Theodor Croneiß

Theodor "Theo" Jakob Croneiß (born December 18, 1894 in Schweinfurt , † November 7, 1942 in Munich ) was a German fighter pilot and aviation functionary.

Life

Youth and First World War

Croneiß was the younger son of the high school teacher Carl Croneiß and his wife Margarete, née Wiesinger. His older brother was Carl Croneiß , who later became a member of the Reichstag . Croneiß spent the first years of his life in Schweinfurt, where his father was employed as a teacher. After the father's death in 1903, the mother and sons moved to Nuremberg . Croneiß attended a secondary school in Nuremberg . After graduating from high school, he began an internship at the Süddeutsche Eisenwerke.

When the First World War broke out , Croneiß volunteered for the 1st Bavarian Chevauleger Regiment . At the end of 1914, Croneiß reported to the air force. He was then trained as an aircraft observer in Döberitz and Freiburg and then as a fighter pilot at the Schwerin Fokker School. In 1915 Croneiß was commanded as a pilot to the theater of war in the Dardanelles , to where he traveled from Hungary on a solo flight. This was the first long-haul flight with an aircraft of this type, which led to a corresponding marketing through war propaganda.

In the next three years Croneiß fought as a fighter pilot in the Middle East. With five kills he was the German pilot with the most kills in this theater of war. By the end of the war he had reached the rank of Ottoman first lieutenant . Even more important, however, was that he had established extensive contacts with the aircraft industry during the war: he had already agreed with Anthony Fokker before he left for Turkey that one day after the war he would represent his sales interests in the Middle East and, in subsequent years, also make arrangements with others Companies to take over their representation in this area. The German defeat in the war ruined these plans, but with Albert Fischer "the connection to the aircraft industry [...] was established and it should never be lost."

Weimar Republic

In 1924, Croneiß and his brother Carl established the “Sportflug GmbH for Middle Franconia and Upper Palatinate” at the Fürth airfield . In 1926 he founded the regional airline Nordbayerische Verkehrsflug GmbH, which was also based in Fürth and was its director until 1934 (?). Besides Lufthansa , this was the first commercial aviation company in Germany. By the end of the 1920s, this company was able to establish itself as a successful company and build up a route network that extended across the entire German Empire. The company's success was based primarily on the fact that it offered cheaper tickets than Lufthansa and required fewer subsidies than Lufthansa. In terms of corporate strategy, Croneiß relied primarily on the support of short-haul routes within Germany, while Lufthansa was primarily committed to long-haul routes, which was not unlike the division of local and long-distance transport in the railway sector.

The fate of commercial flight was closely linked to that of Messerschmitt AG : In 1924, Croneiß provided Willy Messerschmitt, then notoriously numb, with the means to build his first M17 and M18 aircraft. Deutsche Verkehrsflug took 19 copies of the latter .

During the Great Depression, from 1930 onwards, commercial flights came to the fore. This was mainly due to the fact that although it needed lower subsidies than Lufthansa, its subsidy providers were not the Reich and its countries, which could pay reliably even in the crisis, but private financiers who had to massively reduce their subsidy payments during the crisis. From 1931 onwards, the commercial flight posted correspondingly high losses, but was still able to survive and, according to Fischer, would probably have been able to continue as an airline without the political upheaval of 1933. In 1934, Verkehrsflug AG was liquidated at the instigation of Aviation Minister Hermann Göring and his State Secretary Erhard Milch , who was also a member of the Lufthansa Executive Board, since the model for air transport in the German Reich that these two had in mind provided for only one airline, whereby they decided on Lufthansa. In 1937 the liquidation of the passenger flight was finally completed.

politics

Politically, as a former officer, Croneiß mainly had sympathy for groups on the political right , but initially did not join any party. Around 1922/23, however, he took part in the founding of the Reichsflagge and in November 1923 his participation in the Hitler putsch was planned, which, however, no longer came about due to the rapid suppression of the action. After Hitler was released from imprisonment in Landsberg , he was in regular contact with Croneiß, in the premises of whose company he had been regularly since 1925. In addition, Croneiß brought the SA and SS people responsible for Hitler's safety during his air travel into his flight control in Fürth, who at that time were still prohibited from entering the public airfield. Although he applied to join the NSDAP , Croneiß ultimately did not join it, as he was made to understand that he would be more useful to the party if he avoided exposing himself as a sympathizer through formal membership. This was mainly due to the fact that, due to his important position in business and transport, he was a not insignificant personality who, as a secret sympathizer of the NSDAP, could do more for the NSDAP than if his proximity to it were known, especially since Croneiß in the 1920s As part of his cooperation with government agencies and elected officials, he was primarily in contact with members of the German Democratic Party .

