Mölders Werner @·AIRCRAFTUBE

  • Werner Mölders Werner Mölders
    Werner Mölders
  • Major Werner Mölders (1940) Major Werner Mölders (1940)
    Major Werner Mölders (1940)
  • In the cockpit<br>of his Bf 109 In the cockpit<br>of his Bf 109
    In the cockpit
    of his Bf 109
  • Condor Legion Bf 109<br>(Spain, 1938) Condor Legion Bf 109<br>(Spain, 1938)
    Condor Legion Bf 109
    (Spain, 1938)
  • Bf 109 E-3 downed in England<br>(1940, colourised) Bf 109 E-3 downed in England<br>(1940, colourised)
    Bf 109 E-3 downed in England
    (1940, colourised)
  • JG 51 (juin 1941) JG 51 (juin 1941)
    JG 51 (juin 1941)
  • Oberst Werner Mölders Oberst Werner Mölders
    Oberst Werner Mölders

Werner Mölders

Werner Mölders (18 March 1913 – 22 November 1941) was a German Luftwaffe fighter pilot and wing commander of the Second World War, and the most successful German ace of the Spanish Civil War. He was the first pilot in aviation history to be credited with 100 aerial victories, and he played a key role in developing the loose fighter tactics that led to the "finger-four" formation, later adopted by most air forces. Nicknamed "Vati" ("Daddy") by his men, he was killed at the age of 28, not in combat but as a passenger in an aircraft that crashed near Breslau.

Early life

Mölders was born in Gelsenkirchen, the third of four children of the teacher Victor Mölders and his wife Annemarie, née Riedel. His father, a reserve Leutnant, was killed in action in the Argonne Forest on 2 March 1915, and the family moved to his mother's parents' house in Brandenburg an der Havel. There the priest Erich Klawitter became his mentor and strengthened the Catholic faith that would mark his whole life. Mölders attended the Saldria Realgymnasium, was a keen rower, joined the Catholic youth movement Bund Neudeutschland and passed his Abitur in early 1931.

On 1 April 1931 he joined the army as an officer cadet with Infantry Regiment 2 at Allenstein, attended the military school in Dresden and was promoted to Fähnrich on 1 June 1933. When he applied to join the still clandestine air arm, he was first declared unfit for flying; he insisted and was finally granted a conditional clearance. Constantly suffering from air sickness, he overcame it through sheer willpower, completed his pilot training at Cottbus in 1934 and was commissioned Leutnant on 1 March 1934. He received his pilot's badge on 21 May 1935, was posted to I./JG 162 "Immelmann" on 1 July 1935, promoted to Oberleutnant on 1 April 1936 and appointed Staffelkapitän in March 1937, before serving as an instructor at Wiesbaden.

Spanish Civil War

Mölders volunteered for the Condor Legion, which supported General Franco's Nationalists, and landed at Cádiz on 14 April 1938. He was assigned to 3. Staffel of Jagdgruppe 88 (3./J 88), then commanded by Adolf Galland and still flying the Heinkel He 51 biplane, and took over the squadron on 24 May 1938 when Galland returned to Germany. Re-equipped with the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the unit fought over the Levante and Ebro fronts. Mölders scored his first victory on 15 July 1938 and his fourteenth and last on 3 November 1938, a Polikarpov I-16 "Rata"; his tally of 14 victories (four I-15 "Chatos" and ten I-16s) made him the top-scoring pilot of the Condor Legion. He was promoted to Hauptmann effective 1 October 1938, left Spain in December 1938 and was later awarded the Spanish Cross in Gold with Swords and Diamonds (6 June 1939).

Tactical innovations

Together with other Condor Legion pilots, Mölders abandoned the rigid three-aircraft "Kette" in favour of a loose formation built on the pair (Rotte), in which the leader attacked while his wingman protected his tail. Two pairs formed a Schwarm of four aircraft, staggered in width and height like the fingertips of an outstretched hand, hence the English name "finger-four". The formation improved all-round vision, mutual protection and the initiative of each pilot. Mölders is also often credited with the "cross-over turn". Back in Germany, he worked from December 1938 on the staff of the Inspector of Fighters at the Reich Air Ministry, where he helped write the new fighter doctrine.

World War II

Phoney War and Battle of France

At the outbreak of the war Mölders was Staffelkapitän of 1./JG 53 "Pik As". He claimed his first victory of the war, a French Curtiss H-75 (P-36), on 20 September 1939 and was soon given command of the newly formed III./JG 53. On 22 December 1939 he and Hans von Hahn shot down two Hurricanes, among the first of the type claimed by the Luftwaffe. By 10 May 1940 he had nine victories in this war. During the Battle of France his score rose rapidly; shot down over Sedan on 14 May, he bailed out unhurt, and on 29 May 1940 he became the first fighter pilot to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. On 5 June 1940, near Compiègne, he was shot down by a French Dewoitine D.520 flown by René Pomier-Layrargues, bailed out and was taken prisoner. Released after the armistice, he later obtained the lifting of the death sentence passed on a French soldier who had mistreated him during his captivity.

