Werner Panitzki

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Werner Panitzki (born May 27, 1911 in Kiel ; † June 2, 2000 ) was a German officer , most recently lieutenant general in the Air Force . He was the second inspector of the Air Force from 1962 to 1966 .

Life

Until a plane crash in 1941 during the Balkan campaign , Werner Panitzki was a pilot in the Wehrmacht Air Force , u. a. as a squadron captain in Kampfgeschwader 51 under his later predecessor as Inspector of the Air Force, Josef Kammhuber . Due to his injuries, he was dismissed from the aviation service and assigned to the staff. After the end of the Second World War he was a prisoner of war until 1947 . He then worked as a businessman in Kiel .

In 1952 Panitzki joined the Blank Office , the predecessor of the Federal Ministry of Defense . In 1955 he joined the newly founded Bundeswehr with the rank of colonel . Until 1957 he served initially as Chief of Staff of Division VI Air Force. During this time he was appointed Brigadier General . From June 1, 1957, he was deputy to the first inspector of the Air Force, Josef Kammhuber, and Chief of the Air Force Command . Subsequently, he was chief of the armed forces command staff under Inspector General Adolf Heusinger until 1960 . After a brief assignment as commander of the 4th Air Defense Division in Münster , Panitzki , who has meanwhile been appointed major general , was appointed commander of the command of the air force schools at the Fürstenfeldbruck air base . He then became the commanding general of the Air Force Group North .

On October 1, 1962, Panitzki was appointed lieutenant general and second inspector of the air force . Among other things, he had to justify the high losses of pilots and aircraft to the Defense Committee and was jointly responsible for the expansion of Beja Airport in Portugal , which for various reasons, such as the change in NATO military doctrine , was never used like Panitzki and the then Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss had planned it. On August 25, 1966, Strauss's successor as Minister of Defense, Kai-Uwe von Hassel , dismissed him at his own request in connection with the Starfighter affair , since in an interview he had criticized the procurement of the fighter plane as a “purely political decision” .

Honors

literature

  • John Zimmermann : Leadership Crisis in the Federal Armed Forces or “Revolt of the Generals”? The resignation of Generals Trettner and Panitzki in 1966 . In: Eberhard Birk , Heiner Möllers , Wolfgang Schmidt (eds.): The air force between politics and technology (= writings on the history of the German air force, volume 2). Carola Hartmann Miles-Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-937885-56-8 , pp. 108-123.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Luftwaffe officers 1939–1945 ( Memento of the original from August 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on August 24, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ww2.dk
  2. ^ Lieutenant General Werner Panitzki. (PDF) In: luftwaffe.de. Retrieved December 26, 2015 .
  3. ↑ The widows are the cheapest . In: Die Zeit , No. 4/1966
  4. ↑ Schilda in Beja . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1971 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Panitzki, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German General and Inspector of the Air Force (Bundeswehr)
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH June 2, 2000