Oberleutnant () is the highest lieutenant officer rank in the German-speaking armed forces of Germany (Bundeswehr), the Austrian Armed Forces, and the Swiss Armed Forces. Austria Germany In the German Army, it dates from the early 19th century. Trans ...

'' Henrich Claudius Kroll (3 November 1894 – 21 February 1930) Pour le Merite, Knight's Cross of the

Royal House Order of Hohenzollern The House Order of Hohenzollern (german: Hausorden von Hohenzollern or ') was a dynastic order of knighthood of the House of Hohenzollern awarded to military commissioned officers and civilians of comparable status. Associated with the various v ...

, Saxony's Albert Order Knight Second Class with Swords,

Iron Cross The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia est ...

First and Second Class, was a World War I

fighter ace A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace is varied, but is usually co ...

credited with 33 victories.The Aerodrome website page on Krol

Retrieved 22 October 2020.

Early life

Kroll was born in the village of Flatzby near

Flensburg Flensburg (; Danish, Low Saxon: ''Flensborg''; North Frisian: ''Flansborj''; South Jutlandic: ''Flensborre'') is an independent town (''kreisfreie Stadt'') in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the ...

, Germany, on 3 November 1894.''Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps, 1914–1918'', p. 150 He was the son of a school teacher. Kroll the younger also aspired to become a teacher. He passed his examinations at Kiel and was being credentialed as a teacher when World War I started. He was also active in athletics as a member of the Kiel sports club. He volunteered for service in the Queen Augusta Victoria infantry regiment, Fusilier Regiment No. 86, in Flensburg, on 6 August 1914. From there he transferred into Reserve Regiment No. 92. He earned an

Second Class, and was commissioned an officer in May 1915. He then applied for a transfer to the Air Service in January 1916.

Aerial service

Training and deployment

Kroll trained with Replacement Division 3 at Gotha. From there he went to ''Flieger-Abteilung 17'' based at Rethel, France, to fly the

Rumpler C.I Entering service in 1915, the Rumpler C.I, (company designation 5A 2), two-seater single-engine reconnaissance biplane, was one of the first German C-type aircraft, and also one of the longest serving in its class during World War I, being retired ...

. He was the only officer pilot in ''Flieger-Abteilung 17''; commonly, in these early days of aviation reconnaissance the observer was an officer and the pilot a non-commissioned "chauffeur". Following this practice, Kroll's observer was Lieutenant Holzhausen. In October, 1916, two new Albatros fighters were assigned to the unit, and Kroll started flying one occasionally. The unit was reorganized into Royal Prussian

Jagdstaffel 9 Royal Prussian Jagdstaffel 9 was a "hunting group" (fighter squadron) of the ''Luftstreitkräfte'', the air arm of the Imperial German Army during World War I. Although the squadron, and the ''Luftstreitkräfte'', were short-lived, they had great ...

, operating

Fokker E.III The Fokker E.III was the main variant of the ''Eindecker'' (literally meaning "one deck") fighter aircraft of World War I. It entered service on the Western Front in December 1915 and was also supplied to Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Design an ...

s. On 12 February 1917, Kroll was awarded the Iron Cross First Class. It was about this time that Kroll wrote about the difficulty of confirming victories: "It is difficult to get confirmation of a victory–especially the first one! It must be confirmed by our own ground troops ... this is even more difficult if hazy conditions prevail." René Dorme-1917

After being shot down and forced to land by a

Caudron The Société des Avions Caudron was a French aircraft company founded in 1909 as the Association Aéroplanes Caudron Frères by brothers Gaston and René Caudron. It was one of the earliest aircraft manufacturers in France and produced planes for ...

in November 1916, Kroll's first victory was on 1 May 1917, over a Spad. He downed four more Spads in May, his fifth victory being one of the most significant victories; on 25 May 1917, he shot down and killed the man who was then the second highest scoring ace in the French Air Force,

René Dorme Sous Lieutenant René Pierre Marie Dorme (30 January 1894 – 25 May 1917), ''Légion d'honneur'', ''Médaille militaire'', '' Croix de Guerre'' was a French World War I fighter ace credited with at least confirmed 23 victories.The Aerodrome websit ...

