Carriages to bombers

Gothaer Waggonfabrik was a maker of railway rolling stock, established at Gotha in Thuringia in the late nineteenth century. The First World War pulled it into aviation: it built a version of the Etrich Taube and then, from a 1914 design by Oskar Ursinus developed by Hans Burkhard, a line of twin-engine bombers, the G.I to G.V. The G.IV, which first flew in 1916, introduced the Gotha tunnel, a channel through the fuselage that let the rear gunner fire downward and backward. In all 230 G.IVs were built, only 50 of them by Gotha itself.

Gothas over London

From 1917 Gothas became the first heavier-than-air aircraft used to bomb England strategically. On 13 June 1917 fourteen of them reached London in daylight. Seventy-two bombs fell within a mile of Liverpool Street station; 162 civilians were killed and 432 injured, among them 18 children killed at Upper North Street School in Poplar, most aged five or six. Seventeen more Gotha raids followed before May 1918, and the name Gotha became shorthand for the bomber itself.

Gliders, flying wings and trams

After 1918 the company went back to railway work, then returned to aircraft under the Nazis. It built 1,182 Go 145 trainers, the Go 242 assault glider and Go 244 transport, licence-built the Messerschmitt Bf 110, and was building the Horten Ho 229 flying wing when the war ended, with prototypes flown and more in manufacture. In East Germany the works became VEB Waggonbau Gotha, building trams until 1967, and in 1997 it was split up and privatised.

Fabrieken

• Gotha works · Gotha, Thuringia — Rolling stock and aircraft

Mensen

• Hans Burkhard · aircraft designer — Developed the G.I to G.V bombers
• Oskar Ursinus · designer — Originated the 1914 design behind the G.I

Records en primeurs

• Gotha bombers were the first heavier-than-air aircraft used for strategic bombing of England, from 1917