Karl Gallwitz

Karl Gallwitz
Born	18 August 1895 Sigmaringen, Germany
Died	17 May 1984(1984-05-17) (aged 88) Göttingen, Germany
Allegiance	German Empire
Service/branch	Luftstreitkräfte
Rank	Leutnant
Unit	FAA 231, FA 37, Jasta 29, Jasta 2
Awards	Iron Cross First and Second Class

Leutnant Karl Gallwitz was a World War I flying ace credited with ten aerial victories.^[1]

Early life

Karl Gallwitz was born in Sigmaringen, the German Empire, in 1895.^[1] He visited the Gymnasium-school in Nordhausen.

Aerial service

A Roland D.III, as flown by Karl Gallwitz.

Gallwitz originally flew a Roland D.III for artillery cooperation units on the Russian Front, shooting down two observation balloons with FA 37, before a brief assignment to Jasta 29. On 24 August 1917, he joined Jasta Boelcke in France. He scored three times in October; the last one, on the 27th, was over Arthur Rhys-Davids. He started over again in 1918, scoring five more times, including bringing down British aces Robert Kirby Kirkman and John Herbert Hedley. Gallwitz finished out his tally of ten on 21 April 1918,^[2] and crashed soon thereafter. Once he recuperated from his injuries, he was assigned to Inspekteur der Flieger.^[1]

Postwar

From 1919 he studied Mechanical engineering in Braunschweig, Danzig and Stuttgart.

He later was a professor for agricultural machinery at the university of Göttingen, where he taught from 1936 to 1965.

Sources of information

References

• Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps 1914 - 1918 Norman L. R. Franks, et al. Grub Street, 1993. ISBN 0-948817-73-9, ISBN 978-0-948817-73-1.