Émile Dewoitine

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Émile Dewoitine (1892-July 5, 1979) was a French industrial, Collaborationist war criminal who escaped after World War II to Argentina, a major refuge of former Nazi members or Collaborationists [1].

Emile Dewoitine worked a freat deal for the Aerospatiale aircraft company in Saint-Eloi. Along with Georges Latécoère, he produced 1,000 planes between July 1917 and November 1918. Dewoitine created the Dewoitine company along with Marc Birkigt, President of the Hispano-Suiza automotive and engineering firm. He developed numerous planes, such as the Dewoitine D.510 (1935) fighter aircraft, the Dewoitine D.520 (1938), etc.

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[edit] Industrial activities

Dewoitine realized prototypes and the chassis D.520 in 1929 along with Albert Caquot. In 1940, he produced planes without a chassis in the US along with General Arnold and Henry Ford. Dewoitine participated in the production of 35 different types of planes between 1922 and 1940, when he returned to France.

Commandant Stehlin, from the fighter group III/6, visited the Toulouse factory of the Dewoitine D.520 on June 9, 1940, after the beginning of the German invasion of France. Cdt Stehlin declared: "Finally, on June 9, we went to the factory in Toulouse to take the twelve first Dewoitine 520s of the group. We have so much choice , so many planes are available. Why haven't they been attributed to the units which had to fight and which continued to do so, with planes almost deprecated in comparison with those of the German fighters planes?"[2]

[edit] Collaboration and escape to Argentina

After the war, Dewoitine was condemned for Collaborationism ("intelligence with the enemy and an attack on state security"[3]). He was affected in 1944 to the SIPA. Dewoitine is the first documented case of a French collaborationist arriving in Buenos Aires. He escaped to Franquist Spain using ratlines, and then to Argentina in May 1946, in the same ship, first-class, as Cardinal Antonio Caggiano, archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1959 to 1965.[4] There, he worked for the Industria Aeronáutica Militar, developing the Pulqui I, the first South American jet plane. France condemned him in absentia to a 20 year forced labour term in 1948.[5]

[edit] Return to France

He returned to France in 1953 and worked with the Fouga company there.
The result of this was the C.M. 170 Magister.
In all, Dewoitine built 35 different aircraft models.
He was invited on board the Concorde plane on October 30, 1975.
He was the founder of the plants that today form part of EADS.
Dewoitine died in Toulouse on 5 July 1979.[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Perón's Argentina (2002) (Granta Books, 2002, ISBN 1862075816)
  2. ^ Quoted in "Après les trente glorieuses, Synarchie financière et dérives fascistes," (part 12) Solidarité et Progrès, une 20, 2006, re-published by Alterinfo.net, here (French)
  3. ^ Peronismo y criminales de guerra-La sombra nazi, El País, June 27, 2003 (Spanish)
  4. ^ Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Perón's Argentina. New York; London: Granta Books. ISBN 1-86207-581-6 (hardcover); ISBN 1-86207-552-2 (paperback, 2003) pp. 96–8)
  5. ^ American Jewish Year Book, 2006, p.266 available here (English)
  6. ^ EADS N.V. - Emile Dewoitine

[Official EADS site]http://www.eads.net/1024/en/eads/history/wings_of_time/pioneers/dewoitine.html

[edit] See also

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