Karl Schwabe (pilot)

Karl Schwabe during his first flight to Africa

Karl Paul Christian Wilhelm Schwabe (born January 14, 1897 in Schweinfurt ; † August 30, 1937 in the Baltic Sea northwest of Stralsund ) was a German sports pilot.

The four outstanding events of his short pilot career were:

• 1933: Hindenburg Cup , for Africa flight, 30,000 km, with a Klemm KL 32
• 1934: Cairo oasis flight , 2nd prize, with a Klemm KL 32 with a 150 HP Siemens motor
• 1935: Long-distance flight Munich – Cape Town 15,000 km, with a Klemm KL 32
• 1937: Start of the oasis flight , with a KL 32 with Sh 14 (retired after rollover due to tire damage).

Life

Karl Schwabe was a master furrier with a fur shop and workshop in Garmisch-Partenkirchen .

In the first years after the First World War (1914–1918), Schwabe dedicated himself to motor racing as a “ gentleman driver ”. He had some successes and received the gold sports badge from the Bavarian Automobile Club. When the speed requirements for the races were raised more and more, he could no longer afford the cars he needed and limited himself to official activities in races. As, as he put it, “the only sport that was still up to date”, he came to sport flying, which was still more affordable at the time and was still in its infancy, in which he was additionally supported by an aircraft company. This was no coincidence, his father, also a furrier, had been involved in aviation in the Rhön around 1919 .

Karl Schwabe began his flight training in July 1932 at the civil aviation school in Würzburg . His flight instructor was the Pour-le-Mérite flyer and head of the Robert Ritter von Greim flight school , who also taught Elly Beinhorn to fly in 1929 . Since Schwabe was a poor student pilot, he only received the pilot's certificate “A II” after the double training period at the end of 1932, which authorized him to drive single-engine, one to three-seater aircraft up to a take-off weight of 1000 kg. As early as February 1933 he achieved his first major flight performance with a flight from Munich to Dar es Salaam in the former German East Africa with a Klemm L 26 a II with 61 kW (82 HP) with a Siemens Halske Sh 13a engine. He was enthusiastically received in the former German colonies.

In December 1933, he and his companion Michl Schmitt flew to Cairo in a Klemm L 32 a XIV , where in 1934 he was the only German out of 36 participants to win second prize in the oasis flight competition . On the flight to Cairo they were already in great danger due to the bad weather. Actually 61 participants were registered, the rest had not shown due to the weather conditions. As expected, first place went to the superior, because it was the only twin-engine machine of the race, the English De Havilland "Dragon" with the pilot McPherson. The initially widespread news that Schwabe had achieved second place even though he had rushed to the aid of a flight comrade was based on a false report from the race management. In Musina , Limpopo Province , South Africa, he was forced to make an emergency landing due to hurricane-like storms.

After the race in Cairo, Schwabe, now without his flight attendant Michl Schmitt, visited the parents of Rudolf Hess , Hitler's deputy , in Alexandria , together with the fighter pilot and President of the German Aviation Association Bruno Loerzer . From there he flew, with various stopovers, to Cape Town , where he arrived in April 1933. He returned from here to Germany by train, because the desert sand had sanded his engine so that the oil that escaped during the flight quickly made the windshield opaque. On May 10, 1933, while returning from his flight to Africa, Schwabe was received for an audience by the Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini .

In 1933, Schwabe received the “ Hindenburg Cup ” endowed with 10,000 marks for his great aeronautical achievements totaling 26,000 kilometers . He received the following congratulations from Bruno Loerzer: “The Hindenburg Pokal jury awarded you the prize for 1933 associated with the name of our great field marshal for your special aviation achievements in 1933, which meant the most valuable promotion of the reputation of German aviation. I warmly congratulate you in the certainty that this recognition is an incentive for the whole of German aviation to achieve further great achievements ”.

In January 1935 Schwabe started his third flight to Africa, this time as a representative of the German Aviation Association and as an advertisement for German aviation. The flight went, under many adversities, to Cape Town again. On the flight home, he was approached in Tripoli by the President of the Tripolitan Aeroclub whether he would like to take part in the Sahara flight competition "L'avio raduno sahariano", which is taking place in a few days' time. He spontaneously agreed to participate in his most strenuous flight adventure to date. With the prescribed two flight attendants who were quickly found, the German consul in Egypt and a former Italian aircraft mechanic, he prepared for the surprising competition. The flight distance was spontaneously shortened during the competition, as the Gibli is raging in a sub-area , a sandstorm on a scale that actually made flying impossible. Schwabe was not notified of this by mistake. Completely unexpectedly, he and his passengers found themselves in a life-threatening situation. In inhuman heat, he fought his way through the desert storm. Since they were not prepared for their arrival at the intermediate stations, they received no drinks or other help and were, when they were dehydrated by the accompanying murderous heat, on the verge of dying of thirst. He did not achieve a good ranking, the aircraft taking part in the competition were already far superior to Klemm in terms of performance, and the same, rapid technical development had begun as in racing.

