Horst Hannig


Horst Hannig was a German Luftwaffe fighter ace and posthumous recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves during World War II. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. A flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. Hannig is credited with 98 aerial victories claimed in over 350 combat missions. He was killed in action following combat with Royal Air Force Spitfires on 15 May 1943.

Career

Born in 1921 in Frankenstein, Lower Silesia, Hannig joined the military service in the Luftwaffe as a Fahnenjunker in October 1939. He was posted to the 6./Jagdgeschwader 54 "Grünherz" in early 1941. His brother, Walter Hannig, received the German Cross in Gold on 28 April 1943 as an observer with Aufklärungsgruppe 4./14 of the Luftwaffe. Horst Hannig claimed his first aerial victory, a Tupolev SB-2, on the first day of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. He achieved his first 30 victories up to November 1941. On 9 May 1942, Leutnant Hannig was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross having flown over 200 operations and claiming 48 victories. He and Leutnant Hans Beißwenger received the Knight's Cross from General der Flieger Helmuth Förster at Siverskaya. On 21 July 1942 he claimed his 54th victory, a Petlyakov Pe-2 reconnaissance aircraft, near Lake Ilmen. It was JG 54 2,500th aerial victory.

Western Front and death

On 27 January, Hannig was appointed Staffelkapitän of 2. Staffel of Jagdgeschwader 2 "Richthofen" based in France. He replaced Oberleutnant Christian Eickhoff who had been killed in action the day before. While with 2./JG 2 he achieved another 8 victories, including 1 four-engine United States Army Air Forces heavy bomber shot down on 16 February 1943.
Hannig was killed in action on 15 May 1943 against Royal Air Force operations that targeted Caen-Carpiquet Airdrome and Poix Airdrome. He was shot down in his Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-4 near the airfield at Rocquancourt. His victor was Squadron Leader J. Charles leading Yellow Section of No. 611 Squadron. He had managed to bail out but his parachute failed to open. Hannig was posthumously awarded the 364th Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves on 3 January 1944 and posthumously promoted to Oberleutnant. He was interred at the Saint-Désir-de-Lisieux German war cemetery.

Summary of career

Aerial victory claims

Matthews and Foreman, authors of Luftwaffe Aces — Biographies and Victory Claims, researched the German Federal Archives and found documentation for 97 aerial victory claims. This number includes 90 on the Eastern Front and 7 on the Western Front, including one four-engined bomber.
Victory claims were logged to a map-reference, for example "PQ 54251". The Luftwaffe grid map covered all of Europe, western Russia and North Africa and was composed of rectangles measuring 15 minutes of latitude by 30 minutes of longitude, an area of about. These sectors were then subdivided into 36 smaller units to give a location area 3 × 4 km in size.

Awards