Josef Kammhuber
Encyclopedia
Josef Kammhuber was a Career Officer in the German Air Force, and is best known as the first General of the Night Fighters in the Luftwaffe
during World War II. He is credited with setting up the first truly successful night fighter
defense system, the so-called Kammhuber Line
, but a detailed knowledge of the system provided to the Royal Air Force
by British military intelligence allowed them to render it ineffective. Personal battles between himself and Erhard Milch
, director of the Reich Air Ministry
, eventually led to his dismissal in 1943. After the war, he returned to the military in Germany's Federal Defense Force.
, Bavaria
, the son of a farmer. When World War I started he was 18 and joined a Bavarian engineer battalion. He experienced the Battle of Verdun
in 1916, and was promoted to second lieutenant in 1917. He was allowed to remain in German's tiny post-war army, and in 1925 was promoted to first lieutenant. Between October 1926 and September 1928, he received Division-level leadership training and was promoted to captain
. This was followed by pilot training through September 1929, and during 1930 he was sent to the USSR for secret pilot training. On his return, he joined the staff of General Walter Wever, chief of staff of the Luftwaffe. Wever was in the process of attempting to set up a strategic bomber command; this effort, however, died in June 1936 when Wever was killed in an air crash. Kammhuber had continued to rise in the ranks, promoted to major
, lieutenant colonel
, and then colonel
in 1938.
After it became clear that the Royal Air Force
was starting a massive aircraft building program, Adolf Hitler
decided to match their expansion and proposed a program worth about 60 billion Reichsmarks (RM). The German aircraft industry was incapable of matching this sort of request, due to both construction and material shortages, and the leadership within the Luftwaffe realized it was impossible. The chiefs of staff, Jeschonnek
, Kammhuber and Stumpff
, then put forth Kammhuber's own plan for about 20 billion RM, production levels which they felt they could meet. Milch organised a meeting between them and Hermann Göring
, head of the Luftwaffe, in which Göring said that Hitler's programme should be carried out as planned, confident that "somehow" they could meet his quotas.
(the lowest general officer rank), he was assigned as chief-of-staff of Luftflotte 2
, and was in this position at the start of the war in September. On 11 January 1940, he was cashiered by Hitler personally because of the Mechelen Incident
. He was transferred to the Western Front where he became Geschwaderkommodore
of KG 51
, a tactical bomber unit. During the French campaign he was shot down and captured, and interned in a French POW camp at the age of 44. He was released at the end of the Battle of France
in July 1940, and returned to Germany.
Once again an officer of the Luftwaffe's Generalstab, in July 1940 he was placed in command of coordinating flak, searchlight and radar units. At the time they were all under separate command and had no single reporting chain, so much of the experience of the different units was not being shared. The result was the XII. Fliegerkorps
, a new dedicated night-fighting command. At this time, Kammhuber was promoted to Lieutenant General
.
He organized the night fighting units into a chain known to the British as the Kammhuber Line
, in which a series of radar
stations with overlapping coverage were layer three deep from Denmark to the middle of France, each covering a zone about 32 km long (north-south) and 20 km wide (east-west). Each control center was known as a Himmelbett (4-poster bed)
zone, consisting of a Freya radar
with a range of about 100 km, a number of searchlights spread through the cell, and one primary and one backup night fighter
assigned to the cell. RAF bombers flying into Germany or France would have to cross the line at some point, and the radar would direct a searchlight to illuminate the plane. Once this had happened other manually-controlled searchlights would also pick up the plane, and the night fighter would be directed to intercept of the now-lit bomber. However, demands by the burgomaster
s (Bürgermeister) in Germany led to the recall of the searchlights to the major cities.
Later versions of the Himmelbett added two Würzburg radar
s, with a range of about 30 km. Unlike the early-warning Freya radar, Würzburgs were accurate (and complex) tracking radars. One would be locked onto the night fighter as soon as it entered the cell. After the Freya picked up a target the second Würzburg would lock onto it, thereby allowing controllers in the Himmelbett center to get continual readings on the positions of both planes, controlling them to a visual interception. To aid in this, a number of the night fighters were fitted with a short-range infrared
device known as Spanner, but these proved almost useless in practice.