. As Kroll's diary related, the two pilots had locked in a circling dogfight beginning at 5300 meters (about 17,400 feet) and devolving down to 800 meters (about 2600 feet). Dorme's Spad suddenly nosed over and barreled straight into the ground, bursting into flames upon impact. Dorme's body was so disfigured it could only be identified by his watch.

Kroll in command

This victory was influential in Kroll being appointed commanding officer of Royal Saxon

Jasta 24 Royal Saxon Jagdstaffel 24 was a "hunting group" (i.e., fighter squadron) of the ''Luftstreitkräfte'', the air arm of the Imperial German Army during World War I. As one of the original German fighter squadrons, the unit would score 89 verified ae ...

on 1 July 1917. He would command this unit, with brief interregnums, until just before the end of the war.The Aerodrome website page on ''Jagdstaffel 24'

Retrieved on 22 October 2020 He would score once in July, on the 20th. On 27 July he was shot down in flames by Captain

Clive W. Warman Captain Clive Wilson Warman (30 May 1892 – 12 May 1919) was a World War I flying ace credited with twelve aerial victories. He was the sole American winner of the British Distinguished Service Order. Early life Clive Wilson Warman was born on 3 ...

of No 23 Squadron, but escaped uninjured. Warman's machine gun fire set Kroll's airplane's carburetor on fire, but Kroll killed the engine to starve the flames, tore off his oily goggles so he could still see, and landed dead stick, trailing telephone wires. On 27 September 1917 with his score at 12, he received the first Pfalz D.III assigned to his Jasta. The Pfalz would almost end his life. Kroll apparently still used his

Albatros D.V The Albatros D.V is a fighter aircraft built by the Albatros Flugzeugwerke and used by the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' (Imperial German Air Service) during World War I. The D.V was the final development of the Albatros D.I family and the last Albatro ...

, marked with a taijitu on a tan background. Kroll considered the Pfalz to be the Albatros's inferior in performance; he thought the Pfalz the slower of the two planes, climbed no better, but could be faster in a dive. Whichever aircraft he used, he rounded off 1917 by scoring his 15th victory on 4 December.''Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps, 1914–1918''. pp. 150-151 On 25 January 1918, after he shot down a

Bristol F.2b Fighter The Bristol F.2 Fighter is a British First World War two-seat biplane Fighter aircraft, fighter and reconnaissance aircraft developed by Frank Barnwell at the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It is often simply called the Bristol Fighter, ''"Brisfit ...

for number 17, the rear spar of the Pfalz he was flying broke, and the left aileron tore badly, almost separating from the plane. It took all Kroll's skill to land safely. His complaint to higher authorities gained him a promise of three

Fokker Dr.I The Fokker Dr.I (''Dreidecker'', "triplane" in German), often known simply as the Fokker Triplane, was a World War I fighter aircraft built by Fokker-Flugzeugwerke. The Dr.I saw widespread service in the spring of 1918. It became famous as the ...

s for his Jasta, but nothing else. He and his Jasta would have to suffer with Pfalzes until the new

Fokker D.VII The Fokker D.VII was a German World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz of the Fokker-Flugzeugwerke. Germany produced around 3,300 D.VII aircraft in the second half of 1918. In service with the ''Luftstreitkräfte'', the D.VII qu ...

arrived on 28 May. His 20th victory on 18 February brought an award of the Knight's Cross of the

and made him eligible for the Pour le Merite. The "Blue Max" duly arrived on 29 March 1918. On 25 May, his Jasta finally received

s. At about this time, Kroll also became the commander of Jagdgruppe 12, which consisted of his Jasta 24, and Jastas 44 and 79b. Kroll continued as Jasta 24's leading ace, steadily racking up his score, mostly against enemy fighters. An SE-5a fell on 9 August 1918 to finish his tally at 33. On 14 August 1918 he was so seriously wounded in the left shoulder that he never flew in action again. The 28 victories he scored with Jasta 24 made up almost a third of its 90 claims; he and

