Gunther Plüschow - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Gunther Plüschow was a German aviator, aerial explorer and author from Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Bavaria

Kingdom of Bavaria

The Kingdom of Bavaria was a German state that existed from 1806 to 1918. The Bavarian Elector Maximilian IV Joseph of the House of Wittelsbach became the first King of Bavaria in 1806 as Maximilian I Joseph. The monarchy would remain held by the Wittelsbachs until the kingdom's dissolution in 1918...

. His feats include the only escape by a German prisoner of war in either World War from Britain back to Germany; he was the first man to explore and film Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of a main island Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego divided between Chile and Argentina with an area of , and a group of smaller islands including Cape...

and Patagonia

Patagonia

Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...

from the air. He was killed on a second aerial expedition to Patagonia in 1931. As an aviator and explorer he is honoured as a hero by the Argentine Air Force

Argentine Air Force

The Argentine Air Force is the national aviation branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic. , it had 14,606 military and 6,854 civilian staff.-History:...

to this day.

World War I

When the First World War began in August 1914, Lieutenant Plüschow was assigned to the East Asian Naval Station at Tsingtau, a German colony in China. Two Taube

Rumpler Taube

The Etrich Taube, also known by the names of the various manufacturers who build versions of the type, such as the Rumpler Taube, was a pre-World War I monoplane aircraft. It was the first mass-produced military plane in Germany...

airplanes had been shipped in crates from Imperial Germany. After supervising the assembly of the planes, Plüschow began serving as pilot and aerial observer. The second plane, flown by Lt. Friedrich Müllerskowski, soon crashed, leaving Plüschow to fly alone. A Japanese ultimatum on 15 August 15 the German evacuation of Kiautschou Bay

Jiaozhou Bay concession

The Kiautschou Bay concession was a German colonial concession in Imperial China which existed from 1898 to 1914. It had an area of 552 km², it was located around Jiaozhou Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula, which lay in the imperial province of Shandong in northern China.Jiaozhou...

was understandably ignored, and eight days later Japan

Empire of Japan

The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...

declared war. Japanese and British forces then jointly besieged the German colony. By November 1914, the military situation at Kiautschou Bay had become untenable, and on 6 November Plüschow (who had flown reconnaissance and had downed a Japanese aircraft with his pistol) was ordered to fly out in his Taube, carrying the last dispatches and documents from the governor. After flying about 250 kilometers in his much-repaired aeroplane, Plüschow crashed into a rice paddy. He set fire to his Taube, and started for Germany on foot.

Escape from China

Plüschow walked to Daschou, where the local mandarin gave a party for him. He managed to obtain a pass to cross China, as well as a junk

Junk (ship)

A junk is an ancient Chinese sailing vessel design still in use today. Junks were developed during the Han Dynasty and were used as sea-going vessels as early as the 2nd century AD. They evolved in the later dynasties, and were used throughout Asia for extensive ocean voyages...

he used to journey down a river, finally arriving safely at Nanking. He sensed that he was being watched, even by officials openly friendly to Germany. When he was about to be arrested, he leapt in a rickshaw and went to the railway station, where he bribed a guard and slipped on a train to Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

.

In Shanghai, Plüschow met the daughter of a diplomat he knew from Berlin. She provided him with documents as a Swiss national, as well as money and a ticket on a ship sailing to Nagasaki, Honolulu and finally San Francisco. In January 1915 he crossed the United States to New York City. He was reluctant to approach the German consulate there, as he had entered the country under a false identity. Worse, he read in a newspaper that he was presumed to be in New York.

His luck saved him again. He met a friend from Berlin who managed to get him travel documents for a ship that sailed on 30 January for Italy. Bad weather however forced his ship to dock at Gibraltar

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...

, where the British arrested him as an enemy alien. They soon discovered he was the famous aviator of Tsingtau.

Escape from London

On 1 July 1915 Plüschow was sent to a prisoner of war camp in Donington Hall

Donington Hall

Donington Hall is a house and residual estate in Castle Donington, North West Leicestershire, located close to the city of Derby. The Hall serves as the headquarters for airline BMI....

in Leicestershire. Three days later he escaped during a storm and headed for London. Scotland Yard

Scotland Yard

Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...

issued an alert, asking the public to be on the lookout for a man with a dragon tattoo on his arm.