Another tactic that proved effective was to send their own planes to England while the raids were taking off or landing. Radio operators listening to the RAF bomber frequencies were able to recognize the start of a raid, and the raiding force of about 30 night fighters would be sent over the RAF airbases to shoot down the bombers as they took off or landed. By the beginning of October the night intruder force had claimed a hundred kills but on October 13 Hitler ordered the force sent to the Mediterranean despite their success.
British intelligence soon discovered the nature of the Kammhuber Line and started studying ways to defeat it. At the time RAF Bomber Command
sent in their planes one at a time in order to force the defenses to be spread as far apart as possible, meaning that any one aircraft would have to deal with little concentrated flak. However this also meant the Himmelbett centers were only dealing with perhaps one or two planes at a time, making their job much easier. At the urging of R.V. Jones
, Bomber Command reorganized their attacks against a single target at a time, sending all of the bombers in a single "stream", carefully positioned to fly right down the middle of a cell. Now the Himmelbett centers were facing hundreds of bombers, countering with only a few planes of their own. So successful was this tactic that the success rate of the night fighters dropped almost to zero.
Kammhuber started looking for solutions, and the result was the two-prong concept of Wilde Sau
(Wild Boar) and Zahme Sau
(Tame Boar). In the former, day fighters would be sent up and look for the bombers from the light of flares dropped from light bombers, searchlights set to a wide beam or illuminating lower clouds, or the fires on the ground below. The Wilde Sau force scored their most notable success during the British operation against the V-weapon centre Peenemünde
on 17 August 1943. de Havilland Mosquito
bombers had dropped target marker flares over Berlin and most of the night fighter force was sent there. When it was realized what was really happening, most of these aircraft were too far away and too slow to intercept the raid. The Focke-Wulf Fw 190
s being flown by the Wilde Sau forces were however able to reach them, and about 30 planes entered the third and last wave of the stream and shot down 29 of the 40 Avro Lancaster
bombers lost that raid.
Zahme Sau envisioned freeing the night fighters (now equipped with radar for the final stages of the interception) from the Himmelbett cells and allowing them to attack on their own. This was not all that easy, given the current generation of radars, but newer systems being developed would greatly increase the detection range and angles. In this role the existing cells created as part of the original Kammhuber Line would be used primarily for early warning and vectoring the planes to the stream.
At the same time Kammhuber continued to press for a new dedicated nightfighter design, eventually selecting the Heinkel He 219
Uhu after seeing it demonstrated in 1942. However Milch had decided to cancel the Uhu, and fighting broke out between the two. As a result in 1943 Kammhuber was transferred to Luftflotte 5
in Norway, in command of a handful of outdated planes. After the reorganization of the Luftwaffe in Scandinavia and the dissolution of Luftflotte 5, he became commanding general of the Luftwaffe in Norway (September-October 1944). In 1945 he was re-appointed to command of the night fighters, at this point a largely ceremonial position considering the state of the Third Reich at that time.
. These were later collected into book form (listed under References). In 1953 he published a definitive work on what he learned during the war as Problems in the Conduct of a Day and Night Defensive Air War. He later spent time in Argentina helping to train the air force under Juan Perón
.
Josef Kammhuber returned to Germany and joined the Luftwaffe while it was re-forming. He was promoted to Inspekteur der Bundesluftwaffe, serving in that role between 1956 and 1962. After the 1961 F-84 Thunderstreak incident
, when two West German Republic F-84F Thunderstreaks strayed into East German airspace and flew to West Berlin, Kammhuber and his superior, the West German Minister of Defence
, Franz-Josef Strauß, removed Oberstleutnant
Siegfried Barth, commander of the pilots unit, from his command. After protests, three official investigations and a formal complaint by Barth against Strauß, the former was reinstated in his position.
He died on Jan. 25, 1986, at age 89 in Munich
and is buried there.
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....
during World War II. He is credited with setting up the first truly successful night fighter
Night fighter
A night fighter is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility...
defense system, the so-called Kammhuber Line
Kammhuber Line
The Kammhuber Line was the name given to the German night air defense system established in July 1940 by Colonel Josef Kammhuber.- Description :...
