Heinrich Prince zu Sayn-Wittgenstein

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Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born August 14, 1916 in Copenhagen , Denmark ; † January 21, 1944 near Stendal ) was a German professional officer from the Sayn-Wittgenstein family . During the Second World War he was a highly decorated night fighter and fell on an enemy flight.

Family and youth

The parents were Gustav Alexander Prince zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (1880-1953), diplomat at the German Embassy in Copenhagen, and his wife Walburga, born Freiin von Friesen (1885-1970). He preferred Heinrich as a nickname in memory of the ancestor Count Heinrich III. from Sayn .

His older brother Ludwig (born May 4, 1915 in Copenhagen; † January 9, 1962 in Sayn) was later head of the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn family . His younger brother was Prince Alexander zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, uncle of the current head of the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn family, Prince Alexander Konrad zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn

The family moved to Switzerland in 1919 for work. From 1926 Heinrich attended a boarding school in Neubeuert (Upper Bavaria). Due to his poor general condition, he went to Davos, Switzerland , in 1927 . From 1932 he attended a high school in Freiburg im Breisgau , where he passed the Abitur.

military service

After completing the Reich Labor Service in the camp in Emmendingen , Wittgenstein took up the profession of officer . In April 1936 his military career began in the 17 Cavalry Regiment in Bamberg . Here he became a flag boy of the "Cannstatter Reiter".

In the summer of 1937 he signed up for the Air Force and was accepted into the Braunschweig Aviation School in October . After corresponding courses, he was promoted to lieutenant in June 1938 and received an officer’s license.

The types of aircraft he flown in the prewar period were Junkers Ju 88 and Heinkel He 111 .

During the western campaign he was involved in bombing the forts of Liege . Further missions in France and a subsequent participation in the Battle of Britain followed. Among other things, he distinguished himself through attacks on the two air bases Biggin Hill and Rochester, which were heavily defended by flak .

From June to November 1941 Wittgenstein was involved in the Russian campaign in the area of Army Group North . He was assigned to Kampfgeschwadern 1 and 51 and flew over one hundred and fifty bomber missions during this period. Since he increasingly disliked the bombing raids due to the inevitable losses of the Russian civilian population (as evidenced by letters to his mother) and he preferred to face a single enemy in combat, he was transferred to the night fighter pilots in January 1942.

After special training in night hunting, he scored his first kill a few months later on the night of May 8th to 9th, 1942. Due to his further successes Wittgenstein rose to squadron captain of the 9th squadron of the night fighter squadron 2 , which was then stationed in Holland and was equipped with converted Ju 88s.

By autumn 1942, he had achieved 22 total confirmed kills. For this he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on October 7, 1942 .

At the end of 1942 he was promoted as captain to commander of the IV. Group of Night Fighter Wing 5 . Their staff became the group staff of I. / NJG 100 in June 1943 , the staff of IV./NJG 5 was reorganized one month later.

Due to a stomach ailment, a two-month hospital stay followed in spring 1943, followed by a convalescent leave. After returning to active duty, he was shot down three Petlyakov Pe-8s on the Eastern Front on the night of July 20-21 . In East Prussia against incoming Russian bombers on 25/25. July 1943 seven kills. He then served as the commander of the II. Group of Nachtjagdgeschwader 3 in Schleswig and, after 59 victories in the air, on August 31, 1943, he was awarded the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . By the end of 1943 he was able to increase the number of kills to 64.

As a squad commodore in the rank of major , the then 27-year-old then led the night fighter squadron 2, which had its air base in Deelen in the Netherlands. From here he started intercepting missions and shot down a further 15 large Allied bombers between January 1 and 20, 1944.

Sayn-Wittgenstein was not particularly popular with some of his subordinates, as he basically made the same demands on himself as on his team. One example is Paul Zorner , who was briefly under the command of Sayn-Wittgenstein: After the fatal crash of a crew, Sayn-Wittgenstein ordered that the whereabouts of the crew be clarified. Zorner drove to the scene of the accident and saw that, due to the damage to the aircraft, nobody would have had a chance to leave the aircraft alive and ordered that the scene of the accident be removed. However, this was not enough for Sayn-Wittgenstein, he again ordered Zorner to clarify the whereabouts of the ship beyond any doubt, so that he was forced to search for remains of the crew in the squeezed wreck in a confined space.

