Storch (Stork) design compared with actual stork in flight.

Simplicity at its Best

The Fieseler Fi-156 was beautiful in its simplicity. Nicknamed “storch,” or stork in English, it resembled that bird. A workhorse in the German Luftwaffe as an observation plane and to take a passenger to an appointed destination, it was agile. It also had a remarkable characteristic. It could land 50 feet from touchdown when well piloted.

This capability was almost like having a helicopter two years before helicopters were invented. A group of Nazi commandos put this feature into use in a daring raid. One to free Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of the Axis Italy, who had been captured by the Allies after Italy was liberated. Mussolini was being held at a remote 6,500 ft mountaintop ski resort that could be reached only by a single cable railway. Hitler had ordered him to be recovered.

This capability was almost like having a helicopter
two years before helicopters were invented.

German soldier reenactors leaving Fieseler Storch — Reenactors with beautifully refurbished Storch. www.collingsfoundation.org .

90 paratroopers and 20 commandos raided from the sky and released Mussolini. However now, the alerted forces at the base of the mountain were gathered in force. The Fi-156 sent to retrieve Mussolini could not land at the base of the mountain, so pilot Walter Gerlach did the only thing left for him to do. He landed on the rock-strewn mountaintop where the longest flat surface was 250 feet. Gerlach made the landing in under 100 feet.

Mussolini and the officer in charge of the raid were loaded onto the Storch which was well over its maximum safe capacity. One of the landing gear was smashed on a boulder as they took off, but Mussolini was delivered to Nazi forces awaiting the dictator.

While there are perhaps 10 war-era Fi-156s flying today, the Luftwaffe employed 2,900 of these aircraft and after the war. They continued to be made for Spanish and Sweedish air forces up until 1950. Czech and French factories produced the Storch for the personal aircraft market.