Carl August von Gablenz

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Carl August Freiherr von Gablenz, 1934
Memorial Carl August Freiherr von Gablenz, Düsseldorf Airport (2019)

Carl August Heinrich Adolf Freiherr von Gablenz (born October 13, 1893 in Erfurt , † August 21, 1942 near Mühlberg an der Elbe ) was a German officer - last major general in World War II - and aviation pioneer .

Life

Carl August came from the old, in the Lower Lausitz local noble family of the von Gablenz . Like some of his ancestors, he embarked on a career as an officer in the Prussian Army , joined the Kaiser Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1 as a flagjunker on February 10, 1913, after attending grammar school, and in 1914 went to the First World War as a lieutenant . A knee shot made him unfit for infantry operations and switched to the air force . Initially as an observer, but soon as a pilot, Gablenz stood on the various fronts and earned special services in his use on fighter, combat and observation aircraft. In the last year of the war he was assigned to pilot a large four-engine bomber and served as a squadron adjutant in the bomb squadron of Supreme Army Command No. 7 .

After the end of the First World War, he initially worked as a pilot for Deutsche Luft-Reederei . In 1924, the successful aviator joined Junkers Luftverkehr AG, where he took on special technical tasks and was particularly committed to the development of reliable aircraft engines suitable for all-weather operation. When Deutsche Luft Hansa then started operations as the successor to Aero-Lloyd and Junkers Luftverkehr AG on April 6, 1926, von Gablenz became the company's first flight operations manager. Under the then Technical Director of Lufthansa and later Field Marshal Erhard Milch , Gablenz did pioneering work and developed the basics of modern blind or instrument flight . Against the massive resistance of the traditionalists among the pilots, Gablenz implemented consistent training programs for mastering instrument flight, which gave Deutsche Lufthansa a significant technical lead in building the European night mail route network .

In 1933 Gablenz was appointed to the board of directors of Deutsche Lufthansa and in the following years played a key role in building up Atlantic air traffic. He himself carried out the first reconnaissance flights over the North and South Atlantic and in 1934 took care of the start of a regular flight service to South America . The logistics of the mail flights earned Deutsche Lufthansa a high level of international recognition. The steamer Westfalen , which was acquired by Gablenz on the initiative of Gablenz, attracted a great deal of attention , its stationing in the South Atlantic and its use as a floating base between the African and South American continents. This enabled mail to be transported to South America as quickly as possible, first with a Heinkel He 70 from Berlin and Stuttgart to Seville, then with a Junkers Ju 52 to Bathurst in West Africa , where it was reloaded onto the steamer Westfalen and finally by catapult launch with Dornier - Whale flying boats to be transported to Natal (Brazil) .

Gablenz worked tirelessly to expand the route network of Deutsche Lufthansa. In September 1934, Gablenz transported a Junkers Ju 52 from Berlin to Shanghai in China, where the aircraft joined the newly founded Eurasia Aviation Corporation . In 1936 he was the captain of the crew that carried out the first flight on a commercial basis from Europe to New York . Through his function as a member of the executive board of Lufthansa, Gablenz was not only connected to aviation, but also to aviation , as he was a member of the supervisory board of Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei alongside Hugo Eckener and Albert Mühlig-Hofmann .

Gablenz became particularly well-known when he explored the air route to the Far East with the Lufthansa Junkers Ju-52 D-ANOY in August 1937 and was detained with his crew in Chotan in Chinese Turkestan for four weeks after an emergency landing . He reported in detail about this flight, which he carried out together with flight captain Robert Untucht and chief radio operator Karl Kirchhoff, in his book D-ANOY conquers the Pamir , published in 1937 . The spectacular Pamir flight , during which the pass heights of the Wakhan had to be conquered by more than 5300 meters, was a pioneering achievement that was recognized worldwide. When the pilots, believed to have been lost, landed in Berlin-Tempelhof on October 3, 1937 , they were celebrated like heroes.

Grave at the Berlin Invalidenfriedhof

When the Second World War broke out, Gablenz was a commodore of a transport squadron, took over command of the blind flight schools and ultimately the entire management of the air transport system of the Luftwaffe. During the German operation in Norway in April 1940, which took place with all conceivable means of transport being brought up, Lieutenant Colonel of the Reserve Gablenz led the combat squadron z. b. V. 172 . This consisted exclusively of Lufthansa crews and transported soldiers to Norway in Ju-52s.

The State Secretary in the Reich Aviation Ministry and General Inspector Erhard Milch appointed Gablenz to head the Air Force Planning Office in November 1941. With his appointment to major general on November 1, 1941, he was the first German reserve officer of the Second World War to be promoted to general. At the same time von Gablenz was appointed head of the Reich Aviation Ministry.

On August 21, 1942, his Siebel Si 204, built by SNCAN in France , crashed on a business flight from Berlin to southern Germany under circumstances that have not yet been clarified at Mühlberg an der Elbe. The SA-Oberführer and head of the Ministry of Education, Ministerialdirektor Carl Krümmel , and the radio operator Oberfeldwebel Klaer died with him .

At the state ceremony in the Berlin House of Aviators , Field Marshal Milch gave the funeral speech in which he recognized Carl August von Gablenz as "the world's first expert in aviation". On behalf of Adolf Hitler , he was the fourth German to posthumously award him the Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords. On August 25, 1942, he was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof . A stylized crane , the Lufthansa coat of arms , adorns the gravestone.

Awards

In addition, the Gablenz Ridge in Neuschwabenland was named after Carl August von Gablenz.

Fonts

  • D-ANOY conquers the Pamir. An adventurous German research flight. Oldenburg OK 1937.
  • Under the title Pamirflug. Lufthansa D-ANOY 1937. reissued, Herbig, Munich, 2002
  • Carl August von Gablenz, Die Blindflugschule, guidelines for teachers and students, undated, published by Deutsche Lufthansa AG

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bergmann, AC (2001): CargoLifter: How it all began. Berlin, p. 59.
  2. ↑ Klaus D. Patzwall : The Knight's Cross Bearers of the War Merit Cross 1942–1945. Militaria-Archiv Patzwall, Hamburg 1984, pp. 20-23
  3. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (July 30, 1965, p. 7): Pioneer chain of the wind rose. A reunion of old pilots and designers.
  4. ↑ Directory of German names in the Antarctic ( memento of January 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 11, 2010
  5. ↑ Munich Airport ( Memento of the original dated November 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed November 15, 2012.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.munich-airport.de
  6. ↑ http://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/german/nachrichten/all/heute-fliegt-lufthansa-zu-19-zielen-in-asien.-vor-80-jahren-war-ein-flug--ber-den -pamir-unthinkable / s / 9056a435-88a6-4c49-94e6-23006c48580e
personal data
SURNAME Gablenz, Carl August von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gablenz, Carl August Heinrich Adolf Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and aviation pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH October 13, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Erfurt
DATE OF DEATH August 21, 1942
Place of death near Mühlberg on the Elbe