Product Code Database
Werner Baumbach (27 December 1916 – 20 October 1953) was a German bomber pilot during World War II. He commanded the secret bomber wing Kampfgeschwader 200 (KG 200) of the Luftwaffe, the air force of Nazi Germany. Baumbach received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords for the destruction of over of Allied shipping.
In 1942, Baumbach was removed from active pilot duty and started working on new bomber designs; among others, he helped design the composite bomber system, Mistel. In 1944, he was placed in command of the newly formed Kampfgeschwader 200 (KG 200) and was in charge of all Luftwaffe special missions. Baumbach was promoted to Oberstleutnant on 15 November 1944 and was the acting General der Kampfflieger for two months.
In the last stages of the war, during the days of the Flensburg Government, Baumbach was placed in charge of the government air squadron.Speer 1970, p. 496.
After the war, Baumbach spent 6 months as a prisoner of war in British custody on charges of being a war criminal. It was decided that neither he nor any unit under his command had committed any violation of the Hague Convention, and he was released. He then assisted the Harvard University historian Bruce C. Hopper for a year with studies on the course of World War II, and Hopper suggested that Baumbach should write a book based on his experiences.
With Allied permission he moved with his family in spring 1948 to Argentina where he worked as a technical adviser for industrial firms. In 1949 he published Zu spät? Aufstieg und Untergang der deutschen Luftwaffe, which was translated into English as Broken Swastika: The Defeat of the Luftwaffe in 1960. He died in a plane crash on 20 October 1953 near Berazategui, while evaluating a British Lancaster bomber for the Argentine Air Force. He was interred in his hometown, Cloppenburg, Lower Saxony. The street "Werner-Baumbach-Straße" in Cloppenburg was named after him.
|
|
