Franz von Werra

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Franz Xaver Baron von Werra (born July 13, 1914 in Leuk , Switzerland ; † October 25, 1941 north of Vlissingen , Netherlands ) was a German air force officer and fighter pilot in World War II .

Life

Franz von Werra was born the seventh of eight children to a Swiss aristocratic family in the canton of Valais . His father was the notary Leo Baron von Werra and his mother was Henriette, née von Wolff. Due to financial difficulties, Franz (at the age of 15 months) and his sister Emma-Charlotte had to be given up for adoption. They came to Germany in the childless family of the Prussian major Oswald Carl and his (formerly Jewish, later converted to Catholic ) wife Louisa Baroness von Haber. There he experienced his childhood first in the Villa Donaueck (today house "Maria Trost") in Beuron . In 1925 the family moved to Cologne . But in 1932 this family was also financially ruined; the adoptive parents separated. Franz von Werra tried to get to America as a stowaway on the cargo ship Niederwald via Hamburg , but was discovered. When he learned that he had been adopted as a toddler, he reverted to his maiden name at the age of 18. He left high school and, after doing various odd jobs, attended the SA sports school in Hamm in the summer of 1933 . In 1934 he was appointed SA leader and needed an Aryan certificate . Through his research (the pastor of Sankt Stephan in Leuk issued him with written evidence of ancestry) Franz von Werra learned details of his biological family.

Military career

With the start of the establishment of the Wehrmacht , he enlisted as an officer candidate for the Air Force and was trained in the flying school near Berlin. In 1936 he was promoted to lieutenant . At the beginning of the war he was already in action with a squadron (I. Group / JG 1 ) Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters in Poland. In the following French campaign in the II. Squadron of Jagdgeschwader 3 , he achieved his first aerial victories by shooting down two French bombers with his Bf 109. For this he received the Iron Cross 2nd class a few days later. After the Iron Cross II. And I. Class, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on December 14, 1940 . The war reports became aware of him. After the French campaign, he was appointed to the staff of Group II / JG 53 and promoted to first lieutenant on August 1, 1940 , so he became adjutant of Group II of Jagdgeschwader 53 . On September 5, 1940, Franz von Werra was shot down during a mission in the Battle of Britain near Winchet Hill south of London and was taken prisoner by the British after the emergency landing .

Pictures of the shot down Bf 109 E-4 show 13 confirmed aerial victories. None of them are from the Eastern Front.

Escape

Franz von Werra was brought to London as a prisoner of war, initially interrogated there and a few weeks later transferred to the Grizedale Hall prisoner of war camp in the Lake District . There he made his first attempt to escape on October 7th. He was able to hide from his pursuers on foot for seven days until he was caught. He was then transferred to Swanwick camp in Derbyshire , from where he made a second attempt to escape on December 20, 1940. Disguised as a Dutch pilot, he made it into the cockpit of a waiting fighter plane at a nearby Royal Air Force airfield in Hucknall - but was caught again.

On January 10, 1941, the British transferred their prisoners to Canada with the Duchess of York . During a rail transport in Canada, von Werra made his third, this time successful, escape attempt near the town of Smiths Falls . He was able to save himself via the frozen St. Lawrence River to the then still neutral United States and returned to Germany via South America, Africa, Spain and Italy, which he reached in April 1941. On the occasion of the media hype about his person in America, he was called "Baron Franz von Werra".

From June he was active again as a fighter pilot, this time in the Russian campaign . After marrying his girlfriend Elfi Traut on August 22, 1941, he was promoted to captain. In the autumn of 1941 he was in command of the I. Group of Jagdgeschwader 53 (JG 53 "Pik As") with the coastal defense in Holland to fight British bombers. On October 25, the engine of his aircraft failed during a reconnaissance flight near Katwijk over the North Sea. His machine fell into the water and immediately sank. Unlike his sister Emma, ​​he did not get to know his biological family, especially his father Leo Baron von Werra, who was still alive at the time.

literature

  • Wilfried Meichtry: Between the Ancien Regime and the Modern. The von Werra noble family from Valais. Dissertation University of Bern, Visp 2001.
  • Wilfried Meichtry: You and I - forever one. The story of the Werra siblings. Revised new edition, Ammann, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-250-30019-5 .
  • Kendal Burt , James Leasor : The One That Got Away . Collins, London and Glasgow / Random House, New York 1956 and numerous other editions.
    • German edition: One came through. The escape report of the pilot lieutenant Franz von Werra . Verlag der Sternbücher, Hamburg 1957 and other editions (the edition by Wilhelm Heyne Verlag from 1965 with the title addition This is not a novel, but a factual report based on documents that were forbidden to be published by both the OKW and the English censorship ).
  • Fritz Wentzel: Le prisonnier récalcitrant (single or return?). Editions Julliard, Paris, France, 1956.

Movies

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939-1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 781.
personal data
SURNAME Werra, Franz von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Werra, Franz Xaver von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German fighter pilot and fugitive prisoner of war
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Leuk , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 1941
Place of death Vlissingen , Netherlands