Wolfgang Martini

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Wolfgang Martini (born September 20, 1891 in Lissa , Province of Posen ; † January 6, 1963 in Ebenhausen , Isar, district of Schäftlarn ) was a German professional officer who in the Air Force , most recently as a General of the Air Intelligence Force , was essential for development, promotion, Introduction and use of radar procedures was responsible.

Life

Promotions

Wolfgang Martini was the son of Karl Martini (1834-1915), director of the regional court of Lissa, and his wife Hedwig Huebschmann (1843-1930) from Neuchâtel (Western Pr.). His brother was Erich Martini , later professor of medicine and general physician in the Navy during the First World War.

Early career

Wolfgang Martini was already interested in communications technology during his school days at the grammar school in his hometown Lissa in the province of Poznan . After graduation he joined in 1910 as an officer cadet in the Telegraph Battalion 1 of the Army, 1912 he was a lieutenant and an officer in the Telegraph Battalion 5 appointed . Right from the start of his career, he had to do with the rapidly developing radio technology. During the First World War he took on - at times at Verdun - responsible tasks as a radio officer and was promoted to first lieutenant and then to captain . At the end of the war he was radio clerk at the head of the army communications department and most recently commanded the army communications school in the province of Namur in occupied Belgium.

After the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Martini was one of the few officers to remain in the Reichswehr. Over the next five years he taught at various military intelligence schools (war telegraph school in Spandau- Ruhleben (1919/1920), artillery school in Jüterbog (1920-1924)) and was an intelligence officer at a district command from 1924 to 1928. To 1928/1929 he received in Lipetsk a secret pilot training , where he also conducted experiments with pilots by radio equipment. He was promoted to major and was from 1928 to 1933 technical assistant for telecommunications equipment at the Reichswehr Ministry .

From lieutenant colonel to general

From 1933 Martini worked in preparation for the later establishment of the Air Force at the Reich Ministry of Aviation (RLM), where he was responsible for organizing the people and equipment necessary for radio in aircraft. From December 1933 he built up the air communication system (LNVW) and the air communication force . This included the Air Force's own telecommunications network with the units operating it, as well as the organization for air traffic control, radio reconnaissance and the reporting of flight movements. In 1934 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and in 1937 to colonel, during which time he was head of the radio communications department at the RLM. In 1938 he was appointed major general and head of intelligence in the Air Force. On September 20, 1941, he was promoted to General of the Air Intelligence Force and remained in his position until the end of the war in May 1945. In 1944 he was also appointed general news officer of the Luftwaffe .

Relations with GEMA

In the mid-1930s, the Society for Electroacoustic and Mechanical Apparatus (GEMA) began developing a radio measuring device . This pulse-modulated system was based on earlier work by Rudolf Kühnhold , a scientist working for the Navy . Its development took place in the utmost secrecy, and the other branches of the armed forces were not informed of its existence either.

The early warning system manufactured by GEMA under the code name Seetakt was demonstrated to the General Staff of the Air Force in November 1938. Martini, who was present at the demonstration, recognized the great value of this new technology for the military. He commissioned the development of a comparable system for the Luftwaffe, which was given the code name Freya , and first and foremost advocated the necessary radio measuring devices for the German high command of the Wehrmacht . The attempt he initiated to use two longer exploratory trips with the Zeppelin LZ 130 off the British Isles to prove that the British had comparable positioning technology, failed, however, because the British operated their Chain Home radar system with radio frequencies that differed greatly from the German methods.

In November 1941, in addition to his other duties, he was officially appointed special representative for radio measurement technology at the high command. Although he had no scientific training, he understood the technology deeply and he was the most active in developing radar for military purposes in Germany.

For most of his duties, Martini reported directly to Hermann Göring , Commander in Chief of the Air Force . However, Göring never fully trusted Martini, and the two of them often got into arguments over technical decisions. For example, when the Germans became aware of the existence of a British radar system through the radio listening service under Martini , the two had diametrically different views on its importance. Göring defamed Martini as a fool to other commanders, Fisher puts it as follows:

“It was the same with all specialists; they exaggerate the importance of whatever they are working on. "

"It was always the same with all the professionals, they exaggerate the importance of what they are working on."

