Emergency landing of Fokker D II on 13 October 1916, 3 p.m., south of the railroad line in Brühl on Solothurn city soil.
Airplane: Fokker D II, Serial Nr. 536/16, Aircraft type: Fighter plane, Hunting Squadron 16, used in the west, Base: Donaueschingen, Mission: Escort, event: Emergency landing after loss of orientation, Whereabouts: taken over by the Swiss Fliegerabteilung, in 1921 it was handed over to Gottlieb Batt in Bern After the weapons were removed, who registered it as CH-55 civil.
Crew / Pilot: First Lieutenant Otto Dessloch
Mixed up with Black Forest, during WWI a German fighter pilot got lost in the Solothurn region with his "Fokker". If you confuse the Jura with the Black Forest, you end up in the wrong place: that's what happened to a German fighter officer more than 100 years ago who was to become a General der Flieger during World War II. He touched down his fighter plane on Solothurn soil. In the air, there is not much distance between the Black Forest and the Solothurn area. This was noticed by a German fighter pilot who got Lost and finally landed near Solothurn, bringing a welcome addition to the Swiss air force with his modern fighter plane. The emergency landing occurred more than 100 years ago, on Oct. 13, 1916. The plane came in at 3 p.m. east of Hasenmatt over the Jura Mountains and then flew over the rooftops of Bellach at an altitude of barely 100 meters before landing 400 meters south of the railroad line in Brühl on Solothurn city soil. "In the black iron crosses, the nationality of the pilot was immediately and surely recognizable," wrote the "Solothurner Zeitung". The Fokker D II fighter, which had fired a few cartridges, was disembarked by Bavarian First Lieutenant Otto Dessloch (see box below). "It's not possible that I landed on Swiss soil," he is said to have shouted. He is said to have been really moved and depressed that he had lost his orientation to such an extent. According to his statements, he took off from Donaueschingen that Friday and was involved in an air battle with his unit over Belfort. During this fighting, Dessloch lost his orientation. He considered the mountain ranges below him - it was the Jura - to be the foothills of the Black Forest, the river to the south of them to be the Rhine, and the landscape beyond to be Switzerland. So he made sure that north of the river he landed on what he thought was German soil.
But the river was the Aare and the land north of it was Solothurn soil ... - Otto Dessloch was taken to the Hotel Krone and later interned in Thun. After a few months he could leave Switzerland again. The Fokker came to the Fliegertruppe in Dübendorf, where, according to the files, it was flown safely by the two well-known pilots Alfred Comte and Oskar Bider. In 1921, After the weapons were removed, it was transferred to Gottlieb Batt in Bern, who registered it as a CH-55 civilian. Otto Dessloch was the son of Oberforstmeister Heinrich Dessloch and his wife Babette, née Wagner. His brother Friedrich (1882-1952) proposed also embarked on a military career and was raised to the personal nobility with the award of the Military Order of Max Joseph. After graduating from high school, Dessloch joined the Bavarian Army's 5th Chevaulegers Regiment "Archduke Frederick of Austria" in Saargemünd on July 20, 1910, as an ensign. His promotion to lieutenant took place on October 23, 1912. Already in the first weeks of World War I he was severely wounded during a reconnaissance ride. After his recovery at the End of 1914, he volunteered for the air force, was trained as an aircraft observer and took part in numerous enemy flights as such during 1915. The following winter he was retrained as an airplane pilot with the Schleissheim Fliegerersatzabteilung. In February 1915 he was transferred to Feldfliegerabteilung 8, and from 1916 he was assigned to Jagdstaffel 16 in the west. Because Dessloch lost several front teeth in a crash in early 1916, his facial expression usually appears somewhat pinched in later photos. On October 13 of that year, he was forced to make an emergency landing in his Fokker D.II 536/16 after an aerial battle in neutral Switzerland and was interned for several months. After his repatriation in 1917, he was first squadron leader of Fighter Squadron 17 on the Western Front before becoming commander of Fliegerschule V in Gersthofen in the last year of the war. In 1919, Dessloch initially supported the Freikorps Epp in the suppression of the Munich Räterepublik with the volunteer Fliegerabteilung "Dessloch". Military flight operations continued until the victorious powers finally forced their cessation on the basis of the Versailles Peace Treaty. Subsequently, Dessloch was first retrained as an intelligence officer and in 1921 was commissioned into the Reichswehr as a cavalry captain and eskadron commander in the 17th (Bavarian) Reiter Regiment, as well as being temporarily used as a site commander in Ansbach. In 1925, Dessloch and the team of his regiment were victors in the great army patrol ride in Berlin. As part of the covert rearmament of the Reichswehr, Dessloch took part in secret flying training at Lipetsk in the Soviet Union in 1926/27. Also in 1927, he was detached to the staff of the 7th (Bavarian) Division and in 1932 was promoted to major on the staff in the 18th Reiter Regiment. When the reconstruction of a German air force began After the Nazi takeover of power in 1933 as part of the rearmament of the Wehrmacht, Dessloch transferred to the Luftwaffe and became commander of the Cottbus Aircraft Pilot School on December 1, 1934. From 1935 to 1938, he was successively commodore of two fighter squadrons, and from March 1, 1936, colonel and commodore of Fighter Squadron 155. On December 1, 1939, he was appointed major general and commander of the 6th Flieger Division.
