Early A.M. May 1,1945 Berlin-Wannsee Sortie

[Mike36]

Oberst Joachim Helbig leads a flight of nine Fiesler Storch aircraft over the Berlin-Wannsee area in order to rendezvous with and evacuate at least ten prominent members of the German government.The flight returned to Schwerin/Zippendorf having made no contact with the evacuees.Who ordered this and what is the story behind this special mission?

Mike

[panzermahn]

Oberst Joachim Helbig leads a flight of nine Fiesler Storch aircraft over the Berlin-Wannsee area in order to rendezvous with and evacuate at least ten prominent members of the German government.The flight returned to Schwerin/Zippendorf having made no contact with the evacuees.Who ordered this and what is the story behind this special mission?

Mike

Hi Mike

I never heard a sortie of nine Fieseler Storch aircraft to Berlin-Wannsee on May1 1945. The only successful landing of a Fieseler Storch aircraft in Berlin was Hanna Reitsch with General von Greim who landed at the East-West Axis at the Unter den Linden park and managed to take off again under heavy fire from Soviet flak. Before that it was Albert Speer who managed to flew in to greet his Fuehrer farewell and then escaped from the conflagaration of Berlin. Fieseler Storch's are very slow aircraft and they would have been noticed by the Soviets if such a large group of them flew together.

I knew a couple of Gotha gliders and Junkers Ju 52 transports crash-landed during the Battle of Berlin carrying Hitler Youth and naval marines reinforcements but that's just about it.

regards
Panzermahn

[Mike36]

It's true. Helbig at the time was acting Kdr. of I./LG 1. He was co-located at the time with Stab/14. Fliegerdivision in billets at Schwerin-Zippendorf and it was the Fl.Div. Kdr., Gen.Maj. Fürst von Reuß, who gave him the order. The 10 Störche were made ready at Schwerin-Görries airfield and the mission scheduled for dusk on 30 April. Helbig changed the time to after 0100 hours on 1 May because of the masses of Soviet aircraft that were operating over Berlin during daylight hours. The mission was "......to land in Berlin-Wannsee on the Potsdamer Chaussee in the direction of Potsdam-Glienicker Bridge to pick up important documents, orders, papers and probably two VIP 'couriers' and fly them out." The 10 Störche had been fitted with ausiliary fuel tanks and flame dampeners on both sides of the engines. At the final briefing at 1900 hrs., General der Flieger Fiebig showed up to announce the death of the Führer the day before and to inform each of the 10 pilots that they were free to decide once over the landing area whether to complete the mission or not, provided at least two of the Fi 156s did land and pick up the two VIP "couriers". Fiebig gave the go-ahead for a take-off time of 2200 hrs.

On arriving over the landing area, the Störche were met with intense light AA fire coming from Russian batteries around the S-Bahnhof Wannsee, smouldering fires and a thick, foggy haze over the Potsdamer Chaussee that only worsened as Helbig and the other pilots circled over Wannsee at 250 – 700 meters for almost two hours. Landing was impossible. One by one, the Störche broke off due to fuel considerations and headed back toward Schwerin. None had landed.

You can speculate who ordered the mission and who the two VIP “couriers” were, but Martin Bormann and Artur Axmann had both left the Bunker and were headed in that direction at that time. It was probably set up by Bormann and Gen. Krebs and they were carrying papers and orders intended for the Dönitz government being set up in Mürwik in Schleswig-Holstein at that time.

Source:
Taghon, Peter. Die Geschichte des Lehrgeschwaders 1: Dokumentation über Aufstellung, Ausrüstung, Einsatz und Ende eines Kampfgeschwaders der Luftwaffe, Zusammengestellt aus Kriegstagebüchern, Dokumenten und Berichten.
Band 1: 1936 – 1942 (Zweibrücken, 2004).
Band 2: 1942 – 1945 (Zweibrücken, 2004). pp.435-37.

Larry D.

P.S. If you want to post this reply under my name on the forum, you have my permission to do so.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Top
Thank you for the fascinating info Lorenz.

Mike

[phylo_roadking]

The mission was "......to land in Berlin-Wannsee on the Potsdamer Chaussee in the direction of Potsdam-Glienicker Bridge to pick up important documents, orders, papers and probably two VIP 'couriers' and fly them out."

