The Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen (German: Luftfahrtmuseum Hannover-Laatzen) is a permanent exhibition in Laatzen of the history of aviation. 38 airplanes, 800 aircraft models, and more than 30 aircraft engines are displayed on 3,500 m2 (38,000 sq ft). Among the vast array of exhibits one can find an original Jumo 004A, one of the first jet engines in history, as well as a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, a Messerschmitt Bf 109 and a Supermarine Spitfire. Aircraft from the postwar era include a MiG-15, an F-104 and an An-2.

History: The entrepreneur Günter Leonhardt was already interested in gliding as a teenager and volunteered for the Luftwaffe. After the Second World War, Leonhardt created the Nelke shipping company, together with the businessman Karl Nelke. His passion was aviation, and he built a large private collection. For this he rescued several Ju 52 from a Norwegian lake in the Arctic Circle, which had sunk there in 1940. In 1992, he partially transferred his collection to the Aviation Museum Laatzen-Hannover, located on the premises of the company he by then owned. The company Nelke was sold in 1994. On 11 April 2013, the Aviation Museum Laatzen-Hannover, the Aeronauticum in Nordholz...