Post-war events

At the end of the war Martini became a prisoner of war, initially he was imprisoned by the Americans, then by the British until 1947. He then worked as a consultant for C. Lorenz AG in Stuttgart. When the Bundeswehr was founded , he worked again for the armed forces. As a civil advisor, he took on responsible tasks from 1956, first for the Air Force , then for NATO .

Already at the end of 1944 he feared that records of the work carried out in Germany during the war in the field of radio positioning and radar systems could be lost or destroyed after a defeat. Therefore, together with GEMA employee Leo Brandt , he buried important documents and records in a metal box, which he recovered in the Soviet Zone at the beginning of the 1950s . In 1952, North Rhine-Westphalia appointed him to the position of executive board member of the Committee for Radio Location eV in Düsseldorf, which in 1961 became the German Society for Positioning and Navigation (DGON). At DGON he managed to bring together the documents and knowledge of the radar technology and navigation methods developed during the war that were scattered among many companies and people in Germany. The documents buried in 1944 were also included and were published there for the first time. This made it possible for Germany to join the international competition in military radio technology and in civilian sea and aviation safety technology.

During these years, Martini established relationships with people who had accompanied the introduction of the radar in other countries at many of the specialist conferences he had initiated. They also include Sir Robert Watson-Watt , who played a key role in building a radar system in Great Britain. Watson-Watt wrote of Martini in his own autobiography in 1959:

“I have a very dear postwar friend in General Wolfgang Martini, a shy, modest, charming, and very perfect gentleman… His many claims on my affectionate respect include his failure to endear himself to Göring, from whom the qualities I have just tried to summarize may have concealed General Martini's very high technical competence, wisdom, and resource. "

"After the war I made a dear friend in General Wolfgang Martini, a reserved, modest, charming and quite perfect gentleman ... One of the many positive qualities that earn him my warm respect is, in particular, the fact that he did not succeed in to build up a good relationship with Göring who, in addition to the positive characteristics that I have just tried to summarize, has remained hidden from the fact that General Martini has very pronounced technical knowledge and wisdom. "

Martini married Ilse Kattner in Düsseldorf in 1962, the marriage remained childless. He died on January 6, 1963 of a heart attack.

Awards

Martini has received many awards, including the Rescue Medal on Ribbon in 1941 , the Knight's Cross for the War Merit Cross with Swords in February 1944 and the Great Federal Cross of Merit in February 1959 . Since 1961 he was an honorary member of the British Institute of Navigation at the Royal Geographical Society . In 1962 he became a Dr.-Ing. Appointed anyway .

The former flak barracks in Osnabrück was named after him as General Martini barracks . Telecommunications regiments 71 and 11 were stationed there between 1960 and 2002.

Works

  • The air communication system as part of the Wehrmacht leadership. Federal Archives / Military Archives, Freiburg 1947.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Place of death Ebenhausen, Isar according to information from the NDB and the files of the Reich Chancellery, Der Spiegel mentions Düsseldorf differently .
  2. ↑ Harry von Kroge: GEMA: Birthplace of German Radar and Sonar , translated by Louis Brown, Inst. Of Physics Publishing, 2000.
  3. ^ David E. Fisher: A Summer Bright and Terrible. Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005, pp. 164-168.
  4. ^ David Prichard: The Radar War: Germany's Pioneering Achievement. Patrick Stephens, 1989, p. 219.
  5. ↑ a b Cajus Bekker : Radar: Duel in the dark. Gerhard Stalling Verlag, 1958.
  6. ↑ Sir Robert Watson-Watt: The Pulse of Radar. Dial Press, 1959, p. 405.
  7. ^ Died: Wolfgang Martini. In: Der Spiegel. 3/1963, January 16, 1963.
  8. ↑ Klaus D. Patzwall: The Knight's Cross Bearers of the War Merit Cross 1942–1945. Patzwall-Verlag, Hamburg 1984, pp. 106-107.
  9. ↑ Jakob Knab : False Glorie: The traditional understanding of the Bundeswehr . Ch. Links Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-86153-089-9 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  10. ↑ Entry  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. for the Luftwaffe telecommunications unit in the inventory overview on the website of the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv , seen May 22, 2012.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / startext.net-build.de  
personal data
SURNAME Martini, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently General of the Intelligence Force
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Lissa , Poznan Province
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1963
Place of death Ebenhausen , Isar, district of Schäftlarn or Düsseldorf