PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE 185
Karl Schlegel:
the last German air ace to die in the Great War
Karl Paul Schlegel was born in Wechselburg, (in the Kingdom of Saxony) on May 7, 1893. At fourteen, he began attending military school. On the first of April 1912, Schlegel began active duty in the Royal Sachensburg Machine Gun Section Number 19 with the rank of Gefreiter (private).
With the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, Schlegel was part of the Eighth Cavalry Division. Holding the rank of sergeant, he served first in France, then on the Eastern Front against Tsarist Russia. During that time, Schlegel won the Iron Cross of 1914, Second Class. In April 1915, he also was awarded his native Saxony’s Silver Military Order of St. Henry. Later that summer, Schlegel was the first non-commissioned officer in his division to win the Iron Cross of 1914, First Class. But soon, he was weary of trench warfare and volunteered for aerial service.
In the spring of 1917, Schlegel began pilot training. He was soon posted to a Saxon two-seater replacement unit, Fliegerersatz-Abteilung 6. Schlegel then transferred to Flieger-Abteilung 39, but was injured in an accident. When 1918 began, he returned to Fliegerersatz-Abteilung 6.
Later that year, Schlegel was posted with a fighter squadron, Royal Prussian Jagdstaffel Number 45. On June 14th, he scored his first victory, an observation balloon near Villers-Cotterêts in France. Schlegel downed two more enemy balloons in early July.
The same day Ludendorff launched his all-out effort on the Marne (July 15th), Schlegel was promoted to Vizefeldwebel. He also became an ace by shooting down a pair of SPAD airplanes near Comblizy. When the month ended, Schlegel ran his victory total to twelve.
As the month of August progressed, the exhausted German armies were slowly retreating, and Schlegel added seven more aerial victories. On the first of September, he downed a French observation balloon near Œuilly, bringing his number of triumphs to twenty.
Two more balloons would fall to Schlegel’s guns in September, bring his total confirmed victories to fourteen enemy balloons and eight enemy airplanes. On October 15th, his exploits were rewarded with the Golden Military Merit Cross.
Nearly two weeks later on October 27, 1918, Schlegel fought twelve French planes near Amifontaine… and lost! Polish-Serbian Petar Marinovich (a flying ace with the French) was credited with the score. Earlier that day, Schlegel’s last victories over a balloon and a SPAD S.XI near La Malmaison went unconfirmed.
Karl Schlegel died of his wounds on October 28, 1918, exactly two weeks before the armistice ended hostilities on the Western Front. He was the last German ace to be killed in the Great War… dead at the age of twenty-five.