Amerikabomber
Nazi Germany military initiative
The Amerikabomber (lit. 'America bomber') project was an initiative of the German Ministry of Aviation (German: Reichsluftfahrtministerium) to obtain a long-range strategic bomber for the Luftwaffe that would be capable of striking the United States (specifically New York City) from Germany, a round-trip distance of about 11,600 km (7,200 mi).
A Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor of the Luft Hansa made a direct flight from Berlin to New York in August 1938. The Amerikabomber concept was raised in the same year, but advanced plans for such a long-range strategic bomber design were not presented to Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring until early 1942. Various proposals were put forward, but these plans were all eventually abandoned as they were too expensive, too reliant on rapidly diminishing matériel and production capacity, and technically infeasible.
Background
According to Albert Speer's book, Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Adolf Hitler was fascinated with the idea of New York City in flames.
In 1937, Willy Messerschmitt hoped to win a lucrative contract by showing Hitler a prototype of the Messerschmitt Me 264 that was being designed to reach North America from Europe. On 8 July 1938, barely two years after the death of Germany's main strategic bombing advocate, Generalleutnant Walter Wever, and eight months after the Reich Air Ministry awarded the contract for the design of the Heinkel He 177, Germany's only operational heavy bomber during the war years, the Luftwaffe's commander-in-chief Hermann Göring gave a speech saying, "I completely lack the bombers capable of round-trip flights to New York with a 4.5-tonne bomb load. I would be extremely happy to possess such a bomber, which would at last stuff the mouth of arrogance across the sea." Canadian historian Holger H. Herwig claims the plan started as a result of discussions by Hitler in November 1940 and May 1941 when he stated his need to "deploy long-range bombers against American cities from the Azores." Due to their location, he thought the Portuguese Azores islands were Germany's "only possibility of carrying out aerial attacks from a land base against the United States." Nazi Germany had failed to complete any aircraft carriers during its rapid interwar rearmament due to a lack of industrial and labour capacity. At the time, Portuguese Prime Minister Salazar had allowed German U-boats and navy ships to refuel there, but from 1943 onwards, he leased bases in the Azores to the British, allowing the Allies to provide aerial coverage in the middle of the Atlantic.
Requests for designs, at various stages during the war, were made to the major German aircraft manufacturers (Messerschmitt, Junkers, Focke-Wulf and the Horten Brothers) early in World War II, coinciding with the passage of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom in September 1940.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Amerikabomber” is nazi Germany military initiative. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Amerikabomber, Nazi and Germany, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q468133. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1942, 1937 and 1940.
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