Messerschmitt Bf 108B-1, WNr. ?, "2D+EM"
History
The aircraft displayed at the Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr with the code 2D+EM is a wrecked example of the Messerschmitt Bf 108 Taifun, one of the most advanced light aircraft designs of the 1930s.
Before and during the Second World War, the Luftwaffe used the Bf 108 mainly as a liaison, communications, and staff transport aircraft. The aircraft carrying the code 2D+EM served with 4./KGzbV 106, a Luftwaffe transport unit. On 9 October 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war, it crashed in poor weather conditions in northern Germany, reportedly north of the island of Rügen. The aircraft was destroyed and remained lost for decades.
Many years later, parts of the wreck were recovered from the sea. Rather than being fully restored, the remains were preserved in their recovered condition and transferred to the museum at Gatow. Today, the aircraft is displayed as an archaeological and historical artifact rather than as a reconstructed airplane. Its damaged structure vividly illustrates the dangers faced even by non-combat Luftwaffe crews in the early months of the war.
The museum itself occupies the former military airfield at Gatow in Berlin, originally built in 1934–35 as a Luftwaffe training establishment. After 1945 the site became RAF Gatow in the British sector of Berlin and later evolved into one of Germany's major aviation museums. Today it preserves aircraft and artifacts spanning German military aviation from the Imperial era through the Cold War.
The wreck of 2D+EM is especially significant because relatively few wartime Bf 108s survived. Most surviving aircraft today are postwar French-built derivatives such as the Nord Pingouin. The Gatow aircraft therefore provides a rare authentic link to the original wartime type and to the early operational history of the Luftwaffe.