Baron Franz von Werra was born on July 13, 1914, at Castle Leuk in the Canton of Wallis. His family descended from many clergymen and officers who had made careers in Spain or France. Because of a family feud, the Leuk branch of the family had become poor. The parents gave the children up for adoption. Franz and his sister were taken up by an aristocratic couple in Southern Germany. But even here money became scarce, and soon the siblings faced the same problem. They had a close relationship, and Emma looked for a post as a secretary and Franz joined the air force. He had had to give up secondary school due to lack of money. When Franz was required to bring proof of his non-Jewish, Caucasian descent, he was surprised to find out that he was Swiss, but also that his descendents had been, in part, famous. The German Air Force now accepted Franz. After his training at the war school in Potsdam, Franz joined the Alp Squadron, with which he flew over Vienna in 1938. He then switched to Staff Squadron of the Fighter Wing’s Second Group; the commander was Günter Lützlow. Life was good in France, and Franz and his comrades flew over France to the Cote d’Azur. Franz was imaginative and ambitious, but also a devout Catholic ; he loved taking risks and liked to fly unter bridges, which was actually forbidden. The Luftwaffe didn’t want to lose their pilots with these tests of courage. Von Werra’s goal was to get the Knight’s Cross, in conjunction with the manor that had been promised to him by Hitler. The aerial combat in England, France, East Prussia and later on the East Front, were a source of pleasure to him. He loved flying ; the War was secondary to him. This is what he wrote Emma, his sister. He was not at all interested in politics; he only loved the Swastika, which he considered martial. His squadron’s mascot was a young lion named Simba. On May 30, 1940, von Werra was awarded the Iron Cross First Class ; he had reported nine enemy airplanes he had shot down over England. There had been no witnesses, and von Werra was celebrated a hero in Germany. On September 5th, 1940, three ME-109s took off from Calais towards England, one of them being First Lieutenant von Werra. They were serving as part of a bomber escort. After a change of course over Croydon, they became involved in a wild battle with Spitfires. Flight Lieutenant J.T. Webster and Squadron Leader George Bennions, both from the 41st Squadron in Hornchurch, as well as Squadron Leader Gerald Stapleton, Pilot Officer William Rafter and Flight Lieutenant Fred RUshmore, all from the 603rd Squadron in Rochford, were involved.
Rushmer, who was only 19 years old at the time, was killed. Von Werra was pushed aside and pursued by the Spitfires. After several hits to his engines, he raced in low-altitude flight over fields, fruit orchards and cattle paddocks, until he eventually crashed down south of the railway tracks Redhill-Ashford in Maidstone. After being taken to prison by the Home Guard, he was taken to Kensington, where he was interrogated. He was then brought to the officer’s encampment at Grizedale Hall, located in marshland 30 kilometers from the Irish Sea, considered escape-proof. On October 7, 1940, von Werra escaped. He was discovered just three days later on the coast, but was able to escape once again. He was picked up, exhausted, two days later, and taken back to Grizedal Hall. After 21 days of solitary confinement, he was relocated to the transit camp at Swanwick. There, he and his companions began digging a tunnel. They had also created fraudulent identification tags, changing their flight uniforms to those emulating the Dutch air force, which had still been allied with England at that time.
On December 17th, von Werra and his companions took advantage of a German attack and fled, but were discovered and caught shortly thereafter. Franz himself remained untraceable; he had stayed in the encampment and looked for the Royal Air Force’s nearest airfield. But to no avail: he was soon arrested again. The English had had enough of him by then; they embarked him, along with 1000 other POWs, to Canada. The temperature was -20°C, the sky starlit, the snow lay more than a meter deep, and von Werra was making slow progress.
He tried to cross the St. Lawrence River on the border to the USA. At that time, the USA hadn’t yet been involved in the War.
He managed to reach the American city of Ogdensbur. Von Werra liked to boast that he was regarded as an illegal alien in the States, that’s how he bandied his story about, and that Great Britain demanded his extradition. He fled again on March 24, 1941, when he was supposed to have been detained. He travelled from New York to Mexico and then through Panama, Peru, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona and Rome back to Berlin, where he arrived on April 18. During the course of his escape, he wrote his sister postcards on a regular basis, never forgetting the British interrogation officers in Hucknall. Goebbels’ propaganda frenetically celebrated von Werra, and Hitler awarded him the Knight’s Cross he had so long been longing for. Von Werra was also received by Third Reich Marshall Göring; he loved to be the center of attention. At the same time, he was promoted to captain. For Interception he was worth his weight in gold : he knew the interrogation methods. In addition, the Luftwaffe benefitted from him, making their camps «more secure».
The whole world spoke about him, although the Canton of Wallis was afraid of him; it feared an act of revenge carried out by bombers.
Three of his brothers served in the Swiss Army, but von Werra didn’t even want a Swiss passport anymore; his future lay in Germany, in his opinion. On July 1, 1941, von Werra became the commander of Group I of the Fighter Squadron 53 «Ace of Spades», stationed on the East Front. He wasn’t scheduled for any more missions to England. After further downings, von Werra was re-trained for the Me-109F-4 in mid-August and his unit was ordered to relocate to the coast guard in Katwijk, Holland. Previously, von Werra had married his longtime fianceé in the customary Nazi pomp tradition. Von Werra found himself on a routine reconnaissance flight at Fieslingen on October 25, 1941, when the engine stalled and the airplane crashed head-on into the sea, sinking immediately. His death wasn’t announced until that of Ernst Udet’s had been. His sister Emma worked as a psychiatric nurse after the war and died in 1992. Franz von Werra lived to be only 27 years old; his life was short but intense. The airplane with which he crashed in England is still being displayed at the Royal Air Force Museum in Folkestown, Kent.
In 1956 the movie more or less depicting his life, «The One That Got Away», was filmed, Hardy Krüger acting the main role. It’s well-known that a lot of von Werra’s life story was made up, yet he remains an astonishing man.
The Battle of Britain - Franz von Werra
Franz von Werra Dock Film