Disguised as a worker, Plüschow felt safe enough to take souvenir photographs of himself at the London docks. He occupied himself reading books about Patagonia

Patagonia

, and at night hid inside the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

.

For security reasons, no notices were published announcing the departure of ships, but a lucky encounter with another of his lady friends allowed him to obtain the information to board the ferry Princess Juliana, sailing for neutral Holland. He arrived safely and finally reached Germany, where he was at first arrested as a spy - no one believing he could have accomplished such a feat!

Return to Germany

Once he was identified, Plüschow was acclaimed as "the hero from Tsingtau". He was decorated, promoted and named commander of the naval base at Libau

Liepaja

Liepāja ; ), is a republican city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea directly at 21°E. It is the largest city in the Kurzeme Region of Latvia, the third largest city in Latvia after Riga and Daugavpils and an important ice-free port...

in occupied Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

n Courland. In June 1916, in an airplane hangar at Libau, Plüschow married. He also wrote his first book, The Adventures of the Aviator from Tsingtau, which sold more than 700,000 copies. In 1918, his son Guntolf Plüschow was born.

Unfortunately, 1918 was a year of profound crisis in Germany. In November Wilhelm II, German Emperor was forced to flee to Holland as his nation dissolved into chaos. In 1919 the harsh Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

was imposed on Germany by her victorious enemies, and several military and civil revolts took place. Kapitänleutnant [lieutenant commander] Plüschow refused to participate. Instead, at age 33, he reluctantly resigned from the Reichsmarine

Reichsmarine

The Reichsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Weimar Republic and first two years of Nazi Germany. It was the naval branch of the Reichswehr, existing from 1918 to 1935...

South American explorations

After he left the Navy, Plüschow worked at various jobs before he was hired on the sailing vessel Parma

Parma (barque)

Parma was a four-masted steel-hulled barque which was built in 1902 as Arrow for the Anglo-American Oil Co Ltd, London. In 1912 she was sold to F. Laeisz, Hamburg, Germany. During the First World War she was interned in Chile, and postwar was assigned to the United Kingdom as war reparations. She...

, bound for South America. The ship took him around Cape Horn

Cape Horn

Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...

to Valdivia, Chile

Valdivia, Chile

Valdivia is a city and commune in southern Chile administered by the Municipality of Valdivia. The city is named after its founder Pedro de Valdivia and is located at the confluence of the Calle-Calle, Valdivia and Cau-Cau Rivers, approximately east of the coastal towns of Corral and Niebla...

; he then traveled overland across Chile to Patagonia. On his return to Germany, he published Segelfahrt ins Wunderland ("Sailing Journey to Wonderland"), which earned him enough for further explorations.

On November 27, 1927, Plüschow took the wooden two-masted cutter Feuerland to Punta Arenas, Chile. His engineer, Ernst Dreblow, brought his seaplane

Seaplane

A seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing on water. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are a subclass called amphibian aircraft...

, a Heinkel HD 24 D-1313, aboard a steamer. By December of 1928 the airplane had been fully assembled and the inaugural flight brought the first air mail from Puntas Arenas to Ushuaia

Ushuaia

Ushuaia may refer to the following:*Ushuaia, a city in Argentina.**Ushuaia Department, an administrative division**Ushuaia River**Ushuaia International Airport**Colegio Nacional de Ushuaia, National School of Ushuaia....

, Argentina. In the months following, Plüschow and Dreblow were the first to explore by air the Cordillera Darwin

Cordillera Darwin

The Cordillera Darwin is an extensive mountain range mantled by an ice field. It is located in the southwestern portion of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, entirely within the Chilean territory. It is part of the longest Andes range and includes the highest mountains in Tierra del Fuego, with...

, Cape Horn, the Southern Patagonian Ice Field

Southern Patagonian Ice Field

The Southern Patagonian Ice Field , located at the Southern Patagonic Andes between Argentina and Chile, is the second largest contiguous extrapolar extent of ice in the world...

