Hans Kirschstein
Hans Kirschstein (born August 5, 1896 in Koblenz , † July 17, 1918 due to a crash near Fismes , France ) was an officer in the air force and scored 27 confirmed kills in the First World War .
Life and military service
Kirschstein was born in 1896 as the son of the Prussian administrative lawyer Paul Kirschstein . After attending school in Gummersbach , he attended the secondary school in Berlin-Lichterfelde from autumn 1907 to 1914 .
On August 12, 1914, he joined the Pioneer Battalion No. 3, von Rauch, in Spandau . This led him to bridge construction work in Kastell and Bieberich and in May 1915 to Poland . In autumn 1915 he was assigned to the officers' course in Spandau. From November 1915 to April 1916 he participated in Galicia on the Strypa mainly in the construction of shelters. He then fell ill with malaria and was successfully treated in the hospitals in Bousiers and Dresden . In August 1916 he advanced with his pioneers to Flanders and in December to Galicia. In April 1917 he went to the Western Front in Alsace-Lorraine and Arras. From 1916 he tried to get into the air, in 1917 he reached his destination and came first briefly to Strasbourg , then to Braunschweig . He completed his first flights in Bork near Potsdam at Hans Grade's flying school. In August 1917 he was released to the front and came to Aviation Detachment 19. There he was awarded the Iron Cross I. In September 1917 he was in the hospital in Ghent for 3 weeks due to a crash . During this time he took a flight to England and bombed Dover without the permission of the division chief. In low-level flights over Ypres , he single- handedly attacked enemy troops in the trenches. After successful dogfights, he received the field pilot's badge. In December 1917 Kirschstein was transferred to Fliegerabteilung 256 (artillery) and shortly afterwards to Fliegerabteilung 13 and on March 13, 1918 to the 1st Fighter Squadron "von Richthofen", Fighter Squadron 6. On June 24, 1918 he was awarded the Pour le Mérite .
death
On July 17, 1918, his plane crashed while flying overland for unknown reasons. The aircraft, a Hannover CL III (two-seater), was piloted by a new squadron comrade, Lieutenant Johannes Markgraf. Both died in the crash. Kirschstein was buried in the German military cemetery Laon-Bousson in the municipality of Laon in the Aisne department .
Awards
- Prussian military pilot badge
- Iron Cross (1917) 2nd and 1st class
- Pour le Mérite
Posthumous honors
The Junkers Ju 52 airliner , better known as Tante Ju , with the serial number 7220, from the Junkers branch in Bernburg, was put into service by Lufthansa in 1941 as D-AZAW "Hans Kirschstein". After just a week, it went to the Spanish airline Iberia . From 1942 she flew for the Spanish Air Force. For a while she was used on connecting flights between Berlin and the locations of the Spanish volunteer group Blue Division . In 1963 the machine was decommissioned by the Spanish Air Force and handed over to Germany in 1965. Today it is exhibited in the aerospace exhibition of the German Museum of Technology in Berlin .
literature
- Jürgen Brinkmann: The knights of the order Pour le merite 1914-1918. Th.Schäfer Druckerei GmbH Hanover, Bückeburg 1982
- Walter Zuerl: Pour le merite-Flieger. Steinebach-Wörthsee, Luftfahrtverlag Axel Zuerl 1987, ISBN 3-934596-15-0 .
See also
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kirschstein, Hans |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German air force officer in the First World War |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 5th August 1896 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Koblenz |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 17, 1918 |
| Place of death | near Fismes , France |