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;Ferdinand Schmetz anf Felix Kracht, founded the company of “Schmetz und Kracht GmbH” in Aachen. During the spring of 1938, they started putting the Rheinland into production. Up to 1st September 1939, they delivered 29 aircraft.

“With the beginning of the war, we closed our workshop and I joined the DFS (the German Institute for Gliding) where I remained until the end of the war. At the end of 1940, the German Government asked us to reopen our workshop and to build first the Meise (650 built) and later on, a special version of the aerobatic Habicht with clipped wings (Stummelhabicht) for training purposes. (Felix Kracht)

“Having myself other duties at the time, Schmetz took over the whole job and completely transformed an old workshop for knobs next to his needle factory into a very modern glider factory.