Fokker, Anthony Herman Gerard`Tony`, born 06-04-1890 in Blitar Kedrei, Java Indonesia, 
member of the patrician family Fokker and the son of the coffee planter Herman Fokker and Johanna Hugona Wouterina Wilhelmina (Anna) Diemont (1865 – 1945). Four years later, the family moved to Haarlem to give Tony and his older sister Toos 
a Dutch upbringing, but Anthony couldn’t hold out at school. He preferred to play with his model train and steam engine, and dropped out of high school. He invented a puncture-proof car tire, 
but the invention had already been patented by someone else. An air show in Brussels shifted his interest. He started making airplane models and eventually figured out how to make an airplane stable. was a pioneer in aviation and a Dutch aircraft manufacturer. Fokker was a self made man and didn’t like to go to school and always playing with his model train and steam machine. In 1910 he followed his father to Germany and he wanted to fly. 
He went back to school and learned all about flying and constructed his first plan, “the Spin” and tested them himself. In 1912 he started his own company in Johannisthal, near Berlin, Gauleiter of Berlin was Josef Goebbels 
(did you know) Fokker Aeroplanbau. Fokker constructed all types of planed in the next years and build about 700 fighter planes for the German Army, during the first war. Max Immelmann,
member of the patrician family Fokker and the son of the coffee planter Herman Fokker and Johanna Hugona Wouterina Wilhelmina (Anna) Diemont (1865 – 1945). Four years later, the family moved to Haarlem to give Tony and his older sister Toos a Dutch upbringing, but Anthony couldn’t hold out at school. He preferred to play with his model train and steam engine, and dropped out of high school. He invented a puncture-proof car tire, but the invention had already been patented by someone else. An air show in Brussels shifted his interest. He started making airplane models and eventually figured out how to make an airplane stable. was a pioneer in aviation and a Dutch aircraft manufacturer. Fokker was a self made man and didn’t like to go to school and always playing with his model train and steam machine. In 1910 he followed his father to Germany and he wanted to fly. He went back to school and learned all about flying and constructed his first plan, “the Spin” and tested them himself. In 1912 he started his own company in Johannisthal, near Berlin, Gauleiter of Berlin was Josef Goebbels (did you know) Fokker Aeroplanbau. Fokker constructed all types of planed in the next years and build about 700 fighter planes for the German Army, during the first war. Max Immelmann,
born 21-09-1890, he crashed age 25, on 1-06-1916 over Sailly le Sec, Somme, was the first German World War I flying ace to fly a Fokker Eindecker. 
The Fokker Eindecker fighters were a series of German World War I monoplane single-seat fighter aircraft designed by the Dutch engineer. In 1913 Fokker made his first looping with a plane and was the second after the Russian Pyotr Nesterov, 
Nesterov died in a crash, on 26-08-1914, age 27. Fokker couldn’t sell his planes to the Dutch government, they had no interest and they only buy English and French planes. Fokker then decided to work only for the German Army and they gave him all possibilities and space and appreciation. With the outbreak of World War I the Germans took over his factory in Schwerin, (see Graf Gerhard von Schwerin) 
but Fokker remained the director. He visited the front 
and gave the German Luftwaffe the priority in the air war with a revolutionary synchronisation system, a block system which allowed the pilot to shoot his MG through the propellers. This made the German planes more effective as the Allied ones. The German air designers Hugo Junkers, Willy Messerschmitt and Claude Dornier
were the rivals of Anthony Fokker. Fokker worked close with the flyer ace Manfred von Richthofen 
, the Red Baron and brother (Lothar). Hermann Göring 
(did you know) became the new commander of Richthofen’s Squadron. In 1919 Fokker with all his equipment and personnel left Germany secretly in trains during the night and raised the Dutch Aircraft Factory on 21-07-1919, by the support of some rich Dutch families.Death and burial ground of Fokker, Anthony Herman Gerard “Tony”.
Fokker married twice, first married Sophie Marie Elisabeth von Morgen, daughter of General Curt von Morgen, 
on 25-03-1919 in Haarlem. This marriage ended after four years. The second time with the American Violet Austmann who committed suicide by jumping out of a high window in New York.
Anthony Fokker died, age 49, on 23-12-1939 of meningitis in New York. He suffered from migraines, caused by a chronic sinus infection, a real pilot disease with the then still open planes. Those migraines were sometimes so bad that he just couldn’t stand them anymore. He then had himself massaged unconscious by a doctor. The last time it went so far that he fell into a coma and never really recovered from it.’ Anthony Fokker is buried on the Cemetery Stichting Westerveld, Driehuis Velzen, Netherlands (see About).
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