Junkers Ju 87 It was produced until 1944 for lack of a better replacement. By then ground-attack versions of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 had largely replaced the Stuka, but Stukas remained in service until the end of the war. An estimated 6,500 Ju 87s of all versions were built between 1936 and August 1944. "Oberst" Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the most successful Stuka ace and the most highly decorated German serviceman of the Second World War. The Ju 87's principal designer, Hermann Pohlmann, held the opinion that any dive-bomber design needed to be simple and robust. This led to many technical innovations, such as
Junkers Bomber" design competition for a trans-Atlantic range strategic bomber saw the Junkers firm build two prototypes of its six-engined Junkers Ju 390, basically a stretch of the four-engined Ju 290 transport — competing against the trio of Me 264 four-engined prototypes as the only fully airworthy competitors for the contract, which had included designs from Focke-Wulf and Heinkel that were never built, with the competition ended in July 1944 due to the developing need for interceptors to defend the Reich. The Junkers company survived the Second World War and was reconstituted as Junkers GmbH and eventually merged into the MBB