, but a detailed knowledge of the system provided to the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
by British military intelligence allowed them to render it ineffective. Personal battles between himself and Erhard Milch
Erhard Milch
Erhard Milch was a German Field Marshal who oversaw the development of the Luftwaffe as part of the re-armament of Germany following World War I, and served as founding Director of Deutsche Luft Hansa...
, director of the Reich Air Ministry
Reich Air Ministry
thumb|300px|The Ministry of Aviation, December 1938The Ministry of Aviation was a government department during the period of Nazi Germany...
, eventually led to his dismissal in 1943. After the war, he returned to the military in Germany's Federal Defense Force.
Biography
Josef Kammhuber was born in TüßlingTüßling
Tüßling is a town in the district of Altötting in Bavaria in Germany....
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, the son of a farmer. When World War I started he was 18 and joined a Bavarian engineer battalion. He experienced the Battle of Verdun
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun was one of the major battles during the First World War on the Western Front. It was fought between the German and French armies, from 21 February – 18 December 1916, on hilly terrain north of the city of Verdun-sur-Meuse in north-eastern France...
in 1916, and was promoted to second lieutenant in 1917. He was allowed to remain in German's tiny post-war army, and in 1925 was promoted to first lieutenant. Between October 1926 and September 1928, he received Division-level leadership training and was promoted to captain
Captain (OF-2)
The army rank of captain is a commissioned officer rank historically corresponding to command of a company of soldiers. The rank is also used by some air forces and marine forces. Today a captain is typically either the commander or second-in-command of a company or artillery battery...
. This was followed by pilot training through September 1929, and during 1930 he was sent to the USSR for secret pilot training. On his return, he joined the staff of General Walter Wever, chief of staff of the Luftwaffe. Wever was in the process of attempting to set up a strategic bomber command; this effort, however, died in June 1936 when Wever was killed in an air crash. Kammhuber had continued to rise in the ranks, promoted to major
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. ...
, lieutenant colonel
Oberstleutnant
Oberstleutnant is a German Army and Air Force rank equal to Lieutenant Colonel, above Major, and below Oberst.There are two paygrade associated to the rank of Oberstleutnant...
, and then colonel
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...
in 1938.
After it became clear that the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
was starting a massive aircraft building program, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
decided to match their expansion and proposed a program worth about 60 billion Reichsmarks (RM). The German aircraft industry was incapable of matching this sort of request, due to both construction and material shortages, and the leadership within the Luftwaffe realized it was impossible. The chiefs of staff, Jeschonnek
Hans Jeschonnek
Hans Jeschonnek was a German Generaloberst and a Chief of the General Staff of Nazi Germany′s Luftwaffe during World War II. He committed suicide in August 1943.-Biography:...
, Kammhuber and Stumpff
Hans-Jürgen Stumpff
Hans-Jürgen Stumpff , was a German general of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.-Early life:Born in Kolberg, Stumpff entered the Brandenburgisches Grenadierregiment Nr. 12 "Prinz Karl von Preußen" as an ensign in 1907. Promoted to lieutenant in 1908, by the start of the First World War,...
, then put forth Kammhuber's own plan for about 20 billion RM, production levels which they felt they could meet. Milch organised a meeting between them and Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
, head of the Luftwaffe, in which Göring said that Hitler's programme should be carried out as planned, confident that "somehow" they could meet his quotas.
World War II
Kammhuber, realizing what was going on, put in a request in February 1939 for active duty. Promoted to Major GeneralMajor General
Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...
(the lowest general officer rank), he was assigned as chief-of-staff of Luftflotte 2
Luftflotte 2
Luftflotte 2 was one of the primary divisions of the German Luftwaffe in World War II. It was formed February 1, 1939 in Braunschweig and transferred to Italy on November 15, 1941...
, and was in this position at the start of the war in September. On 11 January 1940, he was cashiered by Hitler personally because of the Mechelen Incident
Mechelen Incident
The Mechelen Incident of 10 January 1940, also known as the Mechelen affair, was an event during the Phoney War. A German aircraft with an officer on-board carrying the plans for Fall Gelb , a German attack on the Low Countries, crash-landed in neutral Belgium near Vucht, in the modern-day...
