Manfred Czernin

Manfred Czernin (born January 18, 1913 in Berlin ; † October 6, 1962 in London ; born as Count Manfred Maria Edmund Ralph Beckett Czernin von und zu Chudenitz ; in Great Britain as Count Manfred Beckett Czernin, alias Manfred Beckett ) was a British pilot of Royal Air Force of Austro-Hungarian origin and SOE officer for special missions during World War II in Italy and Austria .

Life

Manfred Czernin was the fourth son of the Austro-Hungarian diplomat Otto Czernin and the Lady Lucy Catherine Beckett, a daughter of the 2nd Baron Grimthorpe. After his parents divorced, he grew up differently from his older siblings with his mother in Italy and in the boarding school of the Oundle School in England . In 1922 he became a British citizen. After graduating from school, he traveled to Rhodesia to work on a tobacco plantation. In 1935 he made flight training and qualified as a pilot in the RAF. In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of his stepfather, who was also an RAF pilot.

On November 4, 1939, he married Maud Sarah Hamilton in London, from whom he divorced in 1947.

In May 1940 he was used as a hurricane pilot in France. In the Battle of Britain , the native Austrian took part as a pilot in the 17th Squadron of the RAF. On August 17, 1940, he succeeded in shooting down three Luftwaffe machines , after which he was appointed Squadron Leader. He scored a total of 15 kills during this aerial battle. On November 17, 1940, he was shot down in his hurricane by the German fighter pilot Adolf Galland . He cured the injuries sustained by May 1941. From February 1942 to April 1943 he was stationed in India.

On his return to Great Britain in the late summer of 1943 , he was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) because of his language skills , and he received eight months of special training. The British secret service examined his past life and his contacts with relatives in the German Reich . In June 1944 he received his first special assignment behind the front lines in Austria. He then headed the Austrian section of the SOE in 1944/45.

On March 21, 1945 he was parachuted in northern Italy, which was occupied by the Wehrmacht , in order to coordinate the cooperation of various partisan units with the Anglo-American troops. As a result, he was instrumental in the liberation of Bergamo .

After his discharge from military service in October 1945, Czernin had some difficulties finding his way in civilian life until he found a job as a sales manager at Fiat in England.

literature

• Norman LR Franks: Double Mission. RAF fighter Ace and SOE Agent, Manfred Czernin, DSO, MC, DFC. Kimber, London 1976, ISBN 0-7183-0254-0 .
• Patrick Martin-Smith: Resistance from Heaven. British secret service SOE deployed in Austria in 1944. Published by Peter Pirker. Czernin, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7076-0182-X , p. 36ff.
• Peter Pirker : Nice times, hard times. Research on the resistance against National Socialism as part of the British SOE missions in Friuli / Carinthia / East Tyrol 1944. In: Zwischenwelt. Journal of the Culture of Exile and Resistance. 20, 4, 2004, ISSN  1606-4321 , pp. 12-19.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} S / Ldr. Count Manfred Maria Edmund Ralph Beckett Czernin von und zu Chudenitz on thepeerage.com , accessed September 13, 2016.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Manfred Czernin's document collection from the ROYAL AIR FORCE (Eric Campion Collection). ( Memento of October 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Auction description September 2003, Dix Noonan Webb. Retrieved November 8, 2010.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Peter Pirker (ed.), Patrick Martin-Smith: Resistance from Heaven. Deployments in Austria by the British secret service SOE 1944. Czernin, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7076-0182-X , p. 231.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Pirker: Resistance and persecution in the Upper Drautal. Lecture at kuland, Berg / Drautal, held on February 7, 2004. Accessed November 8, 2010.
5. ↑ Battle of Britain - Sunday August 25th - Thursday August 29th 1940 at www.battleofbritain1940.net