Loerrach airfield

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The Lörrach airfield (officially: Lörrach airfield in Turmringen ) was an airfield in Tumringen near Lörrach . It existed from November 1920 to July 1921 and served for passenger and mail flights.

history

Monument in the Loerracher Grüttpark
Inscription plaque

The plans for an airfield in the then still independent village of Tumringen were supported by the Lord Mayor of Lörrach, Erwin Gugelmeier . In a letter dated July 8, 1919 to the Deutsche Luftreederei Berlin, he announced that the necessary measures for the “establishment of a flight station” had been decided by the local council. He campaigned for the Grütt airfield, which was owned by Tumringen, to be leased by the city for 25 years and 3,000 marks .

The first unofficial test flight took place on 10 July 1920, a biplane of the type DFW CV instead, brought for Loerrach and Tumringen Post. The 11 hectare airfield was officially opened on November 14, 1920 . In addition, there was a post flight from Frankfurt am Main to Lörrach on that day with a stopover in Karlsruhe . The DFW CV with the aircraft registration D-87, which took off from Karlsruhe at 8.25 a.m., reached Lörrach at around 10.50 a.m. and flew back to Karlsruhe at around 11.45 a.m. after exchanging mail. The route was operated by the Badische Luftverkehrs-GmbH (BALUG) founded in 1919 and should be established permanently. The press described this event as a milestone in the history of aviation. The technical director of the airfield and one of the leaders of the BALUG was the former fighter pilot and later Major General Hermann Frommherz ; the former fighter pilot Ernst von Althaus was a board member of BALUG.

Due to heavy fog in the autumn and winter months, however, the airfield turned out to be unusable under such circumstances. In November 1920, the city of Lörrach decided to build an aircraft hangar in Grütt. The costs for this were put at around 30,000 marks. The wooden hangar that was built was used both for stationing and for maintenance and repair of the aircraft. A first air show was held on November 28, 1920 to finance the hangar .

In addition to the mail flights, the BALUG also advertised with passenger flights over the Black Forest and the Rhine Valley. The mail flights had to be given up again on January 3, 1921 due to insufficient use and the prohibition by the Interallied Aviation Monitoring Commission (ILÜK) , so that only the passenger flight with Frommherz and Althaus as pilots was continued.

In July, the Triple Entente military alliance decided that the airfield and the planes should be destroyed due to the Treaty of Versailles . On July 8th, the instructions were followed and the planes were demolished. The airfield remained deserted until 1924.

On January 7, 1925, there was a plane crash on the Lörrach airfield. The pilot Emil Schäpe (1890–1925) started a photo flight with his mechanic that day and got into trouble because of strong winds. When attempting an emergency landing, he struck a tree with his D 477 and hit vertically around 1000 meters east of Tumringen. One day later, Schäpe died of his injuries in the Loerrach hospital. The mechanic survived this crash injured.

On March 24, 1954, the last flight day was held on the site of the former airfield. Around 3000 spectators came to the event at that time. In the meantime, the site has been completely removed or built over. Since October 10, 1988, a small memorial with a three-bladed propeller on the grounds of the Grüttpark has been a reminder of the airfield. The propeller was donated by then Defense Minister Manfred Wörner . The memorial stone is located ( location ) on the northwestern edge near the entrance to Grütt stadium . Also to commemorate the pioneering achievements of the Lörrach airfield, Lufthansa named a Boeing 737-500 with the registration D-ABII on May 8, 1991 "Lörrach".

literature

  • Emilie Brunner: The Lörrach airfield . in: Unser Lörrach 1979 , Lörrach, 1979, pp. 152–154.
  • Friedrich Schärer: The Lörrach airfield in Tumringen , Kropf & Herz, Lörrach 1988.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Letter from the mayor's office in Lörrach, TJ No. 2327
  2. ^ Schärer: The Lörrach airfield in Turmringen , page 22
  3. ↑ Mayor's Office Tgb. No. 2844
  4. ↑ Schärer: The Lörrach Airfield in Turmringen , page 25
  5. ↑ Schärer: The Lörrach airfield in Turmringen , page 28
  6. ↑ Schärer: The Lörrach airfield in Turmringen , page 29
  7. ↑ Schärer: The Lörrach airfield in Turmringen , page 61

Coordinates: 47 ° 37 ′ 29 ″  N , 7 ° 39 ′ 20 ″  E