Friedrich Lang
Encyclopedia
Major
Friedrich Lang (12 January 1915 – 29 December 2003) was a German
World War II
Luftwaffe
Stuka
ace.For a list of Luftwaffe ground attack aces see List of German World War II Ground Attack aces He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves and Swords was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership.
Friedrich Lang flew 1008 combat missions, from the first until the very last day of World War II. During all these missions he was never shot down, never crash landed his aircraft and never had to bail out.
, Austria-Hungary
as the son of a professor
at a Gymnasium
(secondary school). Lang grew up in Linz
and in Czernowitz
. He attended the German Gymnasium at Czernowitz, which was directed by his father since 1919, and graduated with his Abitur
(diploma) in 1932.
He then attended the Chernivtsi University
where he studied four semesters of Physics
and Mathematics
. In October 1934 he decided to transfer to the technical University of Breslau where he studied aeronautical engineering. He received German citizenship on 17 April 1935.
. After he passed the necessary examinations he became an assistant teacher at a Volksschule
in Gundelsheim am Neckar. In May 1946 a directive by the Office of Military Government of the United States
led to his dismissal.
Lang then moved to Neumünster
in Holstein
in November 1946. He married in 1947 and became a mason
. He passed his journeyman
's examination and attended the construction school at Bremen
in 1950. His parents had settled here after they had been expelled from Silesia
. Lang worked as a construction engineer in Bremen until 1955.
Friedrich Lang rejoined the military service of the emerging Bundeswehr
on 1 January 1956. He was declared unfit for flight service due to chronic venous insufficiency
. From 1960 until 1963 he commanded the military school of the Luftwaffe. He received his promotion to Oberst
(Colonel) in 1961. From 1967 until his retirement in 1971 he was commander of the military defense district 22 in Hanover
.
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
Friedrich Lang (12 January 1915 – 29 December 2003) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
Stuka
Junkers Ju 87
The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka was a two-man German ground-attack aircraft...
ace.For a list of Luftwaffe ground attack aces see List of German World War II Ground Attack aces He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves and Swords was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership.
Friedrich Lang flew 1008 combat missions, from the first until the very last day of World War II. During all these missions he was never shot down, never crash landed his aircraft and never had to bail out.
Early life
Friedrich Lang was born on 12 January 1915 in Mährisch-TrübauMoravská Trebová
Moravská Třebová is a town in the Svitavy District and lies in the Pardubice Region, Czech Republic. It has around 11,300 inhabitants.Moravská Třebová is located on the Třebůvka River in the landscape of the "Schönhengstgau"....
, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
as the son of a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at a Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
(secondary school). Lang grew up in Linz
Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...
and in Czernowitz
Chernivtsi
Chernivtsi is the administrative center of Chernivtsi Oblast in southwestern Ukraine. The city is situated on the upper course of the River Prut, a tributary of the Danube, in the northern part of the historic region of Bukovina, which is currently divided between Romania and Ukraine...
. He attended the German Gymnasium at Czernowitz, which was directed by his father since 1919, and graduated with his Abitur
Abitur
Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...
(diploma) in 1932.
He then attended the Chernivtsi University
Chernivtsi University
The Chernivtsi National University is the leading Ukrainian institution for higher education in northern Bukovina, in Chernivtsi, a city in southwest Ukraine....
where he studied four semesters of Physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and Mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. In October 1934 he decided to transfer to the technical University of Breslau where he studied aeronautical engineering. He received German citizenship on 17 April 1935.
After World War II
After the war Friedrich Lang initially stayed by fellow soldier in HeilbronnHeilbronn
Heilbronn is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn County and with approximately 123.000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state....
. After he passed the necessary examinations he became an assistant teacher at a Volksschule
Volksschule
A Volksschule was an 18th century system of state-supported primary schools established in the Habsburg Austrian Empire and Prussia . Attendance was supposedly compulsory, but a 1781 census reveals that only one fourth of school-age children attended. At the time, this was one of the few examples...
in Gundelsheim am Neckar. In May 1946 a directive by the Office of Military Government of the United States
Office of Military Government, United States
The Office of Military Government, United States was the United States military-established government created shortly after the end of hostilities in occupied Germany in World War II. Under General Lucius D...
led to his dismissal.
Lang then moved to Neumünster
Neumünster
Neumünster is an independent town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, which has a total of four independent towns.-Current Situation:Neumünster station is major railway junction with lines running in six directions, including the important Hamburg-Altona–Kiel and Neumünster–Flensburg lines.Near...
in Holstein
Holstein
Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....
in November 1946. He married in 1947 and became a mason
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
. He passed his journeyman
Journeyman
A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....
