Otto Höhne (Major General)

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Major General Otto Hoehne, 1944 as commander of the Luftkriegsschule 4 in Fürstenfeldbruck

Otto Paul Wilhelm Höhne (born April 30, 1895 in Woinowitz ; † November 22, 1969 in Jachenau ) was a German major general in the Air Force in World War II .

Life

Höhne came from a family of chemists with a sugar factory in Upper Silesia. He attended high school in Racibórz up to secondary school and then began studying technology.

With the beginning of World War I , Höhne joined the Grenadier Regiment "King Friedrich Wilhelm IV." (1st Pomeranian) No. 2 of the Prussian Army in Stettin on August 1, 1914 as a one-year volunteer . In mid-September 1914 he was transferred to the 6th Pomeranian Infantry Regiment No. 49 in Gnesen and he took part in the border battles against the Russian armed forces with the reserve battalion . From the end of October 1914, Höhne was in action with the regiment on the Western Front in France near Soissons and in Flanders near Ypres . Wounded on November 11, 1914 and at the same time suffering from dysentery , he was in the hospital and was not able to return to work until March 1915. Höhne then returned to the reserve battalion of the regiment in Gnesen, was promoted to lieutenant of the reserve on May 15, 1915 and transferred to the Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 65 on the Eastern Front .

At the end of August 1915, Höhne came to the flying replacement department in Cologne and graduated from the flying school in Krefeld . In March 1916 he was transferred to the Combat Squadron of the Supreme Army Command No. 4 on the Verdun theater of war . September 1916 transferred to Jagdstaffel 1, from August 29, 1916 to Jagdstaffel 2 (Boelcke) as a fighter pilot. There, on the evening of September 16, Höhne achieved the first aerial victory on this type of aircraft with one of the newly arrived Albatros biplanes . Wounded in air combat on January 10, 1917 on the Somme Front , after recovering in July 1917, he became a flight instructor at the Fighter Pilot School 2 in Brussels . In October 1917 he was transferred to Jagdstaffel 1 on the Italian front . From January 1918 Höhne was first squadron leader of Jagdstaffel 59, then Jagdstaffel 2 (Boelcke) in Flanders. In March he had another plane crash and from April to September 1918 was a teacher at the Fighter Aviation School No. 1 in Valenciennes . From October 1918 Höhne acted as the hunting squadron leader of the Bitsch combat squadron near Strasbourg until the end of the war. During the war, Höhne had scored six recognized aircraft kills.

After the war, Höhne obtained his school-leaving certificate and completed his engineering studies at the State Higher Mechanical Engineering School in Stettin with an examination in general mechanical engineering and electrical engineering . Until 1933 he worked as a production engineer, operations manager and factory director of larger plants.

From January 1933, Höhne worked as the head of the disguised pilot school in Breslau -Gandau. On March 1, 1935, he was reactivated for military service while being promoted to captain and assigned to the bomber school in Lechfeld as a flight captain. In mid-December 1935 he became a major and was transferred to the Fassberg bomber school as a teacher and adjutant . From April 1936 to March 1937 Höhne served as a squadron captain in Kampfgeschwader 27 “Boelcke” in Wunstorf am Steinhuder Meer . From April 1937 to May 1940 he was in command of I. Group of Kampfgeschwader 254 in Diepholz, which was later relocated to Fritzlar and renamed I. Gruppe / Kampfgeschwader 54 .

In July 1939, Höhne traveled to Japan as a courier for the Foreign Office , from where he was only able to return to his post after the attack on Poland in October 1939.

During the bombing of Rotterdam by Kampfgeschwader 54 on May 14, 1940, Höhne led one of the two columns as a lieutenant colonel and was the only one to recognize the red lights of the German paratroopers , which signaled that the Dutch had surrendered. Höhne and his column turned at the last moment, thus preventing further damage to the already hard-hit city center. From June 1940 he was commodore of Kampfgeschwader 54 in the western theater of war and in January 1941 Höhne was promoted to colonel .

After a crash with a Heinkel He 111 bomber on August 15, 1941, there was a two-year hospital stay. From September 1, 1943 until the surrender in May 1945, he was in command of the Luftkriegsschule 4 Fürstenfeldbruck and promoted to major general in April 1944.

He spent his old age in Jachenau in Upper Bavaria.

Höhne was married twice with three children from his first and two from his second marriage, including Claudia Gudelius , nee. Scorn.

Awards

literature

  • Dermot Bradley (ed.), Karl Friedrich Hildebrand: The Generals of the German Air Force 1935-1945. The military careers of the aviator, anti-aircraft cartillery, paratrooper, air intelligence and engineer officers, including doctors, judges, intendants and ministerial officials with the rank of general. Volume 2: Habermehl – ​​Nuber. Biblio Publishing House. Osnabrück 1992. ISBN 3-7648-2208-2 . Pp. 170-171.
  • Norman Franks: Albatros Aces of World War 1. Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-85532-960-3 .
  • Norman Franks: Jasta Boelcke: The History of Jasta 2. 1916-18. Grub Street, London 2004, ISBN 1-90401-076-8 .

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. 395.
  2. ↑ Johannes Werner: Boelcke. Leipzig 1932, p. 189.
  3. ^ Die Spruchkammer Bad Tölz, Az. A 678 / Ja 259/47 of December 3, 1947, part of the file
  4. ↑ Jacobsen, HA, The German air attack on Rotterdam in Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau 8 (1958), pp. 257–284
  5. ↑ Bekker, Cajus, Attack Height 4000 - War Diary of the German Air Force, Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg and Hamburg, 1964, pp. 131–135
personal data
SURNAME Höhne, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Höhne, Otto Paul Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German major general in the Luftwaffe in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Woinowitz
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1969
Place of death Jachenau