Hans-Joachim Marseille was a German fighter pilot during World War II. A flying ace, he is noted for his aerial battles during the North African Campaign.
Background
Hans-Joachim "Jochen" Walter Rudolf Siegfried Marseille was born to Charlotte (maiden name: Charlotte Marie Johanna Pauline Gertrud Riemer) and Hauptmann Siegfried Georg Martin Marseille, a family with paternal Huguenot ancestry, in Berlin-Charlottenburg Berliner Strasse 164 on 13 December 1919 at 11:45 pm.
When Hans-Joachim was still a young child his parents divorced and his mother subsequently married a police official named Reuter. He initially assumed the name of his stepfather at school (a matter he had a difficult time accepting) but he reverted to his father's name of Marseille in adulthood. Hans-Joachim also had a difficult relationship with his natural father whom he refused to visit in Hamburg for some time after the divorce. Eventually he attempted a reconciliation with his father, who subsequently introduced him to the nightlife that was to initially hamper his military career during his early years in the Luftwaffe. However, the rapproachment with his father did not last and he did not see him again thereafter.
Education
Hans-Joachim attended the 12th Volksschule Berlin (1926–1930), and from the age of 10, the Prinz Heinrich Gymnasium in Berlin-Schöneberg (1930–1938).
He was considered to be a lazy student at first, and was constantly playing pranks and getting into trouble. Toward the end of his school years Hans-Joachim started to take his education more seriously and qualified as one of the youngest (at 17 years, six months) to achieve his Abitur, graduating in early 1938. Hans-Joachim then expressed his desire to become a "flying officer."
Career
While serving in Libya, Hans-Joachim had several sorties during which he performed superbly, but his achievements on 1 Sep 1942 would go down as his greatest in his short career. On that day, he flew three sorties and had 17 confirmed kills. While his squadron mates celebrated with Hans-Joachim, who was extremely exhausted from the over-excitement, German leaders from the highest ranks called in to congratulate him. For his achievements on this day, he was nominated to receive the coveted Diamonds to his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross medal. While he knew it was a great honor, he knew that once he had his hands on this decoration, there was a good chance that he would be recalled to Germany to serve in morale-raising roles. Such a transfer would remove him from his fellow pilots and his good friend Mathias.
On 30 Sep 1942, Marseille's brilliant 158-kill career came to an end. After the engine of his Bf 109G fighter developed serious trouble, he bailed from the aircraft close to friendly territory under the watchful eyes of his squadron mates. To their horror, Marseille's fighter unexpected fell at a steep angle, the vertical stabilizer striking him across the chest and hip. He either was killed at that moment or was knocked unconscious; in either case, his parachute did not deploy, and he struck the ground at about 1142 hours at about 7 kilometers south of Sidi Abdel Rahman, Egypt. Franzisket, along with the squadron surgeon Dr. Winkelmann, were the first two to arrive on the scene, bringing Marseille's remains back to the base. Mathias was the first to greet them, having already heard the bad news. While the entire squadron was devastated, Mathias, despite having known Marseille only for a short time, was deeply depressed at the loss of a dear friend. Hans-Joachim was initially buried in a German military cemetery in Derna, Libya during a ceremony which was attended by leaders such as Albert Kesselring and Eduard Neumann. He was later re-interned at Tobruk, Libya. In 1989, a new grave marker and a new plaque was placed at his grave site; Marseille's surviving comrades, as well as Mathew "Mathias" Letulu, attended the ceremony.
Views
Marseille's performance as a fighter pilot shined brighter by the day, not only regularly scoring multiple kills during each sortie, but he also amazingly spent very little ammunition with each kill. Perhaps reflecting chivalrous values of a prior era, he always aimed at the engines of his victims and avoided shooting at the cockpits, so that his victims would have a greater chance of survival. On more than one occasion, as he noticed that his victims became wounded or could not see out of their cockpit windows, he would fly alongside the enemy aircraft in an attempt to guide his victims to a potential safe crash landing. He had also made several flights over enemy airfields, risking being shot down by anti-aircraft defenses in order to deliver messages about the fate of Allied pilots who were shot down in battle. Two such flights were made for Australian pilot Lieutenant Pat Byers, with the first flight made to inform his squadron mates that Byers was shot down but was under the care of German doctors, and the second flight delivering a message of condolence that Byers had passed away from his wounds several days later.
Personality
Marseille's first kill was achieved on 24 August 1940, merely two weeks after being assigned to a front line squadron, the victim was a British Hurricane Mk I fighter which he shot down over Kent, England, United Kingdom after having abandoned his wingman to pursue this target. After he returned from the mission, his commanding officer Oberleutnant Herbert Ihlefeld congratulated him on the first kill as well as reprimanded him for having abandoned his wingman. This would be the first of many exhibits of Marseille being a great fighter pilot yet a very poor team player. His rebelliousness continued while stationed in France. More than once, he stole his commanding officer's vehicle to drive into town to pick up girls. Even more daringly, he became romantically involved with the daughter of a local Nazi Party official; after the official had learned of it, Marseille only got away with it because his superior chose to play dumb with confronted with the party official. It was said that Marseille's bedroom conquests included a German general's wife, a Hungarian Countess, singer Nilla Pizzi, actress Zarah Leander, and many others. In 1941, Oberleutnant Johannes Steinhoff finally grew intolerant of the undisciplined Marseille and successfully transferred him to another unit in North Africa. In retrospect, this transfer allowed Marseille to change from a good fighter pilot to a larger-than-life figure. "If there had been girls in Africa, I do not think he would have had such success", Steinhoff would later say, concluding that the lack of girls, bars, and distractions of that type allowed him to concentrate on the war.