, and the Torres del Paine of Patagonia. In 1929, Plüschow had to sell the Feuerland to obtain funds to return to Germany. There he published his explorations and photographs in a book, Silberkondor über Feuerland ("Silver Condor over Tierra del Fuego"), and a documentary film of the same name.

The following year he returned to Patagonia, to explore the Perito Moreno Glacier

Perito Moreno Glacier

The Perito Moreno Glacier is a glacier located in the Los Glaciares National Park in the south west of Santa Cruz province, Argentina. It is one of the most important tourist attractions in the Argentine Patagonia....

. There, both he and Dreblow were killed in fatal crash near the Brazo Rico, part of Lake Argentino

Lake Argentino

Lago Argentino is a lake in the Patagonian , at . It is the biggest freshwater lake in Argentina, with a surface area of . It has an average depth of , and a maximum depth of ....

, on January 28, 1931.

Honours and awards

The Gunther Plüschow Glacier in Tierra del Fuego is named in his memory.

Ottoman Medal of Arts and Science
Liyakat Medal (Ottoman Empire)
Iron Cross
Iron Cross
The 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....

(1914) First and Second Class
Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords
Knight's Cross Second Class of the Order of the Zähringer Lion
Order of the Zähringer Lion
The Order of the Zähringer Lion was instituted on 26 December 1812 by Karl, Grand Duke of Baden, in memory of the Dukes of Zähringen from whom he was descended.-Classes:It had five classes.*Grand Cross*Commander, 1st Class*Commander, 2nd Class...

with Oak Leaves and Swords
Military Merit Order
Military Merit Order (Bavaria)
The Bavarian Military Merit Order was established on July 19, 1866 by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It was the kingdom's main decoration for bravery and military merit for officers and higher-ranking officials. Civilians acting in support of the army were also made eligible for the decoration...

with Swords 4th class (Bavaria)
Military Merit Cross
Military Merit Cross (Mecklenburg-Schwerin)
The Military Merit Cross was established by Friedrich Franz II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin on August 5, 1848. Mecklenburg-Schwerin, a grand duchy located in northern Germany, was a member of the German Confederation and later the German Empire.In several respects, Mecklenburg-Schwerin's...

First and Second Classes (Mecklenburg)

Books by Plüschow

My escape from Donington Hall by Kapitänleutnant Gunther Plüschow, of the German Air Service; published by John Lane, Bodly Head Ltd., London, 1922; autobiographical book telling the story of (full title): My escape from Donington Hall
Donington Hall
Donington Hall is a house and residual estate in Castle Donington, North West Leicestershire, located close to the city of Derby. The Hall serves as the headquarters for airline BMI....

preceded by an account of the siege of Kiao-Chow in 1914;http://www.archive.org/details/myescapefromdoni00plrich(download)
Escape from England, Gunther Plüschow, Ripping Yarns.com, ISBN 1-904466-21-4, a 2004 English language reprint of My Escape from Donington Hall.
Segelfahrt ins Wunderland, Gunther Plüschow. Berlin: Ullstein Verlag, 1926.
Silberkondor über Feuerland, Gunther Plüschow. Berlin: Ullstein Verlag, 1929, new edition: Prager Bücher, ISBN 3-92576-907-2

Movies by Plüschow

Gunther Plüschow: Silberkondor über Feuerland, documentary, 1929.

Posthumously:

Ikarus, 1931
Fahrt ins Land der Wunder und Wolken, released after 1931

Literature about Plüschow

Litvachkes, Roberto (2006). Gunther Plüschow: Una Vida de Sueños, Aventuras y Desafíos por una Amor Imposible: La Patagonia! - Ein Leben voller Träume, Abenteuer und Herausforderungen, für eine unmögliche Liebe: Das unzähmbare Patagonien. German-English-Spanish-Portuguese with a DVD with the original film from G. Plüschow filmed in 1929, 127 minutes duration, ISBN 987-21760-1-9
Rippon, Anton (2009). Gunther Plüschow: Airman, Escaper and Explorer. ISBN 9781848841321
Whittaker, Robert E. (1994). Dragon Master: The Kaiser's One-Man Air Force in Tsingtau, China, 1914. ISBN 978-0-9639310-1-6

External links

(1914) First and Second Class

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