. He was transferred to the Western Front where he became Geschwaderkommodore
Geschwaderkommodore
Geschwaderkommodore is a Luftwaffe position , originating during World War II, that is the equivalent of a RAF Group Commander or USAF Wing Commander. A Geschwaderkommodore is usually of Oberstleutnant or Oberst rank...
of KG 51
Kampfgeschwader 51
Kampfgeschwader 51 "Edelweiss" was a Luftwaffe bomber unit during World War II. The unit began forming in December 1939. The unit operated the Dornier Do 17, Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 88 light and medium bombers...
, a tactical bomber unit. During the French campaign he was shot down and captured, and interned in a French POW camp at the age of 44. He was released at the end of the Battle of France
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
in July 1940, and returned to Germany.
Once again an officer of the Luftwaffe's Generalstab, in July 1940 he was placed in command of coordinating flak, searchlight and radar units. At the time they were all under separate command and had no single reporting chain, so much of the experience of the different units was not being shared. The result was the XII. Fliegerkorps
12th Air Corps (Germany)
XII. Fliegerkorps was formed 1 August 1941 in Zeist from the Stab of the 1. Nachtjagd-Division and was redesignated as I. Jagdkorps on 15 September 1943. The unit was subordinated to Luftwaffenbefehlshaber Mitte.-References:Notes...
, a new dedicated night-fighting command. At this time, Kammhuber was promoted to Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages where the title of Lieutenant General was held by the second in command on the battlefield, who was normally subordinate to a Captain General....
.
He organized the night fighting units into a chain known to the British as the Kammhuber Line
Kammhuber Line
The Kammhuber Line was the name given to the German night air defense system established in July 1940 by Colonel Josef Kammhuber.- Description :...
, in which a series of radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
stations with overlapping coverage were layer three deep from Denmark to the middle of France, each covering a zone about 32 km long (north-south) and 20 km wide (east-west). Each control center was known as a Himmelbett (4-poster bed)
Four poster bed
A four-poster bed is a bed with four vertical columns, one in each corner, that support a tester, or upper panel. There are a number of antique four-poster beds extant dating to the 16th century and earlier; many of these early beds are highly ornate and are made from oak...
zone, consisting of a Freya radar
Freya radar
Freya was an early warning radar deployed by Germany during World War II, named after the Norse Goddess Freyja. During the war over a thousand stations were built. A naval version operating on a slightly different wavelength was also developed as Seetakt...
with a range of about 100 km, a number of searchlights spread through the cell, and one primary and one backup night fighter
Night fighter
A night fighter is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility...
assigned to the cell. RAF bombers flying into Germany or France would have to cross the line at some point, and the radar would direct a searchlight to illuminate the plane. Once this had happened other manually-controlled searchlights would also pick up the plane, and the night fighter would be directed to intercept of the now-lit bomber. However, demands by the burgomaster
Burgomaster
Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or chairman of the executive council of a sub-national level of administration...
s (Bürgermeister) in Germany led to the recall of the searchlights to the major cities.
Later versions of the Himmelbett added two Würzburg radar
Würzburg radar
The Würzburg radar was the primary ground-based gun laying radar for both the Luftwaffe and the German Army during World War II. Initial development took place before the war, entering service in 1940. Eventually over 4,000 Würzburgs of various models were produced...
s, with a range of about 30 km. Unlike the early-warning Freya radar, Würzburgs were accurate (and complex) tracking radars. One would be locked onto the night fighter as soon as it entered the cell. After the Freya picked up a target the second Würzburg would lock onto it, thereby allowing controllers in the Himmelbett center to get continual readings on the positions of both planes, controlling them to a visual interception. To aid in this, a number of the night fighters were fitted with a short-range infrared
Infrared
Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...
device known as Spanner, but these proved almost useless in practice.
Another tactic that proved effective was to send their own planes to England while the raids were taking off or landing. Radio operators listening to the RAF bomber frequencies were able to recognize the start of a raid, and the raiding force of about 30 night fighters would be sent over the RAF airbases to shoot down the bombers as they took off or landed. By the beginning of October the night intruder force had claimed a hundred kills but on October 13 Hitler ordered the force sent to the Mediterranean despite their success.
