Horst Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels (airship operator)

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Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels

Horst Julius Ludwig Otto Freiherr Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels (born June 14, 1888 in Hanau ; † September 3, 1962 in Berchtesgaden ) was a German naval officer and aeronaut . During the First World War he led various airships and was decorated with the order Pour le Mérite for an attack on London .

Life

After graduating from high school, Buttlar-Brandenfels joined the Imperial Navy on April 3, 1907 and completed his basic training on the training ship SMS Moltke . Then he was commanded for further training at the naval school, where he received his appointment as ensign at sea on April 21, 1908. Subsequently, he came to the liner SMS Elsass and the small cruiser SMS Königsberg . There Buttlar-Brandenfels was promoted to lieutenant on September 28, 1910 . As such, he served from June 14, 1911 to September 30, 1912 as a watch officer on the small cruiser SMS Kolberg and then as a FT officer on the large cruiser SMS Moltke . After his promotion to first lieutenant at sea , Buttlar-Brandenfels was transferred to the naval airship department.

First World War

During the war he commanded various naval airships one after another.
In November 1914 he became the first commandant L 6 . The airship was mainly used from the Fuhlsbüttel and Nordholz locations for reconnaissance trips over the North Sea. Buttlar also ordered two voyages to attack the British Isles; On April 15, 1915, he succeeded in returning the airship, which had been damaged by defensive fire, to its location despite considerable gas loss. On May 2, he gave the command of L 6 to the lieutenant captain Joachim Breithaupt.
Von Buttlar put the naval airship L 11 into service at the beginning of June 1915 . With this somewhat improved airship, stationed in Hage since the end of June , he took part in several attacks on England, most recently on January 31, 1916 in a squadron attack on Liverpool . At the beginning of February 1916, he handed over command of the ship to Corvette Captain Arnold Schütze. In May 1916 von Buttlar became the commandant of the first German super zeppelin L 30 , which was stationed first in Nordholz, then in Ahlhorn . This airship was also used for reconnaissance trips over the North Sea and attacks on England. At the beginning of 1917 von Buttlar gave the command of the ship to Oberleutnant zur See Friemel. Baron von Buttlar, who had meanwhile been promoted to lieutenant captain, became the commandant of the L 25 test airship , which was subordinate to the Reichs-Marine-Amt and was stationed in Potsdam-Wildpark. With this smaller former army airship, new inventions and armaments for airships were to be tested.
On September 16, 1917 von Buttlar in Tondern took over the naval airship L 54 from Kapitänleutnant Ludwig Bockholt, which had been in service the previous month . who should carry out a supply trip with an airship to German East Africa. With his new ship he carried out reconnaissance trips over the North Sea and attacks on England. On October 19, 1917, he was involved in a squadron attack by eleven military airships . None of the attacking German airships was lost in England despite the large number of British fighters used. The unfavorable wind conditions prevented five of the ships from returning to their bases. A strong north storm drove these ships south, forcing them to march back across the dangerous front lines in France. It was L 44 (KL Franz rod Bert) near Lunéville fired burning, L 49 (KL Gayer) at the emergency landing near Bourbonne-les-Bains captured by French forces, L 50 (KL Schwonder) tore the nacelle in a failed emergency landing near Dammartin off, got on again with four men on board and drifted across the Alps into the Mediterranean, L 55 (KL Hans Flemming ) was able to cross the western front at a world record height of 7600 m, but was irreparably damaged during the emergency landing in Tiefenort (Thuringia) and L 45 (KL Waldemar Kölle), started together with von Buttlar in Tondern, drifted to Sisteron / southern France and destroyed by its crew. After von Buttlar, after another squadron attack, brought his damaged airship back to the home port with great difficulty, despite gas entering the cabin, on April 9, 1918, he was awarded the Order Pour le Mérite as the first and only airship commander. On July 19, 1918, the L 54 was destroyed together with the L 60 by an aircraft bombing raid on its berth in Tondern. Seven Sopwith Camel single-seaters, each armored with a 50 kg bomb , took off from the aircraft carrier Furious near the coast.

