Flight Commemorating the Record Contact between Asia and Europe
1 2019-11-18T17:18:28-05:00 Kate McDonald 306bb1134bc892ab2ada669bed7aecb100ef7d5f 35 2 Yamaji Shingo, "Hōmon kaku kuni no hikōki kigō." 1937. Postcard. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. plain 2020-09-09T15:29:18-04:00 Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Great Britain 1937 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Digital Collection, https://collections.mfa.org/objects/400085/. 1937 Digital image, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Public domain. Sakura Christmas Manchuria Aviation Company; Lufthansa. SMC-0013 Kandra Polatis 4decfc04157f6073c75cc53dcab9d25e87c02133This page is referenced by:
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Building the Axis Alliance across Eurasia
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Manchuria Aviation Company; Lufthansa; transcontinental route; Manchukuo
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2021-09-28T10:35:31-04:00
1935-1940
Sakura Christmas
Lufthansa
Eurasian Aviation Company
Though primarily for the purposes of surveillance, the airports in Inner Mongolia would also support a new transcontinental route from Tokyo to Berlin. By 1935, the reach of Lufthansa and its local carrier, the Eurasian Aviation Company, had alarmed officers of the Kwantung Army to the point that they wanted to replace China with Manchukuo as Germany’s primary partner on the continent. Because Britain ran the routes through India and the Soviet Union controlled the way through Siberia, this left only the treacherous option, seven thousand meters over the Pamir Mountains from Xinjiang to Afghanistan.
The resulting contract between the Manchuria Aviation Company and Lufthansa in December 1936 presaged the Axis Alliance of 1940. The agreement outlined an East-West route from Tokyo, Xinjing, Anxi, Kabul, Baghdad, Rhodes, to Berlin. Nowhere did these settlements mention any consent from the Republican government over the use of airspace, but the Manchuria Aviation Company seemed aware that it was encroaching upon Chinese territory.