British intelligence soon discovered the nature of the Kammhuber Line and started studying ways to defeat it. At the time RAF Bomber Command
RAF Bomber Command
RAF Bomber Command controlled the RAF's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. During World War II the command destroyed a significant proportion of Nazi Germany's industries and many German cities, and in the 1960s stood at the peak of its postwar military power with the V bombers and a supplemental...
sent in their planes one at a time in order to force the defenses to be spread as far apart as possible, meaning that any one aircraft would have to deal with little concentrated flak. However this also meant the Himmelbett centers were only dealing with perhaps one or two planes at a time, making their job much easier. At the urging of R.V. Jones
Reginald Victor Jones
Reginald Victor Jones, CH CB CBE FRS, was a British physicist and scientific military intelligence expert who played an important role in the defence of Britain in -Education:...
, Bomber Command reorganized their attacks against a single target at a time, sending all of the bombers in a single "stream", carefully positioned to fly right down the middle of a cell. Now the Himmelbett centers were facing hundreds of bombers, countering with only a few planes of their own. So successful was this tactic that the success rate of the night fighters dropped almost to zero.
Kammhuber started looking for solutions, and the result was the two-prong concept of Wilde Sau
Wilde Sau
Wilde Sau was the term given by the Luftwaffe, during World War II, to the technique by which British night bombers were mainly engaged by single-seat fighter planes.- Origins :...
(Wild Boar) and Zahme Sau
Zahme Sau
Zahme Sau was a night fighter intercept tactic introduced by the German Luftwaffe in 1943. At the indication of a forthcoming raid, the fighters were be scrambled and collected together to orbit one of several radio beacons throughout Germany, ready to be directed en masse into the bomber stream...
(Tame Boar). In the former, day fighters would be sent up and look for the bombers from the light of flares dropped from light bombers, searchlights set to a wide beam or illuminating lower clouds, or the fires on the ground below. The Wilde Sau force scored their most notable success during the British operation against the V-weapon centre Peenemünde
Peenemünde
The Peenemünde Army Research Center was founded in 1937 as one of five military proving grounds under the Army Weapons Office ....
on 17 August 1943. de Havilland Mosquito
De Havilland Mosquito
The de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito was a British multi-role combat aircraft that served during the Second World War and the postwar era. It was known affectionately as the "Mossie" to its crews and was also nicknamed "The Wooden Wonder"...
bombers had dropped target marker flares over Berlin and most of the night fighter force was sent there. When it was realized what was really happening, most of these aircraft were too far away and too slow to intercept the raid. The Focke-Wulf Fw 190
Focke-Wulf Fw 190
The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger was a German Second World War single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank in the late 1930s. Powered by a radial engine, the 190 had ample power and was able to lift larger loads than its well-known counterpart, the Messerschmitt Bf 109...
s being flown by the Wilde Sau forces were however able to reach them, and about 30 planes entered the third and last wave of the stream and shot down 29 of the 40 Avro Lancaster
Avro Lancaster
The Avro Lancaster is a British four-engined Second World War heavy bomber made initially by Avro for the Royal Air Force . It first saw active service in 1942, and together with the Handley Page Halifax it was one of the main heavy bombers of the RAF, the RCAF, and squadrons from other...
bombers lost that raid.
Zahme Sau envisioned freeing the night fighters (now equipped with radar for the final stages of the interception) from the Himmelbett cells and allowing them to attack on their own. This was not all that easy, given the current generation of radars, but newer systems being developed would greatly increase the detection range and angles. In this role the existing cells created as part of the original Kammhuber Line would be used primarily for early warning and vectoring the planes to the stream.
At the same time Kammhuber continued to press for a new dedicated nightfighter design, eventually selecting the Heinkel He 219
Heinkel He 219
The Heinkel He 219 Uhu was a night fighter that served with the German Luftwaffe in the later stages of World War II. A relatively sophisticated design, the He 219 possessed a variety of innovations, including an advanced VHF-band intercept radar...
Uhu after seeing it demonstrated in 1942. However Milch had decided to cancel the Uhu, and fighting broke out between the two. As a result in 1943 Kammhuber was transferred to Luftflotte 5
Luftflotte 5
Luftflotte 5 was one of the primary divisions of the German Luftwaffe in World War II. It was formed 12 April 1940 in Hamburg for the invasion of Norway....
in Norway, in command of a handful of outdated planes. After the reorganization of the Luftwaffe in Scandinavia and the dissolution of Luftflotte 5, he became commanding general of the Luftwaffe in Norway (September-October 1944). In 1945 he was re-appointed to command of the night fighters, at this point a largely ceremonial position considering the state of the Third Reich at that time.