World War II:
After the start of World War II, Dessloch received the appointment of Commanding General of the II Flak Corps on October 3, 1939, despite his comparatively low rank. With this unit he supported Army Group B during the Western campaign in 1940. The Flak was able to achieve great successes, especially in ground combat operations against enemy tanks. For this he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross at the End of June and promoted to lieutenant general on July 19. From 1941 to 1942, Dessloch's corps took part in the war against the Soviet Union in the central section of the Eastern Front. Promoted to General der Flieger on January 1, 1942, he commanded the I Flak Corps on the southern front as Commanding General from May Eastern Front. Here, during the winter of 1942/43, he was simultaneously commander of Luftwaffe Command Caucasus (later renamed Luftwaffe Command Kuban). On June 11, 1943, Dessloch succeeded Wolfram von Richthofen, who had been transferred to Italy, as commander-in-chief of Luftflotte 4 and was promoted to colonel general. When the German Western Front collapsed in France in the summer of 1944 and Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle was relieved as Commander-in-Chief of Luftflotte 3, Hermann Göring appointed Dessloch as his successor. The new commander-in-chief had only been in office a few days when he received orders from Hitler himself to carry out a bombing raid on Paris, which had just been liberated, with all the aircraft still available. After only a month in the West, Dessloch returned to his old command of Luftflotte 4 on the Eastern Front in September 1944, which he retained until a few days before the End of the war. At the End of April 1945, he succeeded Ritter von Greim at the helm of Luftflotte 6, which was responsible for almost all still operational air forces in the Reich. After being an Allied prisoner of war until 1948, Dessloch devoted the remaining years of his life primarily to equestrian sports.
Awards :
Bavarian Military Order of Merit IV. Class with swords
Prussian Aircraft Observer Badge
Wounded 1918 badge in black
Clasps to EK II and EK I 1940
Cross of honor for front-line fighters 1934
four times mentioned in the Wehrmacht report 1943 and 1944
Flugzeugführer-Beobachterabzeichen in gold with diamonds
Romanian Commander's Cross with War Decoration and Swords
Service Award I. Class 1936
Reichssportabzeichen in silver
Rider badge in gold
Eastern Medal 1942
Cuban shield
Promotions :
07/1910 Fahnenjunker
03/1911 Fähnrich
10/1912 Lieutenant
03/1916 First Lieutenant
07/1921 Captain of the Guard
06/1932 Major
10/1934 Lieutenant-Colonel
04/1936 Colonel
01/1939 Major General
07/1940 Lieutenant General
01/1942 General of Anti-Aircraft Artillery
03/1944 Colonel General
Identity clarified: Dessloch, not Essloch
A full 100 years after the events, it was possible, with the help of the Internet, to find out the exact identities of the two pilots : The "Solothurner Zeitung" wrote of the Bavarian "Chevauleger- Oberleutnant Otto Essloch". During the research it had to be found out that it was a misprint of the name. Online the Bavarian pilot officer Otto Dessloch is to be found. The naming of the rank and his regiment is identical with the information in the "Solothurner Zeitung", except for the missing D in the last name. Wikipedia even mentions his landing in neutral Switzerland in October 1916. Dessloch was born in Bamberg in 1889 and joined the Bavarian 5th Chevaulegers Regiment in 1910, but joined the fighter pilots as a first lieutenant in 1916. In 1917 he became commander of a fighter squadron and, in the last year of the war, of a flying school. He, was highly decorated in World War II and was ultimately a colonel general in the Air Force. He died in Munich in 1977.
Source: Solothurner Zeitung P. Brotschi and Wikipedia
Otto Dessloch
