Kurt Welter

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Kurt Welter (born February 25, 1916 in Cologne-Lindenthal ; † March 7, 1949 in Leck ) was a German fighter pilot and the most successful jet fighter pilot of the Second World War . 63 aerial victories in just 93 combat missions are on his account . Of these, he scored 56 kills in night missions and 25 with the first mass-produced jet fighter in the world, the Me-262 .

life and career

At the age of 18, Kurt Welter joined the Air Force on October 1, 1934 and received training as a pilot and, due to his flying talent, additional training as a flight instructor .

During the Second World War he was promoted to sergeant on August 1, 1940 and initially transferred to the 63rd Flieger-Training-Regiment. He then worked as a trainer at the flight instructor school at the Quedlinburg air base and from August 10, 1943 as a sergeant at the blind flight school 10 at the Altenburg air base ( Nobitz ) as a night flight instructor.

On September 2, 1943, Welter was transferred to a night fighter unit (5./JG 301), which was mainly equipped with Focke-Wulf Fw 190  A-5 and Fw 190 A-6 fighter aircraft ( Wilde-Sau night hunting process ). In his first night mission against Allied bomber units on September 22, 1943, he shot down two four-engine bombers . More kills followed and by the beginning of April 1944 he had already achieved 17 victories in only 15 missions. For this he received the German Cross in Gold on May 10th .

After his transfer to 5./JG 300 on July 7, 1944 and to 10./JG 300 on September 4, 1944, Welter continued his success and shot four four-engine British Avro Lancaster bombers on the night of August 29, 1944 alone from. On October 18, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for a total of 33 aerial victories in 40 missions, including one by ramming .

In January 1945 his unit received jet aircraft of the Messerschmitt Me 262 type , with which he continued his successes in shooting. On March 11, 1945, after 48 victories in the air , Oberleutnant Welter was awarded the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

Welter died after the war in an accident when his car was buried under tree trunks at a level crossing in Leck in Schleswig-Holstein , which - insufficiently secured - had fallen from a passing freight train.

Awards

See also

literature

  • Edward H. Sims: Fighter Pilot. The great opponents of yore. 1939-1945. Air force, RAF and USAAF in a critical comparison. Motorbuch, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-87943-115-9 .
  • Peter Hinchliffe: Air War by Night 1939–1945. Motorbuch, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-613-01861-6 .
  • Hugh Morgan, John Weal: German Jet Aces of World War 2. Orsprey, 1998, ISBN 1-85532-634-5 .
  • Mike Sprick: Luftwaffe Fighter Aces: The Jagdflieger and their combat tactics and techniques. Ivy Books, 1996, ISBN 0-8041-1696-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 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 , p. 777.
personal data
SURNAME Welter, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German fighter pilot
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne-Lindenthal
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 1949
Place of death Leck (North Friesland)