Junkers G.38: Lufthansa’s Giant Aircraft

Hugo Junkers had long dreamt of building a big passenger airliner, but Versailles Treaty restrictions, lack of financing and other problems precluded his company from building one up until the late 1920s. Finally, he secured the support of Germany’s air ministry and built the G.38, an enormous passenger aircraft outsizing all of its land-based contemporaries. Throughout the following decade this leviathan combining the grandeur of zeppelins with the speed of airplanes connected Europe’s capitals and astonished its passengers and onlookers.