Erich Stahl

Erich Stahl (born March 29, 1893 in Munich , † January 15, 1954 in Göppingen ) was a German major general in the Air Force in World War II .

Life

Steel joined on 22 August 1914 in the imperial army and served in World War I in the infantry . He later switched to the air force , where he ended the war as a lieutenant . He then went to the police and was promoted to lieutenant on December 22, 1920 . After he achieved the rank of captain in the police on January 1, 1922 , he switched to the German Aviation Research Institute on April 1, 1933 , and on July 1, 1934 as head of the pilot test center. On July 1, 1935, he became a soldier again and joined the newly founded Air Force as a major .

He initially took over the position of commander of the air base command in Munich-Oberwiesenfeld . After a stopover at the Fliegergruppe Neubrandenburg, he took over on March 1, 1937, the II. Group of Kampfgeschwader 355 as group commander . In this position, he was on April 1, 1937 Lieutenant Colonel and on May 1, 1939 Colonel promoted. Subsequently, on August 1, 1939, he took over the command of the squadron, which has since been renamed Kampfgeschwader 53 , as a squadron commodore . Stahl's squadron, which was equipped with the twin-engine Heinkel He 111 bomber , took part in the raid on Poland with Group I , while the other groups were subordinate to Air Fleet 3 in the west. Stahl also led the squadron in the western campaign and in the Battle of Britain before he was relieved on December 21, 1940 and transferred to the Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM). On April 1, 1941, he took over as commander of the Große Fighter Flying School 3 in Warsaw , before returning to the RLM on October 1, 1942. He changed positions within the RLM several times and was promoted to major general on January 1, 1943 and transferred to the Führer Reserve on September 2, 1944 . On April 18, 1945, he was taken prisoner by the Allies and was released in May 1945.

Web links

• Henry L. deZeng IV, Douglas G. Stankey: Air Force Officer Career Summaries, Section S – Z. (PDF) 2017, pp. 341–342 , accessed on December 23, 2017 (English).