In 1937, the year of his fatal crash, Schwabe took part in the oasis flight again with four other German pilots, including the popular Elly Beinhorn . The oasis flight in 1937 was the last of a total of three flight competitions organized internationally by the Egyptian Aeroclub. It took place from February 22nd to 26th, 1937. Again and again there were starting difficulties due to poor and soft slopes and engine power that was not fully available. Karl Schwabe damaged his undercarriage when taking off from Dhakla and knew that he could overturn on the next landing. He decided to land with his Klemm at the next landing point further outside the airfield in order not to endanger the other participants. He actually overturned, but was uninjured and was eliminated from the competition.

At the end of the 1930s, Karl Schwabe campaigned for the establishment of an airport in Garmisch or Partenkirchen , albeit unsuccessfully . Only in the 1950s was there a brief airfield.

He could not achieve his goal of “buzzing around the globe once more”. On August 30, 1937, Karl Schwabe fell into the Baltic Sea north-west of Stralsund during an exercise as an officer of the Air Force on leave . The cause of the crash remained unexplained.

Philipp Manes , who was murdered by the National Socialists and , like Schwabe, a member of the fur industry, wrote in 1941: “This young, promising master furrier, who had set up a charming, state-of-the-art shop in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, wanted to go out into the wide world during the quiet time chose the plane for this. He earned a wealth of honor and recognition. Unfortunately, he died too early and did not return home from a flight over the Baltic Sea that he had to make as a soldier ”.

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  "What the machine had to drag on the Africa flight"

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  "The Juba airfield during the rainy season ..."

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  "... and what happens to you"

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  "After the victory: the German envoy Herr von Stohrer, his wife, companion Michl Schmitt, Karl Schwabe and Fritze Siebel"

The son Max Schwabe

The son Max (Maximilian Friedrich Wilhelm) Schwabe (born April 4, 1929 in Partenkirchen ; † March 6, 1970 near La Punt-Chamues-ch ) had taken over the passion for flying from his father Karl and retained it despite his fatal crash. Max Schwabe founded and managed Munich-based Bavaria Fluggesellschaft Schwabe & Co from 1957 until his death on March 6, 1970 . In Rome, where he had lived from April 1950 to at least 1958, Schwabe was the head of a ready-to-wear company for women's clothing.

Schwabe learned to fly in 1946 and then worked as a flight instructor in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1954, when he was 25 years old, he took part in an Alpine sightseeing flight from Udine in Italy with his 13-year-old Klemm Kl 35 , as the only one in the competition in an airplane with the cabin still open. The conditions of the competition did not give him a chance of victory.

According to an article in " Spiegel " magazine, Max was European champion in aerobatics . At the beginning of July 1955, during a “daring” flight demonstration at Florence airport, in front of the horrified eyes of several hundred school children, he had an accident with total loss of his Klemm, in which he was seriously injured.

He and his wife Angela Dege (* 1941 from Wiedenbrück), his four daughters Martina (* 1965), Petra (* 1965), Nicole (* 1967) and Cecilia (* 1969) and others fell on a flight he was piloting into the Engadin People from La Punt-Chamues-ch because of turbine damage . The co-pilot was 31-year-old Klaus-Dieter von Held . None of the eleven inmates survived.

Among the dead was Anusch Samy , one of the two well-known Samy brothers who ran the “Citta 2000” shopping center and several entertainment venues in Munich-Schwabing, including the “Drugstore” and Germany’s legendary first large-capacity disco, Blow Up .

Max Schwabe, chief pilot of Bavaria, took off from Munich-Riem airport at 2:17 p.m. on the day of the crash in the twin-engine turboprop aircraft Handley Page Jetstream . He had a flight experience of 6741 hours, 84 of them with the Jetstream, which for reasons of comfort was only equipped with eleven instead of the possible 18 seats. At 14:57, the crew sent the emergency call to Samedan airfield : “ Mayday, mayday , engine fire”. Immediately afterwards she reported a landing gear malfunction and announced an emergency landing, with the following words: “Prepare the airfield fire brigade. The landing gear is not in order, we try to land on snow, if we don't succeed, say hello to our relatives ”. Witnesses saw that flames emerged in the area of ​​the left engine and that the propeller only turned slowly there; shortly afterwards a ball of fire on the left wing and an object that was hanging down there. About three kilometers from the runway threshold , the plane crashed into the snow. In the crash it cut a large larch and tore two cables of a 220 kV high voltage line. After the impact, the wreck did not burn any more.