time of the nationalsocialism

On February 10, 1933, Croneiß joined the NSDAP with effect from March 1, 1933 ( membership number 1.505.089). In the SA , meanwhile, in May 1933, he was appointed Special Commissioner of the Supreme SA Leader for Aviation Issues at the Bavarian State Chancellery and in July 1933 as an aviation officer of the Supreme SA leadership. In addition, he was promoted to Standartenführer immediately after joining the SA in the spring of 1933 and soon afterwards to Oberführer. He also took over the position of squadron leader of Fliegerlandesgruppe X (Bavaria) of the German Air Sports Association .

In the autumn of 1933 Croneiß had harsh arguments with the newly appointed State Secretary Milch in the Reich Aviation Ministry , whom he denounced because of his "non-Aryan" descent.

Croneiß had to withdraw from aviation policy in July 1934 under pressure from Göring and Milch. Instead, from then on he concentrated on his work in the aviation industry, in which he played a leading role until his death: he had been Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bayerische Flugzeugwerke since October 1933 . In 1936, Croneiß then founded Bayerische Flugzeugwerke Regensburg GmbH, which he headed as operator from 1937 and which was renamed Messerschmitt Regensburg GmbH in 1941. In April 1942 he finally became CEO of the entire company, Messerschmitt AG and also operations manager of the Augsburg plant.

In addition to his work in the aviation industry or due to this, Croneiß also held a number of public offices and functions in the Nazi state: Since 1935 he was a "consultant for special technical questions" (Reich) head of office on Rudolf Hess' staff (= processor for aeronautical questions). In September 1938, as a leading economic functionary in the Nazi state, he was also awarded the rank of military economics leader . In the SA, however, he received the rank of SA (Honorary) Brigade Leader in November 1933, before he switched to the SS on November 9, 1938 (SS No. 310.389), into which he was also admitted with the rank of Brigad Leader.

On the occasion of the Reichstag election in 1938 , Croneiß ran unsuccessfully on the Führer’s list for the “election of the Greater German Reichstag” for the National Socialist Reichstag.

Fischer notes “assertiveness”, “organizational talent” and “persistence” as the outstanding characteristics of Croneiß.

At a funeral service at the Messerschmitt factory in Regensburg on November 10th and 11th, 1942, Prof. Willi Messerschmitt highlighted his personal friendship with Theo Croneiß and his services to the entire company, the successful rescue in difficult economic times.

Promotions

army

• 1915. Sergeant
• 1915: Vice Sergeant
• August 1915: Deputy Officer
• October 22, 1916: Reserve Lieutenant and Lieutenant in the Ottoman Army
• March 1, 1933: Captain of the Reserve
• March 3, 1941: Major in the reserve

In the SA:

• February 25, 1933: SA Standartenführer
• July 15, 1933: SA Oberführer
• November 9, 1937: SA Brigade Leader

In the SS:

• November 9, 1938: SS Brigade Leader

Awards

Croneiß was the holder of the Iron Cross II. Class (January 2, 1915) and First Class (September 26, 1916), the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern II. Class with Swords (August 6, 1918) and the War Merit Cross II Class without Swords (1942). In the SS received the sword of honor of the Reichsführer SS and the skull ring of the SS . There were also various Ottoman orders (Liyakat Madalyasi, Imtiyaz Madalyasi, Mecidi Nishani, Harp Madalyasi).

literature

• Albert Fischer: Air traffic between market and power (1919–1937). Lufthansa, commercial aviation and the struggle for monopoly. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-515-08277-8 .

Web links

• Theo Croneiß's estate in the Regensburg State Library (PDF)
• Estate of the Croneiß family in the Regensburg State Library (PDF)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Werner Neulen: Eagle and Crescent. The German-Turkish Alliance, 1914–1918 , p. 163.
2. ↑ Fischer, p. 74.