Erich Sommer - Luftwaffe Eagle: A WW2 German Airmans Story

Erich in 1990 with his favourite cat, Pussy. He was always a great animal lover.

My retirement didnt mean that we werent busy. The garden, too big for our age with vegetable plots and many fruit trees, gave Friedl lots to do, whereas I had to keep the water in the pool crystal clear and look after all the technical items in house and flats as well as maintaining our two cars which no outside tradesman touched ever. We also had our hobbies the collecting and preparing of mineral specimens. Friedl cut and polished the opal pieces we mined and collected during our travels and also dabbled in silver work. Another of her hobbies was to design and make lead glass panels which then adorned our rear garden, in addition to mosaic works. I did some faceting, some photography and now and then gliding at the local club near Gawler.

Interest in my past experiences have lately led to historians in Germany, England, Italy and the United States corresponding with me regarding my flying past. Locally I meet pretty regularly with people of the same past and present aeronautical interests. For example, I became friendly with a Royal Australian Air Force Spitfire pilot.

But visitors to our home are now mostly our children, after both returned from two-year working visits to the Continent, Irene Bobby in 1971-73 and Renate in 1976-77 and occasionally old acquaintances of our times from when we arrived in Australia. But both my old Luftwaffe friends here, Martin Widmann and Walter Tietjens have already died and our contact with German families ceased with them.

In 1976 I travelled to Germany and Europe with Renate and managed to collect more details of the events in which I was involved. Most important was that I was able to copy my friend Horst Gtzs logbooks, which had survived. I felt my memories refreshed and so felt confident enough to begin writing. The only one in our immediate family who had written anything previously about our family was my uncle, Heinrich Jolas, in his book Kampf mit dem Alter (Battles with Aging) which encompasses the times from 1933 to November 1946.

Despite all this, my writings lay in a cupboard until 1993. Then my daughter Renate began to take an interest in them and, with the assistance of her business computer, began to bring order into what was then a pretty incoherent story. I partly rewrote things and added photos to my account.

Many events have changed the world and our family since. Irene now has three children, Angela (fifteen), Mark (eleven) and Justin (seven) who live in Belair in the leafy hill above the city in their roomy house of their own design. Renate is still single but lives happily south of here in her own house in Happy Valley. With me living between them there is a good contact between all of us.

For myself the most fateful event was the death of my beloved Friedl in September 1989, shortly before her seventy-first birthday, which left me living alone here in Bedford Park. Friedl and I were in Germany together last in 1986 visiting many family members and old friends, but not crossing into the then DDR for political reasons. This caused Friedl much pain and many tears as she had been born in Demmin in that country. It was her homeland which was dominating her mind in her last days before she succumbed to cancer after fifteen months of suffering.

It is to her memory that I dedicate this part of our familys story.

Erich Sommer

Bedford Park, Australia,

October 1993

During the summer of 1975 I was surprised and delighted to receive a letter from Erich in which he asked if I could supply him more details of the Ar 234 Kommando which was mentioned in German Aircraft of the Second World War, a book I had co-written. I was able to tell him that our information came from a number of German documents, copies of which I sent on. This exchange led us to establish regular correspondence between England and Australia where Erich was then living. He was able to give me detailed information on his life with the Luftwaffe and put me and my co-author, Eddie Creek, in touch with several of his contemporaries, not least of which was Horst Gtz.

As Erich mentioned, he travelled to Europe during the summer of 1976, and stayed with us in England for a few days. During this time, we were able to talk in detail about his wartime experiences and we established a great friendship. After he returned to Australia we continued to correspond and I think that Eddie and I helped him with his wartime recollections. Not long before he died, he kindly sent me a copy of his wartime memories which his daughter Renate had typed. Although it proved a fascinating read, it stayed on my bookshelf for several years.

Then, in 2015, I realised that his experiences were something that should be shared with the wider public and I began to edit his writings, adding sections from his letters and background information where necessary. I was then able to contact his daughter Renate who was kind enough to lend her support to the project and to send me the earlier part of Erichs memoirs which were just as interesting. They gave an impression of what it was like to live in pre-Second World War Germany and how it became almost impossible to avoid joining a Nazi organisation even though he had no sympathy with Hitler and his monstrous plans for Europe.