Werner Kreipe

Werner Kreipe as Chief of the Air Force General Staff

Werner Kreipe (born April 12, 1904 in Hanover , † September 7, 1967 in Badenweiler ) was a German officer, most recently General der Flieger der Wehrmacht , and penultimate Chief of Staff of the Air Force .

Life

Kreipe was born the son of a doctor and joined after graduation in 1922 at the Goethe school as a cadet in the 6th Artillery Regiment of the Reichswehr one. During his time at the war school in Munich, he took part in Hitler's march on the Feldherrnhalle . In 1928 he temporarily resigned from the army in order to complete training at the secret flying school of the Reichswehr in Lipetsk, Russia .

As a captain , he took part in a one-year general staff training program from 1934 and at the same time switched to the newly formed air force. From 1936 he served temporarily on the staff of the State Secretary in the Reich Aviation Ministry Erhard Milch , then on the General Staff of the Air Force. In 1938 he took over as commander of reconnaissance group 122 in Goslar . During the western campaign he led the III./ KG 2 . From 1940 he was then head of the training department in the Reich Ministry of Aviation. At the beginning of 1941 he became chief of the command department in the staff of Air Fleet 3 , his superior being his later successor as chief of staff Karl Koller . In November 1941 he was transferred to the Eastern Front as Chief of Staff of the 1st Air Corps. He then briefly held the same position with the Luftwaffe Commandos East and Don, until he took over the post of Chief of Staff in November 1942 with the Chief of Training in the Air Force. It was here that he was promoted to major general in March 1943 . In July 1943 he was appointed general of pilot training .

After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , in which Günther Korten was seriously injured and died shortly afterwards, he was entrusted with the management of the Chief of the Air Force's General Staff. He clashed with Hitler several times during his short term of office, for example through his efforts to relieve the Messerschmitt Me 262 from the responsibility of the general of the fighter pilots (bombers). After he tried to defend the Luftwaffe against the savage insults of Hitler during Operation Market Garden , he was banned from the briefing at the Fuehrer's headquarters. At the beginning of November 1944 he was finally replaced by Koller. Then he was used until the end of the war as commander of the Air War Academy in Berlin-Gatow. He was then taken prisoner by the Allies, from which he was released in 1947.

In 1951, Minister Hans-Christoph Seebohm brought him to the Federal Ministry of Transport as head of department , where he later headed the aviation department as ministerial director. At the same time he was Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Lufthansa from 1955 .

Awards

• Blood Order (medal in memory of November 9, 1923)
• Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st class
• Wehrmacht service award IV. To II. Class
• German cross in gold
• Front flight clasp

Fonts

• "The Battle of Britain", in: William Richardson, Seymour Freidin (ed.): The fatal decisions: Six decisive battles of the Second world war from the viewpoint of the vanquished. London 1956.
• Werner Kreipe, Rudolf Köster, Karl Gundelach: Aviation training in the Air Force , unpublished study, study group History of the Air War in Karlsruhe, undated.

Web links

• Short biography - project "Officials of National Socialist Reich Ministries"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Werner Kreipe - Officials of the National Socialist Reich Ministries . In: Officials of National Socialist Reich Ministries . March 13, 2018 ( ns-reichsministerien.de [accessed March 29, 2018]).