Personal Life of Walter Oesau & Other Questions

[Jukka Juutinen]

Originally Posted by Horst Kube

So, please let these private questions out from this board and take Walter Oesau as the man he was: a genuine pilot and a fine guy.

Horst

Quite an odd statement considering the purpose of a good biography. For example, Bruce Gamble´s excellent biography of Gregory Boyington has lots of very personal information. Or Carlo D'Este´s excellent bio on Patton.

[Red Baroness]

Originally Posted by leonventer

The Oesau book in the series seems to have been printed in greater numbers than the others, because copies do show up fairly regularly, as pointed out by Brian.

It contains some details about his personal life: His childhood sweetheart's name was Lotte, and she later became his wife (no marriage date, however.) His dog was named Ajax.

There's also an interesting account of a fortuitous choice that Oesau made that saved his life. For his return trip to Germany from the Spanish Civil War, he was offered a seat on a courier plane for the 8-hour flight to Berlin, but he switched with someone else in order to travel by rail and steamer instead. After 36 hours on the train, just before departing on the steamer, he heard that the courier plane had crashed, with the loss of all aboard. After that twist of fate, Oesau says that he requested "einen guten Whisky".

(To Red Baroness: I recently obtained an extra copy of this book. I know you'll be able to put it to good use, so just send me your address via PM and I'll gladly mail it to you.)

Leon Venter

Sent you the PM, Leon.

That bright spark on the horizon? Me exploding with excitement

Thank you so much again!