Rudolf Löytved-Hardegg

Rudolf Löytved-Hardegg (born July 17, 1905 in Konya , Ottoman Empire , † December 14, 2003 in Nuremberg ) was a German officer, most recently Brigadier General of the Air Force of the Bundeswehr . He was u. a. the first commander of the Air Force officers' school .

Life

origin

Löytved-Hardegg was born in 1905 as the eldest child of the Danish-born lawyer and diplomat Julius Löytved-Hardegg (1874–1917), who served as a consular agent for Germany in the Ottoman Konya from 1904 to 1908 , and his British-Austrian-born wife Grace, née. Friedrich, born. From 1907 to 1909 he lived with his family in Jerusalem and then in Haifa , where his father headed the German representation (until 1914 vice consulate, then consulate) from 1908 to 1915 (and also in Damascus until 1917). At the beginning of 1918, after the father's early death, he first traveled alone to an aunt in Allenstein in East Prussia .

Reichswehr

After graduating from high school in 1925, he was an officer candidate in Donaueschingen, Konstanz and Dresden. From 1928 to 1934 he was in the West Pomeranian Deutsch Krone . From October 1, 1930 to January 31, 1931, he completed his aeronautical training at the Böblingen Aviation School. From October 1, 1932, he was stationed at the Soviet Lipetsk airfield for secret training . In 1932 he crashed his glider in the East Prussian town of Rositten and was soon classified as "conditionally fit for service" by doctors. He was first lieutenant in the general staff of the Reichswehr and in 1933 aerial photography officer in the long-range reconnaissance in Neuhausen.

Wehrmacht

On March 1, 1934, he joined the newly formed Air Force . In 1936/37 he was squadron captain of the reconnaissance squadron (H) A / 88 of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War . In 1937 he belonged to a long-distance reconnaissance squadron of reconnaissance group 22 in Prenzlau . On February 16, 1938, he began training as a general staff officer at the Air War Academy in Berlin-Gatow. On July 1, 1938 after completing his training, he became a general staff officer in the staff of the Luftgau Command XIII in Nuremberg. In 1939 he was employed in the staff of the General of the Air Force High Command . In 1940/41 he was in command of long-range reconnaissance group 122 and took part in the Battle of Britain . From March 5, 1941, as a major , he took on duties as General Staff Officer of Air Fleet 1 in Berlin. From April 1, 1942, he was a group leader in the Wehrmacht Propaganda Department in the Wehrmacht High Command . In this function he reported personally to Joseph Goebbels until 1942 . From January 15, 1943 he was deployed as a lieutenant colonel in the staff of the IV Air Force Field Corps. But on March 1, 1943 he switched to the XI. Air Corps. From August 1944 he took over a paratrooper regiment, which initially bore his name but was then renamed Fallschirmjägerregiment 21 and belonged to the Erdmann Fallschirmjäger Division , later the 7th Fallschirmjäger Division . After he was promoted to colonel on April 1, 1945, he was captured by the British on May 8, 1945. In 1945 he was awarded the German Cross in Gold. In December 1947, the Americans released him from captivity.

In 1947/48 he was a witness in the subsequent trials in the Nuremberg trials .

armed forces

In 1956 he joined the German Air Force . From 1956 to 1958 he was the founding commander of the Air Force Officer's School (OSLw), which initially conducted its courses in Faßberg. From 1958 to 1964 he was stationed with the 4th Allied Tactical Airforce (4th ATAF) of NATO in Ramstein . In 1962 he was promoted to brigadier general. He received the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Others

From 1948 to 1956 he was the manager of the newly founded Rudolf Steiner School in Nuremberg.

From 1964 until his retirement in 1975 he worked as a freelancer for a construction company.

family

He was married to Karin Faessig from 1938 and had four children with her. Karin Loytved-Hardegg, b. In 1993 Faessig received the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany and in 1998 the Citizen Medal of the City of Nuremberg for her social commitment.

Rudolf Löytved-Hardegg had two other children with Doris E. Hofmann, b. Benz.

In the year of his death he was filmed by his daughter Mara Loytved-Hardegg , and in 2015 a film was made about his life. A short film 'My father - the hero' is available on Vimeo.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Marc Zirlewagen, Biographical Lexicon of the Associations of German Students , Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2014, Vol. 1 'Members AL' (no more published), p. 1968. ISBN 3-7357-2288-1 .
2. ↑ Gerhard Keiper , Martin Kröger (edit.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service, 1871-1945 . Volume 3: L-R . Edited by the Foreign Office , Schöningh, Paderborn 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-71842-6 , p. 117.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} family archive Rudolf Loytved-Hardegg, introduction, BArch N 1581.
4. ↑ Alex Carmel , History of Haifa in the Turkish period 1516–1918 , Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1975, p. 132. ISBN 3-447-01636-1 .
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Henry L. deZeng IV, Douglas G. Stankey: Luftwaffe Officer Career Summaries Section L – R, p. 85 , accessed on November 13, 2018
6. ↑ 'The difference between yesterday and today' (88 min., DVD, private)
7. ↑ https://vimeo.com/154727841 , short film Mara Loytved-Hardegg, 'My father - the hero'. Medienwerkstatt Berlin 2015