Günter Luther

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Günter Luther, 1976

Günter Luther (born March 17, 1922 in Bestwig ; † May 31, 1997 in Kiel ) was a German naval officer , most recently an admiral in the German Navy .

Life

Günter Luther was the son of a teacher who came from a family of craftsmen. In 1947 he married his wife Christel, who died in 1995. He himself died on May 31, 1997 while returning from an alumni reunion at the wheel of his car of a heart condition.

Second World War

As a 17-year-old high school graduate, Luther entered the Navy on December 1, 1939 as a candidate for sea officer . He completed his nautical training on the sailing training ship Gorch Fock and the liner Schleswig-Holstein . This included a six-month front -line deployment in Norwegian waters on the M 1 minesweeper .

Luther later applied as a combat observer . For this training he had to swap the naval uniform with that of the Air Force . Luther was promoted to lieutenant on April 1, 1942 and served in the coastal aviation squadrons 1./906 and 1./706. He flew around 160 missions over the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean . In May 1944 he was shot down with his machine at sea.

The first lieutenant then voluntarily switched to the paratroopers . As a company commander , he took part in the 9th Paratrooper Regiment in the Ardennes offensive , the battles in the Ruhr basin and the battles in the Hürtgenwald . At the end of the Second World War , he was taken prisoner by the US on April 28, 1945 , from which he was released in November 1945.

post war period

Luther earned his living as a construction worker after the war. This was followed by a degree in English , which enabled him to work as an interpreter and personnel officer for the American armed forces . In 1952 he switched to the Agfa camera works as a clerk and export group leader before joining the German armed forces .

Bundeswehr and NATO

On March 1, 1956, Luther joined the newly founded German Navy as a lieutenant captain , after initially considering serving in the air force . This was followed by training as a jet pilot in Great Britain on the Sea Hawk aircraft , which was followed by various activities in the field of naval aviation . In September 1958 he became the squadron captain of the 1st multi-purpose squadron of the naval aviation group 1. In 1960 he was transferred to the fleet command and was there responsible for the operational planning of the naval aviation. In 1962 he became the commander of the flying group of Naval Aviation Squadron 1 as corvette captain . As a frigate captain , he became commodore of this squadron in 1965 and led it, later as a sea ​​captain , until 1968.

He was then transferred to the naval command staff in the Federal Ministry of Defense as head of the Naval Aviation Central Unit. He successfully campaigned for the conversion of naval aviators to take place directly from the starfighter to the tornado , rather than first introducing the phantom as in the air force . He himself trained as a Starfighter pilot and flew this type regularly.

Vice-Admiral Luther, with an order sash, accompanies the Spanish King Juan Carlos I on a visit to German naval units in Bremerhaven in 1977

When he was promoted to flotilla admiral on October 1, 1970, at the age of 48, he took over command of the naval aviation division in Kiel-Holtenau as the youngest admiral in the German Navy . There he commanded around 7,500 men and over 200 aircraft.

On April 1, 1972, he became Commander of the Naval Forces of the North Sea (BSN) and, in a double function as NATO Commander in Chief (COMGERNORSEA), he was in command of the operations of the Alliance forces in the German part of the North Sea and in the Skagerrak .

In October 1972 he took up the post of Rear Admiral for two and a half years at the head of the Naval Office in Wilhelmshaven . On April 1, 1975, he was appointed inspector of the Navy with the rank of Vice Admiral .

On April 1, 1980, Günter Luther took over the post of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in Europe (DSACEUR) at the NATO headquarters SHAPE with the rank of admiral . On March 31, 1982, Admiral Günter Luther retired and moved to Kiel.

Awards

Publications

Co-author of

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Benzino : Obituary . In: MOV MOH DMI News . No. 9-1997 , pp. 63 f .
predecessor Office successor
Günter Kuhnke Head of the Naval Office
1972–1975 		Otto Ites
personal data
SURNAME Luther, Günter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently admiral of the German Navy
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Bestwig
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1997
Place of death Kiel