Ferdinand Brandner

Ferdinand Brandner (17 November 1903 – 20 December 1986) was an Austrian aerospace designer, an S.S. Standartenführer in wartime Germany, and was responsible for the most powerful turboprop engine ever built, the Kuznetsov NK-12, while interned in the Soviet Union under Operation Osoaviakhim following World War II.

Brandner was born 17 November 1903 to Sudeten German parents in Vienna, his father being a low-ranking government official. He served in the Freikorps Oberland in 1921, and went on to study in Vienna, earning a degree in engineering in 1925. He began designing diesel engines for locomotives, working at the Humboldt-Deutz-Motoren AG in the Rhineland.

In 1930 Brandner joined the National Socialist Factory Organization and the Technical Engineers Division of the NSDAP, becoming an engineering consultant to the Austrian NSDAP in 1935. He would rise within the S.S. to the rank of colonel (Standartenführer).

By 1936 Brandner was working at the Junkers-Motorenbau factory in Dessau designing aircraft engines, and eventually assisted with the war effort for Germany.

In the spring of 1945, Brandner was captured by the Red Army trying to flee to Prague near the end of World War II. He was flown to Moscow as part of Operation Osoaviakhim, where he was assigned to work with Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kuznetsov. Eventually the Soviets dismantled the Junkers factory in Dessau and the BMW factory in Stassfurt, moving them to Kuibyshev, USSR.

Longing to escape Communism, he was released from the USSR in 1953, where he returned to Austria. He began working at Maschinenfabrik Andritz AG as the technical director. From there he became managing director at BMW Aircraft Engines.

In 1959, Brandner left Europe for Egypt, where the government was recruiting German World War II scientists for their top-secret aerospace program. His project was codenamed "135", with the duty of designing a jet engine for a fighter already constructed. In 1962, the presence of German scientists in Egypt was exposed in the world press, leading to a regional crisis from Israel to Germany.

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