Iris Wittig

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Iris Wittig (later Iris Köhler ; born April 9, 1928 in Lengefeld , Erzgebirge, † September 30, 1978 in Rothenburg / OL ) was a German military pilot . She was the first and probably only female military pilot in the GDR and a member of the People's Chamber .

Life

Wittig was the daughter of a construction worker who had been a member of the KPD since 1922 and was incarcerated in the Brandenburg-Görden prison from 1935 to 1945 . Her mother, also a member of the KPD, was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp as a political prisoner in 1944 .

At the age of 17 she became a member of the KPD in December 1945, in 1946 of the SED and the FDJ . She initially worked as a weaver, completed a tractor training course in 1949 and worked in the countryside. In 1950 she became a member of the People's Chamber with the mandate of the FDJ . In 1952 she followed the call of the FDJ and volunteered for the CIP air . There she completed her flight training. In 1953 she was one of the first pilots to fly in a MiG-15UTI together with a Soviet instructor . The MiG-15 was the GDR's first jet aircraft and was delivered by the USSR to the Barracked People's Police from April 1953. In early 1954 Iris Wittig became a pilot in JG-1 in Cottbus . Shortly afterwards, on February 24, 1954, she was seriously injured in the crash of her Jak-18 plane near Niesky, which was caused by her own fault , and was given a temporary flight ban.

At the 49th session of the People's Chamber on August 4, 1954, the resignation of her mandate was announced. After her recovery in 1956, when powered aircraft were again officially allowed to be flown in the GDR, she was deployed as a base and head of powered flight training at the GST airfield in Neuhausen , where Z-126s were used for training . She later became a flight instructor at FAG-15 in Rothenburg. As a lieutenant colonel in the reserve, she left the NVA. Her son later completed his training as an NVA pilot at the Air Force / Air Defense Officer College Franz Mehring , where she was once a teacher.

literature

  • Army for Peace and Socialism - History of the National People's Army of the GDR , Military Publishing House of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin, 2nd edition, 1987, ISBN 3-327-00459-5 , p. 125

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Kleemann: Iris Wittig / Köhler, only female fighter pilot in the NVA. In: Fliegergeschichten. From takeoff to landing. MediaScript, Strausberg 2013. ISBN 978-3-9814822-3-2 . Pp. 30/31
personal data
SURNAME Wittig, Iris
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Koehler, Iris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military pilot
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Lengefeld , Ore Mountains
DATE OF DEATH September 30, 1978
Place of death Rothenburg / Upper Lusatia