Remember - not ONLY did Donitz not confirm receipt of Hitler's last will and testament...as he simply didn't get it! - and it's know Hitler was waiting on it arriving at it's destination before killing himself...but Donitz ALSO didn't reply to the first telegram from Berlin informing him he had succeeded Hitler as Fuhrer. Therefore IF any such flight was planned - I'd guess the important docs were intended to be a SECOND copy of the last will and testament and its couriers.

[panzermahn]

Hi Mike

Thanks for the additional interesting info


Panzermahn

[Mike36]

What fascinates me the most Panzermahn is WHO ordered this mission,WHAT TIME was it ordered and WHY.

There are some XTREMLY interesting questions here.


And what a sight was seen by those pilots in Helbig's flight.Amazing.

Mike

[phylo_roadking]

Well...at the same time as there's a LOT of evidence that Hugh Trevor-Roper's and the Soviets' account of events on the 29th and 30th is wrong....there's anecdotal evidence that Hitler was alive as late as the evening of the 1st...

[Simon_G]

Hitler's Luftwaffe adjutant count Felix von Below flew from Bavaria to Berlin after it was cut off. he was one of seven couriers carrying Hitler's last will and testament. Von Below flew back out of Berlin on Hitler's orders to have Goering arrested. Hitler also ordered Bormann to escape with his last will and testament.

The skull dug up from Invaliden Strasse, Ulap fairgrounds in Berlin in 1972 have been confirmed by DNA tests as Bormann's however there were no skeletal injuries and several of the teeth were repaired by post war dental techniques. Also teeth known to have been intact in April 1945 were missing and their sockets (avioli) were grown over by bone which could not have occurred by May 1945. Also more importantly the skull dug up at Berlin was caked with red volcanic soil and there are simply no volcanoes in Berlin!

It is known that a number of Bv138 flying boats operated by KG200 were ordered to evacuate VIPs from an island in lake Havel, northwest of the Fuhrer bunker. This also happens to be the direction of a breakout by several Royal Tiger tanks along with escapees from the bunker. There are declassified ULTRA decrypts of orders for evacuation by flying boats from these lakes. It would not be too hard to track down and read these ULTRA decrypts.

In 2004 93 year old Haupt Ernst Koenig disclosed to British newspapers that on 1 May 1945, he was ordered to prepare a Bv222 flying boat for a mission to Greenland and to await the arrival of Nazi VIPs. A Bv222 had been used to fly spare parts to a FW200 with undercarriage damage on the ice next to a weather troop on Franz Josef Land in 1944. Another weather troop had also been evacuated from Greenland by the Do-26 V6 flying boat in 1944.

The Bv222 C12 aircraft captured in Norway and flown back to the UK was in all white camouflage.

[jerijerod]

The Greenland plan had been a pipe dream of some of the Nazi elite but Hitler himself dismissed it and was in favour of holding out in the bunker.
It doesn't surprise me that a plane was actually readied.

As for Von Below... I thought it was colonel Nikalaus von Below and he'd been in Berlin for some time and escaped on foot with a few other bunker staff but quickly threw away his letters and headed for his home and wife.... I'd have to refer to my copy of [i]at Hitlers side[/i] Von Below's book which i don't have with me.

All the best

Chris

[Mike36]

The mission was "......to land in Berlin-Wannsee on the Potsdamer Chaussee in the direction of Potsdam-Glienicker Bridge to pick up important documents, orders, papers and probably two VIP 'couriers' and fly them out."

It appears that this was solely the intent of the mission and that the additional aircraft were a measure to insure its success.The courier or couriers that made it to Wannsee or Potsdam area were able to access their communication equipment and apparently had the clout and importance to instigate the special flight.

Mike

[Mike36]

However,we know that the flight was originaly scheduled for dusk on April 30.It would have taken some time to prepare the 10 Storch with auxiliary fuel tanks and flame dampeners.Most likely the aircraft had been prepared for this mission prior to Hitler's death on the afternoon of April 30.Perhaps as early as April 29 or even sooner.

That are still interesting questions as to the ORIGINAL INTENT of this flight.Perhaps a study of the wireless communications which is beyond me.

Mike