The Schwabe furrier family

The master furrier and amateur pilot Karl Schwabe comes from a family of furriers. His father was the master furrier Paul Friedrich Schwabe (born June 21, 1860 in Eich (Treuen) ; † February 14, 1939 in Munich). Karl's mother Maria, née Sauer , probably died before 1920, because Paul Friedrich Schwabe married Elisabeth in 1920 (* 1871; ↑ 1961).

The father, Kommerzienrat Paul F. Schwabe, was the owner of the Pelzhaus Schwabe in Munich. In the Munich address book of 1915 he is listed as a businessman, master furrier and purveyor to the royal Bavarian court, Paul Friedr. Schwabe , Trogerstrasse 32 2. At the same time he was the owner of the fur specialist Bayer. Löwe , Karlsplatz 6 and also the Adolf Fleischmann company .

Karl Schwabe probably had two siblings, brother Friedrich Schwabe (born October 1, 1891 in Schweinfurt ) and sister Henrietta . The merchant Karl Schwabe (born January 14, 1897 in Schweinfurt) is still listed in the Bavarian war rankings and master roles with his parents' Munich address, Karlplatz 6/4. Karl Schwabe's military career as a war volunteer from November 22, 1915 to his release on June 24, 1919, “with gunshot scars on the r. Wrist ”, recorded in great detail. One learns there, among other things, that the later private car racing driver, "of slim build", came to the stage motor vehicle column 13 on October 19, 1916, on April 11, 1917 to the army motor vehicle column 271, on May 27 1917 to the recruiting depot of the motor vehicle replacement department 1 because of the participation in an officer aspirant course, from where he returned to his army motor vehicle column on September 5, 1917.

In the Munich address book of 1930 there are several entries about members of the Schwabe-Kürschner:

The merchant Karl Schwabe , Steinsdorfstrasse 12 ₀ .

Kommerzienrat Paul Schwabe , owner of the company Pelzmodehaus Paul F. Schwabe , Innstrasse 3 _{0 u. 1.}

Paul F. Schwabe , fur fashion house purveyor to the court, own major skinning, Kaufingerstraße 23 _{0 and 1} (owner Paul F. Schwabe, councilor, apartment Innstraße 3). On November 2, 1986, on the occasion of the change of a commanding officer, the new company name was entered in the commercial register: Pelzmode-Haus Schwabe, Paul F. Schwabe GmbH. & Co. KG .

Walter Schwabe , fur finishing and dyeing shop , Rumfordstraße 36 ₀ , apartment Daiserstraße 12 ₂ , RG.

Walter Schwabe (born July 28, 1895 in Gotha ) was actually a trained furrier. His parents, the worker Emil Schwabe and the seamstress Ida geb. Werlich came from Schkeuditz , one of the main places around the world trade center for fur skins, the Leipziger Brühl , where fur processing companies had settled by the flowing water of the Weißen Elster at that time . The tanning and dressing was originally one of the tasks of Skinning. With the extraordinarily large increase in the demand for fur, however, skinning, the manufacture of furs, had mostly separated from the tanning and finishing craftsmen in the previous decades. Walter Schwabe ran a fur processing company in Munich, with the address Rumfordstrasse, which tanned the skins and, if necessary, also dyed them. Thus the members of the Schwabe family still covered the entire area of ​​the fur industry, from tanning the skins to the production of simple and exclusive furs to their sale. Before starting his own business, after his discharge from military service - he was involved in the fighting near Verdun in June 1916 - he worked for the Schmidt & Cie. , Rumfordstrasse 36 busy.

In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Karl Schwabe ran his small fur store founded in 1922 at Ludwigstrasse 33, next to the former Adlwärtsh inn. The family owned the "Cecilienhof", Anzlesau No. 2, above and in the middle of the accident-prone former S-curve, which is still called the "Schwabekurve", today straightened and widened. The house that still exists was built by Adelaide C. Brown in the mid-1920s . Her family had made a fortune in the Chicago meat markets . Her daughter (Adeline Franzes) Cecile Brown (* December 12, 1907; † July 4, 1930), "a very pretty girl", married the furrier Karl Schwabe in January 1928 in St. Giles , Camptdon, London. The young mother died just 15 months after the birth of her son (Friedrich Wilhelm) Max . Cecile's (Cecilia) mother was Adelaide Reeve Brown, née Coolbaugh, the wife of Chicago attorney James Edgar Brown .