's examination and attended the construction school at Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
in 1950. His parents had settled here after they had been expelled from Silesia
Heimatvertriebene
Heimatvertriebene are those around 12 million ethnic Germans who fled or were expelled after World War II from parts of Germany annexed by Poland and Russia, and from other countries, who found refuge in both West and East Germany, and Austria...
. Lang worked as a construction engineer in Bremen until 1955.
Friedrich Lang rejoined the military service of the emerging Bundeswehr
Bundeswehr
The Bundeswehr consists of the unified armed forces of Germany and their civil administration and procurement authorities...
on 1 January 1956. He was declared unfit for flight service due to chronic venous insufficiency
Chronic venous insufficiency
Chronic venous insufficiency or CVI is a medical condition where the veins cannot pump enough oxygen-poor blood back to the heart. It is sometimes referred to as an "impaired musculovenous pump", this is due to damaged or "incompetent" valves as may occur after deep vein thrombosis or phlebitis...
. From 1960 until 1963 he commanded the military school of the Luftwaffe. He received his promotion to Oberst
Oberst
Oberst is a military rank in several German-speaking and Scandinavian countries, equivalent to Colonel. It is currently used by both the ground and air forces of Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway. The Swedish rank överste is a direct translation, as are the Finnish rank eversti...
(Colonel) in 1961. From 1967 until his retirement in 1971 he was commander of the military defense district 22 in Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
.
Awards
- VerwundetenabzeichenWound BadgeWound Badge was a German military award for wounded or frost-bitten soldiers of Imperial German Army in World War I, the Reichswehr between the wars, and the Wehrmacht, SS and the auxiliary service organizations during the Second World War. After March 1943, due to the increasing number of Allied...
in Black - Front Flying Clasp of the LuftwaffeFront Flying Clasp of the LuftwaffeThe Front Flying Clasp of the Luftwaffe was awarded in Bronze, Silver, and Gold with upgrade possible to include diamonds. Pennants suspended from the clasp indicated the number of missions obtained in a given type of aircraft...
in Gold with Pennant "1.000" - Combined Pilots-Observation BadgeCombined Pilots-Observation BadgeCombined Pilots-Observation Badge was a German military award instituted on 26 March 1936 by the Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring to commemorate soldiers or servicemen who had already been awarded the Pilot's badge or Observer badge...
- "Kreta" Cuffband
- German CrossGerman CrossThe German Cross was instituted by Adolf Hitler on 17 November 1941 as an award ranking higher than the Iron Cross First Class but below the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross respectively ranking higher than the War Merit Cross First Class with Swords but below the Knight's Cross of the War Merit...
in Gold on 24 April 1942 as OberleutnantOberleutnantOberleutnant is a junior officer rank in the militaries of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In the German Army, it dates from the early 19th century. Translated as "Senior Lieutenant", the rank is typically bestowed upon commissioned officers after five to six years of active duty...
in the 1./StG 2 - Iron CrossIron CrossThe Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....
(1939)- 2nd class (1939)
- 1st class (1940)
- Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and SwordsKnight's Cross of the Iron CrossThe Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was a grade of the 1939 version of the 1813 created Iron Cross . The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was the highest award of Germany to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership during World War II...
- Knight's Cross on 23 November 1941 as Oberleutnant and pilot in the 1./StG 2 "Immelmann"
- 148th Oak Leaves on 21 November 1942 as HauptmannHauptmannHauptmann is a German word usually translated as captain when it is used as an officer's rank in the German, Austrian and Swiss armies. While "haupt" in contemporary German means "main", it also has the dated meaning of "head", i.e...
and StaffelkapitänStaffelkapitänStaffelkapitän is a position in flying units of the German Luftwaffe that is the equivalent of RAF/USAF Squadron Commander. Usually today a Staffelkapitän is of Oberstleutnant or Major rank....
of the 1./StG 2 "Immelmann" - 74th Swords on 2 July 1944 as MajorMajor (Germany)Major is a rank of the German military which dates back to the Middle Ages.It equates to Major in the British and US Armies, and is rated OF-3 in NATO.During World War II, the SS equivalent was Sturmbannführer....
and GruppenkommandeurGruppenkommandeurGruppenkommandeur is a Luftwaffe position , that is the equivalent of a commander of a group or wing in other air forces. Gruppenkommandeur usually has the rank of Hauptmann or Major, and commands a Gruppe, which is a sub-division of a Geschwader. A Gruppe usually consists of three or four...
of the III./SG 1