Battle of Britain

Promoted to Major on 19 July 1940, Mölders took command of Jagdgeschwader 51 on 26 July. Two days later, on his first mission over England as Kommodore, he was wounded in a dogfight with Spitfires of No. 74 Squadron, probably by its commander Adolph "Sailor" Malan, and managed to land his damaged Bf 109 in France. Back on operations on 7 August, he received the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross on 21 September 1940 after his 40th victory, the second recipient after Eduard Dietl. Throughout the summer he engaged in a famous scoring race with his friend and rival Adolf Galland. He was promoted to Oberstleutnant after his 50th victory on 25 October 1940 and ended the year with 55 victories. At the Rechlin test centre he also flew captured Spitfire and Hurricane fighters and wrote a lucid report comparing them with the Bf 109. By the time JG 51 was withdrawn from the Channel front in spring 1941, his score stood at 68.

Eastern Front

In June 1941 JG 51 was transferred to the central sector of the Eastern Front for Operation Barbarossa. On the first day of the invasion, 22 June 1941, Mölders received the Swords to his Knight's Cross. On 30 June, when his wing claimed more than 100 Soviet aircraft in a single day, he surpassed Manfred von Richthofen's World War I total of 80 victories. On 15 July 1941 he claimed his 100th and 101st victories, becoming the first fighter pilot in history to reach the 100 mark, and was the first member of the Wehrmacht to be awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds.

Inspector of Fighters

Promoted to Oberst on 20 July 1941, Mölders was banned from further combat flying for propaganda reasons: the regime could not afford to lose its most famous hero. At just 28 he was appointed Inspector of Fighters (Inspekteur der Jagdflieger) on 7 August 1941, a post responsible for the tactical doctrine and training of the fighter arm. He set up a forward command post at Chaplinka in southern Ukraine and toured the units in his Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, coordinating air support during the fighting for the Crimea. He nevertheless continued to fly unofficial missions; several of these victories were credited only in other pilots' logbooks, such as those he helped Herbert Kaiser to score against Il-2 attack aircraft on 9 November 1941.

Death

While inspecting units in the Crimea, Mölders was ordered back to Berlin to attend the state funeral of Generaloberst Ernst Udet. On 22 November 1941 he took off as a passenger in a Heinkel He 111 of KG 27. Approaching Breslau in a thunderstorm after an engine failure, the bomber crashed while attempting an emergency landing. Mölders, the pilot Oberleutnant Kolbe and the flight engineer Oberfeldwebel Hobbie were killed. He was given a state funeral in Berlin on 28 November 1941, with a eulogy by Hermann Göring, and was buried at the Invalidenfriedhof alongside Udet and Manfred von Richthofen. The same day JG 51 received the honour title "Mölders".

The "Mölders letter"

After his death, Sefton Delmer of the British Political Warfare Executive used the ace's reputation in a black propaganda operation: a forged letter attributed to Mölders, supposedly written to a Catholic provost, suggested that his Catholic faith had led him to oppose the Nazi regime. Air-dropped over Germany in large numbers, it embarrassed the authorities; Joseph Goebbels suspected Catholic circles, and a reward of 100,000 Reichsmark offered to find the author produced nothing.

Legacy

The post-war Bundeswehr honoured Mölders several times: the Lütjens-class destroyer D 186 "Mölders", christened at Bath (Maine) on 13 April 1968 and in service from 1969 to 2003, is now preserved at the German Naval Museum in Wilhelmshaven; a barracks at Visselhövede was named after him in 1972, and Jagdgeschwader 74 at Neuburg an der Donau bore his name from 1973. In 1998, however, the Bundestag decided that members of the Condor Legion should no longer be honoured, and after a study by the Military History Research Office the Ministry of Defence removed the name "Mölders" from JG 74 in 2005. His grave at the Invalidenfriedhof, restored in 1991, can still be seen.

Victory claims

Mölders is usually credited with 115 aerial victories: 14 in Spain and 101 in World War II (68 in the West and 33 on the Eastern Front), achieved in more than 300 combat missions. Detailed research by Mathews and Foreman lists 108 documented claims, plus about ten unconfirmed ones.

Awards

  • Spanish Cross in Gold with Swords and Diamonds (6 June 1939).
  • Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st Class.
  • Pilot/Observer Badge in Gold with Diamonds and Front Flying Clasp of the Luftwaffe in Gold with Diamonds.
  • Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (29 May 1940).
  • Oak Leaves (21 September 1940), Swords (22 June 1941) and Diamonds (July 1941) - first of 27 recipients of the Diamonds.
  • Mentioned several times in the Wehrmachtbericht.

References: Wikipedia (en) "Werner Mölders"; Deutsche Biographie.

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