Horst Rippert

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Horst Rippert (born May 24, 1922 - April 19, 2013 in Wiesbaden ) was a German journalist and sports reporter for ZDF . In 2008 it hit the headlines when it became known that as a fighter pilot in World War II he was responsible for the previously mysterious disappearance of the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry .

Life

Horst Rippert was the older brother of the folklore singer Ivan Rebroff .

Rippert was trained as a fighter pilot in Germany from 1941. In France ( Avignon , Orange and Marseille ) he then flew a Messerschmitt Bf 109 for a year and a half .

In an interview with the FAZ in 2008, Rippert stated that his grandmother was Jewish, but that fact was never a problem in the military. He recorded a total of 28 kills, received the Knight's Cross and the German Cross . He was shot down twice himself, but was able to save himself both times. He ended the war as a lieutenant. The award of the German Cross and the Knight's Cross is as little verifiable in the specialist literature as the promotion to lieutenant.

According to his own information, on July 31, 1944, Rippert shot down the Lockheed P-38 in the Messerschmitt Bf 109 he had flown over the Mediterranean Sea - southeast of Marseille - which was flown by the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , whose best-known work The Little Prince is. As a member of Jagdgruppe 200, he started the flight from Marseille-Marignane airfield . This became known in 2008 after the diver and researcher Lino von Gartzen came across Rippert while researching an aircraft wreck found in the Mediterranean. Rippert deeply regretted the shooting down, as he emphasized in a report about the death of Saint-Exupéry: “If I had known who was on the plane, I would not have shot. Not on this man. "

After the war, Horst Rippert studied and became a journalist at NDR . In 1962 he went to ZDF , where he said he was the first employee. There he worked for a long time as a sports reporter and was active in eight Olympic Games and three soccer world championships.

In 1998 Horst Rippert wrote his memoirs - intended for his relatives and a select circle of friends - which were therefore not available in bookshops (without an international standard book number ).

Rippert died in Wiesbaden in April 2013.

literature

  • Claas Triebel , Lino von Gartzen: The Prince, the Pilot and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Herbig, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-7766-2569-1 . Report on research by Rippert into the probable shooting down of Saint-Exupéry. Contains interview with Rippert and a short biography.
  • Luc Vanrell, Jacques Pradel, foreword by Alain Decaux : Saint-Exupéry, l'ultime secret. Éditions du Rocher, Monaco 2008, ISBN 978-2-2680-6362-1 (French).
  • Georg Bönisch, Romain Leick: Let into death . In: Der Spiegel . No. 13 , 2008, p. 162-164 ( online ).
  • Hermann Laage, Norbert Rödel: Operation Noyade: The last flight of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in the Vercors. Rauch, Düsseldorf 2010, ISBN 978-3-7920-0152-3 .

Documentary film

  • Florian Huber: Duel in the clouds: The last flight of the little prince. 42 minutes, ZDF 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BBC Music: Ivan Rebroff (English)
  2. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt of April 23, 2008: Rebroff-Testament: Manager inherits everything, brother gets nothing
  3. ↑ a b c Interview with Horst Rippert at faz.net from March 17, 2008
  4. ↑ Klaus D. Patzwall , Veit Scherzer : The German Cross 1941-1945. History and owner. Volume II. Publishing house Klaus D. Patzwall. Norderstedt 2001. ISBN 3-931533-45-X .
  5. ↑ 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 .
  6. ↑ Prien u. a .: Messerschmitt Bf 109 in action with the III. and IV./Jagdgeschwader 27. Struve, 1995, ISBN 978-3923457304 .
  7. ↑ https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/starnberg/taucher-lino-von-gartzen-auf-dem-grund-aller-dinge-1.1158743
  8. ↑ Hamburger Morgenpost of June 2, 2008: "I could not recognize the pilot."
personal data
SURNAME Rippert, Horst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and sports reporter at ZDF
DATE OF BIRTH May 24, 1922
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 2013
Place of death Wiesbaden , Germany