Postwar
After the fall of the Reich in May 1945, Kammhuber was held by the United States, but he was released in April 1948 without charges being brought against him. He wrote a series of monographs for the U.S. Department of Defense on the conduct of the German defences against the RAF and USAAFUnited States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....
. These were later collected into book form (listed under References). In 1953 he published a definitive work on what he learned during the war as Problems in the Conduct of a Day and Night Defensive Air War. He later spent time in Argentina helping to train the air force under Juan Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
.
Josef Kammhuber returned to Germany and joined the Luftwaffe while it was re-forming. He was promoted to Inspekteur der Bundesluftwaffe, serving in that role between 1956 and 1962. After the 1961 F-84 Thunderstreak incident
1961 F-84 Thunderstreak incident
The 1961 F-84 Thunderstreak incident, occurring on 14 September 1961, was an incident during the Cold War, in which two Republic F-84F Thunderstreak fighter-bombers of the JaBoG 32 of the West German Luftwaffe crossed into East German airspace because of a navigational error, before landing at...
, when two West German Republic F-84F Thunderstreaks strayed into East German airspace and flew to West Berlin, Kammhuber and his superior, the West German Minister of Defence
Federal Ministry of Defence (Germany)
The Federal Ministry of Defence is a top-level federal agency, headed by the Federal Minister of Defence as a member of the Cabinet of Germany...
, Franz-Josef Strauß, removed Oberstleutnant
Oberstleutnant
Oberstleutnant is a German Army and Air Force rank equal to Lieutenant Colonel, above Major, and below Oberst.There are two paygrade associated to the rank of Oberstleutnant...
Siegfried Barth, commander of the pilots unit, from his command. After protests, three official investigations and a formal complaint by Barth against Strauß, the former was reinstated in his position.
He died on Jan. 25, 1986, at age 89 in 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...
and is buried there.
Awards
- Eisernes KreuzIron 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....
{1914} 2. and 1. Klasse - Military Merit Order (Bavaria)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...
IV Klasse with swords - Honour Cross for CombatantsHonour Cross for CombatantsThe Honour Cross for Combatants was one of three versions of the Cross of Honor to be awarded.- Recipients :* Walther von Brauchitsch* Wilhelm Keitel* Günther von Kluge* Erwin Rommel* Albert Kesselring* Erwin von Witzleben* Erich von Manstein...
- Service awardService awardA Service award was awarded by a country to a soldier or civilian for long service. It is comparable to a service medal but can be awarded to civilians as well as soldiers.-Kingdom of Bavaria:*Königliches Ludwigsorden for 50 years' service...
1st Klasse for 4 (silver medal) - Spange with the Eisernes Kreuz II and I KlasseClasp to the Iron CrossThe Clasp to the Iron Cross was a metal medal clasp displayed on the uniforms of German Wehrmacht personnel who had been awarded the Iron Cross in World War I. It was displayed on the uniforms of many high ranking officers during World War II as most had also served in World War I...
- Ritterkreuz des Eisernen KreuzesKnight'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...
(9 Jul 1941) - 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...
Air to Ground Support Fighters - Italian orders of meritItalian orders of meritThere are five orders of knighthood awarded in recognition of service to the Italian Republic. Below these sit a number of other decorations, associated and otherwise, that do not confer knighthoods...
10 March 1958 - Legion of MeritLegion of MeritThe Legion of Merit is a military decoration of the United States armed forces that is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements...
Commander 2 August 1961 - BundesverdienstkreuzBundesverdienstkreuzThe Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany is the only general state decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has existed since 7 September 1951, and between 3,000 and 5,200 awards are given every year across all classes...
21 August 1962 - Mentioned three times in the WehrmachtberichtWehrmachtberichtThe Wehrmachtbericht was a daily radio report on the Großdeutscher Rundfunk of Nazi Germany, published by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht regarding the military situation on all fronts of World War II....
on 10 April 1941, 27 March 1942 and 31 March 1942