In July 1920 von Buttlar took part in a test drive of the L 72 , with this most modern zeppelin the Germans were planning a demonstration trip to New York. The Allies did not allow this. The ship had to be handed over to France, where it was named Dixmude and had an accident in December 1923.

Von Buttlar's crews included a number of later known Zeppelin drivers such as Hans von Schiller and Max Pruss .

Interwar years

After the end of the war, Buttlar-Brandenfels was in command of the torpedo boat T 152 from March 19, 1919 to September 9, 1920 . He was then released from active military service and worked as an insurance broker as an independent commercial agent until 1925 . After the founding of Deutsche Lufthansa , Buttlar-Brandenfels acted as flight manager in Essen. Then he worked from 1928 to 1930 as an employee of Rohrbach Metallflugzeugbau GmbH in Berlin . When the company collapsed, Buttlar-Brandenfels joined Germany-Bauspar AG as department head. After only a year he left the company and became an employee of the Haus Neuerburg cigarette factory .

On October 1, 1934, Buttlar-Brandenfels was reactivated as a state protection officer with the rank of major and head of the branch office of the Kiel Aviation Office. On February 1, 1935, he became the commander of the Stettin airfield and, after a year, the commander of the Frankfurt am Main airport. Buttlar-Brandenfels was then transferred to the Reich Aviation Ministry in Berlin on May 10, 1937 and promoted to lieutenant colonel on August 1, 1937 . He was given the character of a colonel on August 27, 1939, the so-called Tannenberg Day.

Second World War

After the outbreak of World War II he was on October 4, 1939 staff officer at the air base -Kommandanten Prenzlau . From there he was assigned to the General Staff of Luftgau Command II on February 13, 1940. On February 1, 1941, Buttlar-Brandenfels was accepted as an active officer in the Air Force and shortly afterwards as an officer for the Reich Aviation Ministry and the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force . At the end of December of that year, he was assigned to the General Staff of Luftgau Command I. Due to illness, Buttlar-Brandenfels was in the Wiesbaden hospital from March 5 to August 24, 1942 . He was then assigned to Airport Area Command 3 of Luftgau Command VIII in Breslau .

On December 8, 1942, he was transferred to occupied Denmark , where he was deployed as the Aalborg site commander. He was replaced from this post on November 7, 1944 and transferred to the Führerreserve . On February 28, 1945, he retired from active service again.

family

He was married to Ilse Böhm, had three daughters with her and last lived in Wiesbaden.

Awards

Works

  • In the naval airship against England! Eckart. Berlin 1917.
  • Airship raids on England. ES Mittler & Sohn. Berlin 1918.
  • Zeppelins against England. from Hase & Koehler. Leipzig 1931. Cover in the Imperial War Museum

literature

  • Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume II: M-Z. Verlag Bernard & Graefe, Berlin 1935, pp. 427-428.
  • Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 3: P-Z. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2011, ISBN 3-7648-2586-3 , pp. 429-431.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels (GHdA) 1975 Volume 59, p. 52
  2. ↑ Major General Joachim Breithaupt (1883–1960)
  3. ↑ P. Meyer: Luftschiffe , p. 46
  4. ↑ P. Meyer: Luftschiffe , p. 52
  5. ↑ P. Meyer: Luftschiffe , p. 65
  6. ↑ P. Meyer: Luftschiffe , p. 63
  7. ↑ a b c Marinekabinett (ed.): Ranking list of the Imperial German Navy. ES Mittler & Sohn . Berlin 1918. p. 47.
personal data
SURNAME Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels, Horst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels, Horst Julius Ludwig Otto Freiherr (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German colonel in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanau
DATE OF DEATH 3rd September 1962
Place of death Berchtesgaden