Flughafen Essen

[andya]

Hi

I would appreciate help in determining the meanining of this item. It reads:
FLUGHAFEN ESSEN-MULHEIM 20 AUGUST 1939.


From what I can work out, MULHEIM is an aiprot and FLUGHAFEN ESSEN means Airport Meal?(on-line translation)

any thoughts?

thanks
andy

[JoeW]

The lettering in the photo is difficult to read for the glare, but it translates that the event occured a the Airport serving the joint cities Essen-Muhlheim. Eating has nothing to do with it. There is an airport today serving these cities.

[Larry deZeng]

Essen-Mülheim was a civilian commercial airport set up in 1932 and located 8 km SW of Essen. It was classified "international" and had full customs services. The Luftwaffe did not begin using it until mid-1943 so it did not play much of a role in the war.

--BHS1956

[Bill H.]

Hi Andy,

Yeah, you want to be careful with online (computer based) translations. They typically pay no attention to context and are word for word translators with some grammar rules applied. The German word for a meal is essen but its also a city name as in this case.

Its possible what you have there is an award which was given to someone who probably worked at this airport. Since there is no mention on the thing about what its for you'd have to get lucky and find a photo or press release photo where one is being awarded and have the event described on the reverse or find a recipient who can explain what it was for.

It might even be a souvenier since commercial air travel was only for the well to do in the 1930s it might have been offered as a snob appeal kind of thing.

It looks like its made of glass or crystal which together with the lack of writing indicating what its for makes me think it may be more of a souvenier than an award. The parachutist makes that theory tough to swallow though. I can't imagine anyone wanting to reminisce fond memories of having to bail out of an airliner - plus, passengers are pretty much hosed on that count anyway.

Maybe it commemorates an air show? That's a possibility. Well so much for that stream of consiousness exercise.

Cheers, Bill Huber