Dietrich Averes
Dietrich "Derk" Averes (born January 4, 1894 in Bookholt (now the city of Nordhorn ), † September 21, 1982 in Nordhorn) was a German vice sergeant and fighter pilot in the First and Second World Wars . With ten confirmed aerial victories , he was one of the best-known German aviators in World War I. the contemporary German press praised him as a "flying ace".
Life
Averes was the second son of the carpenter Evert Averes (born May 20, 1866 in Hesepe ) and his wife Gese Bartels (born August 20, 1869 in Bakelde ). He was baptized on January 14th in Nordhorn. Averes was the oldest of nine children. His older brother Berend was born in 1892, followed by Swenne in 1895 and Janna in 1898.
On May 20, 1914, the Nordhorner Nachrichten read:
“Averes, who has his own apparatus, a biplane, is doing his pilot's test in the near future. After completing the necessary flights, (he) wants to show his flying skills here in Nordhorn and improve himself further in order to be able to participate successfully in the larger competitions afterwards. May he be lucky so that our county can also have a successful flyer. "
In August 1914, the pilot Bernhard Dirks certified by the company aircraft and flying school Westphalia ,
"... that Mr. Dietrich Averes from Nordhorn was trained as a pilot with me and already flew alone."
After the outbreak of World War I, Derk Averes joined the air force on May 15, 1915. After the "field pilot's examination" he was deployed as a pilot at the observer school in Großenhain, Saxony, and by two-seater reconnaissance aircraft on the German Eastern Front. In the spring of 1917 he completed retraining to become a fighter pilot at the combat single-seater school in Warsaw . Back at the front, after his promotion to NCO, he became a member of Jagdstaffel (Jasta) 81 on the Eastern Front, where he stayed until March 1918. He succeeded in his first shooting in August 1917 in Dünaburg / Latvia , where he shot down a tethered balloon whose observer was able to save himself by jumping. These events were also worth reporting to the local press; the Nordhorner Nachrichten reported on September 15, 1917:
"Derk Averes, son of the privateer Evert Averes, here himself, [...] brought down a tethered balloon near Riga ."
He was transferred to the Western Front in May 1918 and caused a stir after shooting down nine enemy aircraft within a few weeks, most of them in September 1918.
“Our Grafschafter fighter pilot, Vice Sergeant Derk Averes from Bookholt, has been able to increase the number of his aerial victories considerably in the last few weeks through a series of victorious battles. So he shot down a 200 APAD single-seater on his first front flight after his vacation ... Three days later, Averes again took down a SPAD single-seater, which he drilled down from 3,000 meters to 50 meters, from where he fell on fire. On August 2nd he managed to shoot down a large enemy aircraft of 300 hp , and on August 10th he defeated a SPAD again. "
After he had already traded with two-wheelers before the war, he founded the company Derk Averes & Co. in Nordhorn with his brothers Heinrich and Everhard after the war, which operated a gas station and car workshop and represented the companies DKW and Deutsche Industriewerke (D Wheel) took over. One of the customers was the racing driver Bernd Rosemeyer from Lingen (Ems) , who later died in an accident and who attracted attention as a teenager on the DKW he bought in Nordhorn. In 1926, the company's founder, Derk Averes, signed a contract with Opel, which has been in place to this day.
In 1928 he became a member of a glider club at the airfield in Klausheide and used his personal acquaintance with the Krupp family , the owners of Gut Klausheide , to which the airfield belonged, to expand the airfield. He raised funds for the construction of an aircraft hangar in business circles in Nordhorn.
Averes also served in the Air Force during World War II. There he performed his service first as a first lieutenant, then as a major in the control center and the staff of the IX. Air Corps .
reception
Averes recorded a total of ten aerial victories as a fighter pilot in World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class. In 1921 he was promoted to lieutenant d. R. (of the reserve), promoted to first lieutenant in 1940 and major in 1944.
Averes died on September 21, 1982 at the age of 88. The " Jäger-Blatt ", the official organ of the Association of Fighter Fliers e. V., dedicated a full-page obituary to the "Old Eagle". His successes are also discussed in the book Above the Lines , an English work about the pioneers of aerial combat.
literature
- Norman Leslie, Robert Franks, Greg Van Wyngarden: Fokker D VII Aces of World War 1 . Osprey Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1841767298 . s. 49 f.
- Sebastian Rosenboom: As a "flying ace" in East and West - Grafschafter Dietrich Averes in the First World War. In: Emsländische Geschichte, Vol. 19, Haselünne 2012, pp. 393–414 (Ed .: Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte eV), ( ISBN 978-3-9814041-3-5 ).
- Hubert Titz: The Grafschafter "flying ace" Dietrich Averes from Bookholt - a "hero" of the First World War . In: Eugen Kotte / Helmut Lensing (ed.): The Grafschaft Bentheim in the First World War. “Home Front” on the German-Dutch border , pp. 88–93, Verlag des Heimatverein der Grafschaft Bentheim e. V., Nordhorn 2018.
Web links
- Victory list and short profile
- Fighter pilot Ober-Ost in July 1917
- Family report, local family Nordhorn
- Short profile on www.theaerodrome.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nordhorn local family book
- ↑ Internet presence of the company Derk Averes & Co. GmbH
- ↑ 125 years of current affairs. Grafschafter Nachrichten GmbH & Co KG 11/1999 p. 86
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Averes, Dietrich |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Derk |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German fighter pilot and vice sergeant in the First and Second World Wars |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 4, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bookholt ( Nordhorn ) |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 21, 1982 |
| Place of death | Nordhorn |