Rudolf of Moreau

Rudolf Freiherr von Moreau (born February 8, 1910 in Munich ; † March 31, 1939 at the Rechlin test site ) was a German officer , most recently a captain of the air force and member of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War . International fame was told Moreau followed in 1938 by its non-stop flights Berlin - New York and Berlin- Tokyo .

Life

Early years

Moreau was born as the son of the Royal Bavarian Chamberlain Friedrich Freiherr von Moreau and his Erika, born. Countess Geldern-Egmont was born. Friedrich Freiherr von Moreau was the owner of Kleeberg Castle near Ruhstorf an der Rott , which the family had bought in 1881 from Alois Freiherrn Weiß von Starkenfels . Moreau spent his school years from 1916 to 1930 in Eichstätt , Bad Reichenhall , Kleeberg and Passau . His Absolutorium he was in 1930 at the Humanities College Passau . In the same year he participated in the University of Munich , a study in history , philosophy and art on. In order to improve his knowledge of history, he went to Ireland for several months , where he also consolidated his English language. He then spent a semester in Prague . At the University of Munich, he again attended events in the humanities . There Moreau joined the Catholic student union Rheno-Bavaria in the KV . In this context he twice withdrew into spiritual solitude. According to Moreau, his commitment to life should be reinforced by religious strength. It was here that his idea of ​​pursuing a military career matured.

On April 9, 1931 Moreau joined the German Pilot School at the airfield Schleißheim at near Munich and was there in the same year the exam for commercial pilot . Since April 1, 1932 he was a member of the Reichswehr , where he was assigned to the 20th Infantry Regiment in Passau . From July 1933 to September 1934 he attended the infantry school in Dresden . Promoted to lieutenant on October 1, 1934 , Moreau flew from October 2, 1934 to March 4, 1935 as a pilot on various domestic German air routes. At the same time he acted as a trainer for the young aviators during this time.

air force

On March 5, 1935, Moreau came to the Air Force as a pilot lieutenant and technical officer , where he was appointed head of aviation squadron training in Giebelstadt on April 19, 1935 . He held this position until July 1936. As one of the first members of the Air Force, Moreau left Germany on July 19, 1936 to be sent to Morocco as a squadron captain . Here he and his squadron flew around 12,000 soldiers of the Moroccan corps under General Francisco Franco to Spain in six weeks with around seven Ju 52 transport aircraft . On August 1, 1936, Moreau had already been promoted to first lieutenant . As part of the Condor Legion , Moreau flew numerous bombing raids on Spanish cities until July 1937, including the air raid on Guernica , in which his experimental bomber squadron 88 was involved. On July 26, 1937, Moreau returned to Germany, where he was from September 1937 Ordonnanzoffizier for the State Secretary of Aviation Colonel General Erhard Milch . In this function, Moreau was sent on three internationally sensational sightseeing flights for propaganda reasons.

From October 20 to December 4, 1937, von Moreau completed the "round-Africa flight" as the second pilot in a Ju 52 (registration D-AMUO ), 28,000 km in 22 stages. The commanding officer was Lufthansa captain Harry Rother, plus chief engineer Rivinius and radio operator Klaproth (possibly Klapprott), both also from Deutsche Lufthansa, as well as four passengers, including the general director and chairman of the board of "Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG" and military manager Heinrich Koppenberg , its press chief Friedrich Andreas Fischer Edler von Poturzyn and the chief of the Belgian air force General F. Iserentant. During the flight, Moreau was promoted to captain on November 1, 1937 . He then returned to the milk division. On June 1, 1938, he was posted to the Rechlin test center .

Here Moreau flew alongside flight captain Dipl.-Ing. Alfred Henke (1902–1940) made the non-stop flight of a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 “Condor” from Berlin to New York City and back in world record time on August 10 and 11, 1938 . The record was recognized on October 4, 1938 by the Aero Club . From November 28th to 30th, 1938, Moreau, again at Henke's side, flew the non-stop flight (that was a flight route record with stopovers) from Berlin to Tokyo with the same aircraft , which, however, already ended on the return flight in Manila . Internationally, this flight was known as the "East Asia Flight". On February 13, 1939, the Aero Club recognized this flight as a world record. During this time, Moreau was also the pilot of the aircraft of the French aviator general Joseph Vuillemin during his tour of Germany. After the two world record flights , Moreau returned to the Rechlin test site, where he carried out further test flights in the test command 88 , a derivative of the Ju 88 aircraft . During one of these test flights, Moreau crashed on March 31, 1939 near Rechlin with a Ju 88 for inexplicable reasons. Both parachutes could not be opened. Official announcements about the course of the accident are not known. Related statements that Moreau suffered from health problems or that his critical political stance had become an increasing problem for him have not been confirmed.

Epitaph for Rudolf Freiherrn von Moreau in the Hader cemetery chapel

Moreau's death was noticed internationally - but especially among the fascist states. The ad about Moreau's death appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter in the name of Hermann Göring . The newspaper The attack also reported. The Spanish newspaper ABC published an obituary on April 8, 1939. The Japanese ambassador in Berlin Ōshima Hiroshi sent a condolence telegram to the Moreau family. Just like Hitler, Goering, Franz von Epp and Ernst Udet before him. Colonel General Milch held the funeral parade in Rechlin. General der Flieger Walter Musshoff held the obituary at the grave of Moreau . Rudolf Freiherr von Moreau is buried in Moreau's grave place in the Hader cemetery chapel near Ruhstorf an der Rott.

Awards

• Medal in memory of March 13, 1938
• Military Aviator Decoration of France
• Honor dagger of the Imperial Japanese Navy
• Spanish military medal
• Spain cross in gold with diamonds (posthumous)
• two unknown Japanese orders

literature

• Commemorative publication by Josef Hafner based on suggestions from the Freiherr von Moreau family on the death of Rudolf Freiherr von Moreau, published by J. Pfeiffer, Munich 1939.