With its parent company, it ceased operations following the
First World War, when restrictions on German aviation were created by the
Treaty of Versailles. In 1921, the factory was purchased by
Heinrich Lübbe, who is said to have assisted
Anthony Fokker in the creation of the pioneering
synchronization gear system during 1914–1915, and re-commenced aircraft construction for export.
Walter Rethel, previously of
Kondor and
Fokker, was appointed head designer. In 1925, the company joined the ("Arado trading firm") that was founded by the industrialist Hugo Stinnes Jr. for covering up illegal trade with military equipment. When the
Nazi government came to power in Germany in 1933, Lübbe took control of the company. Just prior to that,
Walter Blume, formerly of
Albatros, replaced Rethel. Arado achieved early prominence as a supplier to the
Luftwaffe with the
Arado Ar 66, which became one of the standard Luftwaffe
trainers right into World War II. The firm also produced some of the Luftwaffe's first
fighter aircraft, the
Ar 65 and
Ar 68. In 1936, the RLM ( "Reich Aviation Ministry") insisted that, as a show of loyalty, Lübbe should join the Nazi party. When he refused, he was arrested and forced to sell the company to the state. It was renamed to the more specific (and accurate) '''''' and was placed under the direction of
Erich Serno, and
Felix Wagenführ, himself a former
IdFlieg officer in World War I. When Germany invaded Poland, instigating World War II, two more Arado products rose to prominence, the
Ar 96, which became the
Luftwaffe's most used trainer, and the
Ar 196 a
reconnaissance seaplane that became standard equipment on all larger German warships. Unfortunately for Arado, most of their other designs were passed over in favour of stronger products from their competitors, such as Germany's only
heavy bomber fielded during the war, the
Heinkel He 177, for which Arado was the primary subcontractor. Perhaps Arado's most celebrated aircraft of the war was the
Ar 234, the first
jet-powered
bomber. Too late to have any real effect on the outcome of the conflict, it was nevertheless a sign of things to come. Until their liberation in April 1945 by the Soviet army, 1,012 slave laborers from
Freiberg, a sub-camp of the
Flossenbürg concentration camp, worked at the Arado factory, beginning with the first trainload of 249 prisoners arriving in August 1944. The prisoners were mostly Polish Jewish women and girls sent to Freiberg from
Auschwitz. Arado also licence-built various versions of, and components for the
Focke-Wulf Fw 190. In 1945, the company was liquidated and broken up. The Ar 96 continued to be produced in Czechoslovakia by
Zlin for many years after the war as the C.2B. ==Aircraft==