The successor on Ludwigstrasse was the Stempfle fur store ; In 1990 the Dahlmeier furniture store was located there, which in 2018 still has offices and workshops there.

The Hamburg passenger lists show that on February 28, 1924, a single Karl Schwabe, merchant, around 27 years old, living in Partenkirchen, embarked on the " Cleveland " for New York.

An uncle of Karl Schwabe, Karl Louis Schwabe (* 1854 in Eich (Treuen) , † November 10, 1921 in York , England), with the Freemasons since 1891 (Agricola Lodge) and by profession furrier, emigrated to England and became there Naturalized in 1878. His wife was Ada Schwabe (* 1855 in Wansford, Yorkshire). In 1911, the formerly self-employed 57-year-old was retired in York. The 18-year-old son Henry lived in the same household at the time , and the job title given was "drapery (assistant)". His other son was the York-born furrier Alfred Schwabe ; a daughter, Ethel Mary Schwabe , born in York, was twenty years old in 1901.

Works

3 × Africa - Hindenburg Cup winner Karl Schwabe's air travel to Africa. 1933, 1934 and 1935 . Verlag Josef Kösel & Friedrich Pustet, Munich 1935

Web links

Commons : Karl Schwabe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Bavarian Main State Archives; Munich; Department IV War Archives. War Tribe Rolls, 1914–1918; Volume: 18621. War ranking a. War tribal roll: Vol. 2
2. ^ Karl Schwabe: 3 × Africa . Pp. 11-12.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Fritz Dettmann: Italy under the areas . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , 24./25. July 1954, p. 16.
4. ↑ Bruno Lange: Type manual of German aviation technology: A reference work about d. German powered airplanes, airships, aircraft engines, turbo and Rocket engines, missiles, propellers, on-board instruments, radio systems, etc. On-board weapons from d. Beginnings until today . German aviation 9 . Koblenz, Bernard and Graefe, 1986, p. 204.
5. ^ According to Karl Ries: Research on the German aircraft role, part 1 = 1919–1934 . Mainz: Verlag Dieter Hoffmann, 1977, was the class L 26 a II, work number 376, with engine 1 × Sh 13 a and the aircraft registration D-2228 since February 1932 registered to K. Schwabe, Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
6. ^ Karl Ries and Bruno Lange, p. 205; Flugsport magazine , issue No. 9 of May 2, 1934, page 195.
7. ^ Karl Schwabe: 3 × Africa . Pp. 113-114.
8. ↑ dnb: Schwabe landed in an emergency . In: Third sheet of the Upper Silesian Wanderer , January 24, 1934, p. 23.
9. ^ Karl Schwabe: 3 × Africa . P. 138.
10. ^ WTB .: German aviator at Mussolini . In: Lübecker Volksblatt , No. 95, 1st supplement, May 11, 1933.
11. ^ Karl Schwabe: 3 × Africa . P. 144.
12. ↑ luftfahrt-bibliothek.de, primary source aviation sport , p. 381. Last accessed August 20, 2018.
13. ^ Karl Schwabe: 3 × Africa . Pp. 197-214.
14. ↑ Flugsport magazine No. 3/1937, page 88.
15. ↑ Flugsport magazine No. 5/1937.
16. ^ In: Der Deutsche Sportflieger. Journal for the entire aviation industry . April 1937, Postverlag, Leipzig.
17. ↑ Flight Control Bavaria South, letter: Preliminary report on the area planned as a traffic landing area close to the south-west of Farchant . Garmisch, November 12, 1929 --- Garmisch District Office, signed by Merz, writing: Expansion of an airfield . January 20, 1933 (both Garmisch-Partenkirchen market archive MAGAPA No. 130).
18. ^ Karl Schwabe: 3 × Africa . P. 143.
19. ↑ Volaticum: Luftfahrt und Luftverkehr und Luftfahrtgeschichte 1937 Primary source: Zeitschrift Flugsport , No. 19, p. 526. Last accessed on August 19, 2018.
20. ↑ ^{a b c} li: Father and son victims of their passion for flying . In: Murnauer Tagblatt , October 18, 1990, GAP 3.
21. ^ Philipp Manes : The German fur industry and its associations 1900-1940, attempt at a story . Berlin 1941 Volume 3. Copy of the original manuscript, p. 134 ( → table of contents ).
22. ^ Address card Schwabe, Wilhelm Friedrich Max, pupil (copy of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen market archive).
