Alfred Keller
Alfred Keller (born September 19, 1882 in Bochum , † February 11, 1974 in Berlin ) was a German Colonel General in the Air Force during World War II .
Life
Pilot training and World War I
In 1902, after completing elementary school and secondary school, Keller joined the Prussian army as a squire and began his military career as a pioneer in the 1st West Prussian Pioneer Battalion No. 17. As a lieutenant , he was in 1912 in Metz for plane spotters, one year later with AEG in Niederneuendorf for pilots trained.
At the outbreak of the First World War he served as captain of the Feldfliegerabteilung 27, took over in the autumn of 1915 before the Battle of Verdun , the leadership of the Army air fleet 5 and led during the Battle of the Somme the Army flight site 1 . In the autumn, Keller was given command of Feldfliegerabteilung 40, where he proved himself particularly through night flight missions. When Keller was appointed commander of the bomb squadron of the Supreme Army Command (Bogohl 1) at the beginning of 1917 , he further developed the tactics of night bombing and soon became the most important night flight expert in the German air force alongside Hermann Köhl . In this role he carried out numerous bombing raids on the French canal ports and later also on Paris , all of which he led himself at the controls of a Friedrichshafen bomber and in which he was able to largely avoid his own losses thanks to his precise operational planning. The first night raid on Paris, which Keller carried out with his squadron on January 31, 1918, became particularly well known. For his work cellar was next to both classes of the Iron Cross , the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with swords, the Bavarian Military Merit Order IV. Class with swords and crown and the Hessian Bravery medal and on 4 December 1917, the Order le Pour Merite awarded .
Weimar Republic
At the end of the war in 1918, Keller left the army and initially became head of the land flight service of the Deutsche Luftreederei , the first German airline . In 1923 he joined as a senior clerk for Junkers -Luftreederei, where he was most recently CEO of Danziger air mail . In 1925, Keller became director of the German Aviation School in Berlin-Staaken , which was relocated to Braunschweig in 1928 . The secret training of new military pilots began here as early as the time of the Reichswehr .
Wehrmacht and World War II
In 1934, Keller was reactivated as a colonel in the newly formed air force, but initially remained head of his flight school. Only after six months did he move to Faßberg as a commodore of a combat squadron and in 1935 became the commander of the airborne units in Luftkreis IV. On April 1, 1936, he was appointed major general. At the beginning of 1938 he was appointed Commanding General in Luftkreis II (Berlin) and promoted to Lieutenant General . Half a year later he became commander of the East Prussian Air Force Command . At the beginning of 1939, Keller moved to the head of the 4th Air Division , which was nominally equivalent to a descent. However, he explicitly retained the rank of Commanding General and was promoted to General of the Airmen on April 1 .
A few weeks after the outbreak of the Second World War , Keller was appointed commanding general of the IV Air Corps . This association operated during the Western campaign mainly in Belgium and the Netherlands , for which Keller received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on June 24, 1940 and was promoted to Colonel General on July 19 . A month later he was appointed Chief of Air Fleet 1 and Air Force Commander East. In this function he took part in the war against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943 , with the units under his command mainly in the area of Army Group North .
When the German air superiority threatened to be lost in the east in the summer of 1943, the now almost 61-year-old Keller was released from his command and replaced by Günther Korten , who was 16 years his junior . Keller was relegated to the position of corps leader of the National Socialist Air Corps , which was responsible for training the next generation of pilots. He remained in this position until the end of the war. He was the holder of the joint pilot and observer badge in gold with diamonds.
post war period
After Keller returned from British captivity in 1947 , he campaigned for the establishment of an interest group to which bearers of the highest orders of both world wars should belong. These efforts led to the establishment of the Order of Knight Cross Bearers in 1955 , of which he was chairman for several years.
Alfred Keller died in Berlin in 1974 at the age of 91. His grave is in the forest cemetery in Zehlendorf .
literature
- Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume I: A-L. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Berlin 1935, p. 560.
- Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 2: HO. Biblio Verlag, ISBN 3-7648-2516-2 .
- Alfred Keller , In: International Biographical Archive. 42/1955 of October 10, 1955., in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939-1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd edition, Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 435.
- ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 634.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Keller, Alfred |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German Colonel General of the Air Force in World War II |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 19, 1882 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bochum |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 11, 1974 |
| Place of death | Berlin |