Eduard Boëtius

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Eduard Boëtius (* 1910 on Föhr ; † November 7, 2002 in Schülp near Rendsburg ) was one of the surviving members of the crew of the Zeppelin LZ 129 "Hindenburg" when it crashed on May 6, 1937.

Life

Eduard Boëtius (fifth from left, 1937)

Boëtius worked as a sailor on motor and sailing ships from the early 1930s . During his navigation training in Hamburg he met a trainee from the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei , to which he applied and was hired in the spring of 1936.

He completed the last voyage of the "Hindenburg" as an elevator helmsman (elevator helmsman) and navigator in training. Before landing in Lakehurst , he took over the elevator . When he crashed, he jumped out of the driver's gondola late in order to escape the falling wreckage unharmed. When he had already got to safety, he noticed that there were still people in the burning passenger area, ran back and climbed into the promenade deck, from where he rescued several people. For this act he received the rescue medal and a certificate personally signed by Adolf Hitler .

After the accident, he continued to work for the shipping company on board the LZ 130 . He was drafted into the navy and, as a captain, survived the sinking of his ship, a converted whaler , by a Soviet submarine in Norwegian waters.

His son Henning Boëtius , born in 1939, is a writer and wrote a biographical novel about his father's life. His granddaughter is the marine biologist Antje Boetius .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eduard Boetius in Tondern ( Memento from January 13, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), zeppelin-museum.dk.
  2. ↑ Passengers ( Memento from July 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at hindenburg.net (English).
  3. ^ Friederike Freiburg: Once in New York and never back again , spiegel.de , May 3, 2007.
  4. ↑ Eduard Boetius, Lakehurst survivor and HINDENBURG crewmember dead at age 92 , spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/ (English).
  5. ↑ Own information in Planet Wissen on May 10, 2011 ( Memento from September 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Boëtius, Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German airship, was one of the last surviving members of the crew of the crashed airship "Hindenburg"
DATE OF BIRTH 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Foehr
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 2002
Place of death Schülp near Rendsburg