Criticism also developed against him about the way in which Sayn-Wittgenstein got his killings:

" Its successes, however, as pilots knew how to report, were based on a very telling tactic: He would always stay on the ground during enemy raids until it was clear which night fighter areas were being flown through particularly intensively. Then he ruthlessly ordered the crews who were already hunting there back in order to start as their 'replacement'. Those who knew him weren't sure whether pathological ambition or excessive self-confidence was the reason for such behavior. "

Even Wolfgang Falck , transient as his superior, confirmed this tactic and:

" ... still regrets today that he could not be disciplined to account for it. "

Including the kills achieved on his last enemy flight, Wittgenstein had a total kills of 84 bombers.

resistance

In their memoirs, the sisters Tatiana von Metternich-Winneburg and Marie "Missie" Princess Wassiltschikow report that their close friend Wittgenstein was part of the resistance against National Socialism . At first he wanted to personally shoot "the Almighty" when the oak leaves were awarded to the Knight's Cross. “I am unmarried, I have no children and I am not indispensable. He receives me personally. Who of us will ever get so close to him? ”(Metternich).

A few days before his death he allegedly considered blowing himself up with Hitler if they shake hands (Wassilschikow).

death

German war cemetery Ysselsteyn

On the night of January 21, 1944, Wittgenstein managed to shoot down two more night bombers. Immediately after this last aerial victory, his aircraft, a Ju 88, was also hit at around 11 p.m., with the left wing catching fire and the machine losing altitude. Wittgenstein gave his radio operator Ostheimer and the rest of the crew the order to jump, which they did and survived.

Wittgenstein's body was found in a wooded area in the Lübars community near Stendal . According to his radio operator Ostheimer, the corpse with severe head injuries was found separately from the unopened parachute. After his death he was the 44th Wehrmacht soldier to be awarded the "Oak Leaves with Swords for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross". The burial took place on January 29, 1944 at the squadron cemetery in Deelen. As part of a general reburial campaign after the end of the war, his remains were transferred to the German military cemetery in Ysselsteyn (near Venray) in 1948 . Wittgenstein's grave is located in the park of the former Schönhausen Palace .

See also

literature

  • Mike Spick: Air Force Fighter Aces. The Jagdflieger and their Combat Tactics and Techniques. Greenhill Books, London 1996, ISBN 1-85367-255-6 .
  • Mike Spick: The fighter breed of the German Air Force 1939-1945. Use, tactics and technology. Bernard and Graefe, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-7637-5978-6 .
  • Wolfgang Borgmeyer: Prince Heinrich zu Sayn-Wittgenstein - The ace of the night hunters. In: Wittgenstein. Pages of the Wittgensteiner Heimatverein eV 73, 3, 2009, ZDB -ID 529725-4 , pp. 95-100, critical comments on this: ibid. 74, 4, 2010, pp. 132-137.
  • Claire Rose Knott: Princes of Darkness. The Lives of Luftwaffe Night Fighter Aces Heinrich Prinz Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein and Egmont Prinz Zur Lippe-Weissenfeld. Classic, Burgess Hill 2009, ISBN 978-1-903223-95-6 .
  • Werner P. Roell: Flowers for Prince Wittgenstein . v. Hase and Koehler, Mainz 1992, ISBN 3-7758-1279-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jerry Scutts: Osprey Aircraft of the Aces No. 20, German Night Fighter Aces of World War 2 , Osprey Publishing, 1998, p. 42.
  2. ↑ Barry C. Rosch: Luftwaffe Codes, Markings, & Units , Schiffer Military / Aviation History, 1995, p. 317.
  3. ^ Bergstrom, Christer (2007). Kursk — The Air Battle: July 1943. Hersham, Surrey: Classic Publications. ISBN 1-90322-388-1 , p. 111.
  4. ^ Gebhard Aders : History of the German night hunting 1917-1945. Motorbuchverlag Stuttgart 1977, p. 147.
  5. ^ Paul Zorner : Nights in the stream of bombers. Memories 1920–1950. Edited by Kurt Braatz . NeunundzwanzigSechs-Verlag, Moosburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-9807935-9-9 , pp. 153 ff.
  6. ^ Paul Zorner: Nights in the stream of bombers. Memories 1920–1950. Edited by Kurt Braatz . NeunundzwanzigSechs-Verlag, Moosburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-9807935-9-9 , p. 150 f.
  7. ↑ Wilhelm Johnen : Duel under the stars. Factual report by a German night fighter. 1941-1945. Flechsig Verlag, Würzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8035-0003-8 , p. 71.
personal data
SURNAME Sayn-Wittgenstein, Heinrich Prinz zu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German air force officer and fighter pilot
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 1944
Place of death at Stendal