Friedrich Altemeier Friedrich Altemeier (4 June 1886 – 18 September 1968) was a German World War I flying ace credited with 21 confirmed aerial victories. Due to his distinguished faithful military service and piloting skills, he became one of the test pilots for Ge ...

combined for over half the squadron wins. Despite being handicapped by the poorly built Pfalz, the Jasta under Kroll's leadership had suffered only 15 casualties. Most striking of all, only four of Kroll's victims had been two-seater reconnaissance aircraft. Kroll shot down about as many enemy fighters as his more famous compatriot,

Manfred von Richthofen Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (; 2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), known in English as Baron von Richthofen or the Red Baron, was a fighter pilot with the German Air Force during World War I. He is considered the ace-of-aces of ...

Post war

The end of the war saw him an ''

''. He then joined the

Hamburg Police The Hamburg Police (german: Hamburger Polizei or ) is the German Landespolizei force for the city-state of Hamburg. Law enforcement in Germany is divided between federal and state (Land) agencies. A precursor to the agency, the ''Polizei-Behörd ...

as a captain. While there he witnessed the attempted

Kapp Putsch The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo the ...

against the Weimar government. In its aftermath he recovered the body of fellow fighter ace Rudolf Berthold, who had been murdered by German communists. There followed a quiet period during which he was a clerk. He joined the Hamburg Flying Club in 1928 and reclaimed his pilot's license. He flew pioneer commercial aviation routes to Berlin and to the northern islands. He also used a Junkers F 13, which was the first all-metal civil aviation craft, for sightseeing flights over Hamburg. He died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

on 21 February 1930 and was buried in

Ohlsdorf Cemetery Ohlsdorf Cemetery (german: Ohlsdorfer Friedhof or (former) ) in the Ohlsdorf quarter of the city of Hamburg, Germany, is the biggest rural cemetery in the world and the fourth-largest cemetery in the world. Most of the people buried at the cemete ...

in Hamburg. The Luft Hansa later named one of its Junkers 52/3m transports ''Heinrich Kroll'' (D-AHUS, W.Nr.4049) to honor him.The Hugo Junkers Homepag

Retrieved 22 October 2020

Inline citations

References

* ''Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps, 1914–1918''.

Norman Franks Norman Leslie Robert Franks (born 1940) is an English militaria writer who specialises in aviation topics. He focuses on the pilots and squadrons of World Wars I and II. Biography He published his first book in 1976. He was an Organisation a ...

, Frank W. Bailey, Russell Guest. Grub Street, 1993. . * ''Albatros Aces of World War 1, Part 2''. Greg VanWyngarden. Osprey Publishing, 2007. . * ''Groupe de Combat 12, 'Les Cigognes': France's Ace Fighter Group in World War 1.'' Jon Guttman. Osprey Publishing, 2004. . * ''Pfalz Scout Aces of World War 1''. Greg VanWyngarden. Osprey Publishing, 2006. . * ''SPAD VII Aces of World War I''. Jon Guttman and Harry Dempsey. Osprey Publishing, 2001. . * ''Fokker D VII Aces of World War 1: Part 2''. Norman Franks, et al. Osprey Publishing, 2004. .

External links

* http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/kroll.php * :de:Heinrich Kroll * http://www.flieger-album.de/geschichte/portraits/portraitheinrichkroll.php {{DEFAULTSORT:Kroll, Heinrich 1894 births 1930 deaths People from Flensburg German World War I flying aces Deaths from pneumonia in Germany Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (military class) Luftstreitkräfte personnel People from the Province of Schleswig-Holstein Burials at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery Military personnel from Schleswig-Holstein