Paul Straehle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Straehle (born May 20, 1893 in Schorndorf ; † May 8, 1985 there ) was a German aviation pioneer, fighter pilot and aerial photographer .

Life

From 1908 to 1911 Strähle attended the royal Württemberg technical college for precision mechanics, electromechanics and watchmaking in Schwenningen . He then worked at NSU engine works until he joined the airship troops in 1913 . There he was used, among other things, on board the Army Airship Z VII . In 1915 he was trained as a pilot, then in 1916 he was used as a reconnaissance aircraft and from 1917 as a fighter pilot. In 1918 he became squadron leader of Jagdstaffel 57. He shot down 15 enemy aircraft and was seriously wounded on September 27, 1918 himself.

Signed dedication to his “NSFK comrade” Fritz Abele (1915–1994), Schorndorf 1937, in: Paul Strähle: Süddeutschland von oben , 1925.

After the end of the First World War , he acquired three demilitarized aircraft of the Halberstadt CL.IV type in 1919 , which, however, were confiscated in 1920 and had to be released from the Reparations Commission . In 1921 he was the first private entrepreneur to receive the license for mail and passenger flights, which he carried out between Stuttgart ( Wasen ) and Konstanz, and from 1922 also from Böblingen to Nuremberg. In 1923 he had to stop his airlines due to financial difficulties. Then his company specialized in aerial photography and sports flying with parachute jumps. Between 1919 and 1938 Strähle took over 40,000 aerial photographs, many of which were used as templates for contemporary postcards and also in books.

Straehle was a member of the NSDAP and a member of the National Socialist Air Corps (NSFK) . As an officer in the Air Force , he was used in aerial reconnaissance on the Eastern Front , among others, during World War II . The exposed material was developed in trucks, which for this purpose had been converted into mobile darkrooms according to Strael's plans. Strähles also made private film recordings of the course of the war in Russia. These films, which were shot from the air and on the ground, show the cities destroyed by the German attackers, Soviet prisoners of war , the local Jewish population and public executions of “ partisans ”. After several years of denazification proceedings at the Schorndorf Arbitration Chamber, Strähle was finally considered "denazified" in 1950; In an appeal procedure he was downgraded from group III (“minor burden”) to group IV (“fellow travelers”). After the Allies allowed German air traffic to operate in the mid-1950s, Paul Strähles “Luftverkehr Strähle, Schorndorf” continued to produce aerial photographs.

Paul Straehle was the father of the entrepreneur and racing driver Paul-Ernst Straehle .

Honors

Works

  • Paul Straehle: Southern Germany from above. First [and only] series: Württemberg and Hohenzollern. One hundred shots from the plane. Introduction and explanations by Dr. Carl Uhlig , Tübingen, Alexander Fischer Verlag 1925.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz H. Poker, Bernhard Rolf: Chronicle of the City of Stuttgart, 1984–1987. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1991, ISBN 978-3-608-91345-3 , pp. 164, 165.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Reinhard Knoblich: Passenger Air Traffic . Retrieved October 26, 2009.
  3. ↑ http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/strahle.php
  4. ↑ honorary citizen of Schorndorf, cf. www.schorndorf.de
  5. ↑ There are 67 of Strähles' oblique aerial photographs of Württemberg landscapes and cities in: The Swabian Alb Association and its hiking areas 1888–1938. Dedicated to its members on the occasion of the 50th anniversary by the Swabian Alb Association , Alemannen-Verlag, Tübingen-Stuttgart 1938.
  6. ↑ ZDFzeit documentary “We in War. Private Films from Hitler's Reich “2020 .
  7. ↑ See Spruchkammer 50 - Schorndorf: procedural files / 1946-1950 (with preliminary and subsequent files) , Ludwigsburg State Archives, EL 902/25 Bü 7977.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Straehle, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German aviation pioneer and fighter pilot
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Schorndorf
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1985
Place of death Schorndorf