23. ↑ Arrival-Departure Record "Max F. Schwabe" (entry document for the USA). October 27, 1958. Imm. & Natz. Service, New York, NY 92; Permanent address “Rome Via Lucilio 66 Italy”; Vessel Name or Airline and Flt. No. of Arrival "AZ 507"; Passenger Boarded At Paris / Orly.
24. ↑ Fritz Dettmann: Church towers were the grandstands . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , July 26, 1954, p. 12.
25. ↑ Without the author's name: Thin air . Der Spiegel magazine , August 21, 1967. Last accessed August 31, 2018.
26. ↑ Stunt Plane Crashes . In: Singapore Standard, July 5, 1955, p. 7 (day of the crash: "July 4th") (English). Last accessed September 1, 2018.
27. ↑ Aviation Safety Network, Flight Safety Foundation: ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 161042 ( Crash day: "July 3rd)". Last accessed September 1, 2018.
28. ↑ Without mentioning the author: Un apparecchio da turismo si fracassa al suolo . In: La Stampa , 4./5. July 1955, p. 3 (Italian).
29. ↑ Without mentioning the author: Gastronomy / Samy bars . In: Der Spiegel , July 31, 27, 1970. Last accessed August 29, 2018.
30. ^ Helmut Kreutzer: Crash - The fatal accidents with passenger planes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (since 1950) . Air Gallery Edition, Erding 2002, ISBN 3-9805934-3-6 .
31. ↑ Without an author's name: Further successes of the “flying fur trader” . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 3, January 6, 1934, p. 2.
32. ^ Address book for Munich , volume 1915, p. 651. MDZ - Munich digitization center. Last accessed August 30, 2018
33. ↑ Note: There is a pencil note in the master rolls that proves that it is the Karl Schwabe described here. On September 13, a letter was sent to Mr. Schwabe, Partenkirchen, Ludwigstrasse 33.
34. ^ Archives used: Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich, Department IV War Archives, war log rolls 1914–1918 . The volumes: 11921 War log: 12655 War log: Ersatz.Depot (war volunteers); 12670 War trunk roll vol. 3; 18621 War Ranking List and War Tribe Roll, Vol. 2; 18795 war ranking; 18798 War Master Roll Vol. 3; 18812 War Tribe Roll Vol. 11; 18826 War Tribe Roll, Vol. 4; 18847 Entl. List; 18858 War Master Roll Vol. 11; 22675 master roll vol. 1.
35. ^ In the Schweinfurt address book from 1886, the address of the furrier Paul Schwabe is given as Keßlergasse 24. In the Schweinfurt address book from 1895, the address of the furrier Paul Schwabe is given as Markt 7. According to the Schweinfurt address book from 1904, Schwabe PF, fur goods and hats are still here (Markt 7). According to the Schweinfurt address book from 1908, Schwabe PF, hat and fur goods are still in the same place, but the owner is now a Georg Baumeister. In the war master rolls, Friedrich Schwabe's profession is given as businessman and furrier. Between around 1916 and 1917 Friedrich Schwabe married a Berta, née Schmidt. Friedrich served in the Bavarian Landwehr Foot Artillery Battalion 2 and took part in the autumn battle in Champagne, for which he received the Prussian Iron Cross 2nd class on October 21, 1915. There are a total of ten entries in various war rankings and root roles.
36. ↑ News from the commercial register . In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt , No. 877, December 5, 1986, p. 12.
37. ^ War stem list, entry serial number 1390.
38. ↑ Company news, start-ups . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt , No. 191, September 6, 1922, p. 4.
39. ↑ Address book Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1939.
40. ↑ Address Card Schwabe, Karl Wilhelm Paul Christian, suffered from Munich (copy of the archive market Garmisch-Partenkirchen MAGAPA # 130).
41. ^ Homepage of the Dahlmeier company: history . Last accessed August 20, 2018.
42. ↑ Hamburg Passenger Lists 1850–1934 , Hamburg State Archives, holdings 373-71, VIII (Emigration Office 1) Volume 311 (“Cabin Accommodation”).
43. ^ Census of England & Wales, 1911 . Number of schedule 39.
44. ↑ ukcensusonline.com: York 1901 Census, p. 62.