Death of Maj Kurt Schede I/KG 50

[Matti Salonen]

Start of Schede's aircraft was 07.52. Therefore it seems that 16.00 was time of their death and not of their belly landing.

Matti

[Nick Beale]

The death registration card at Fold3.com also says “gegen 16.00 Uhr bei [?] Poljakowka. He is listed as missing but this has been corrected in red to say “… gefallen Meld. RLM den [?] 21.4.43”.

That suggests to me that something happened in between to confirm his death, such as discovery of his body. Sighting aircraft wreckage wouldn’t be enough on its own to change the verdict of missing. I know in the West both sides notified casualties via the Red Cross, but in the East?

[Stig Jarlevik]

Originally Posted by Adriano Baumgartner

STIG
Balka Tovalaya #1 (North of Kurilovka)
https://www.google.com.br/maps/place...t6py?entry=ttu
Balka Tovalaya#2 (North of Volgograd or Stalingrad - East of Shirokov)
https://www.google.com.br/maps/place...v2kj?entry=ttu
Balka Tovalaya #3 (NE of Glubokii - East of Luhanski)
https://www.google.com.br/maps/place...sb3b?entry=ttu
Balka Tovalaya #4 (some 5km East of Kotelnikovo - seems to be THIS ONE)
https://www.google.com.br/maps/place...q1v4?entry=ttu

Adriano

Yes I located two of the ones which comes up with your search.
Interesting that a search on google maps turns out different responses depending on where you are...
Whatever the case, none of them are in Ukraine and if the data given by Matti are correct, there is no way
Schede and crew would have been taken from any of those located places and transported into the Stalingrad pocket.
I think we can now safely conclude that whatever was found in 2016 at a place called Talovaya Balka was not that
of Schede and his crew.
Stig

[Chris Goss]

To bring this to a close, I have been sent this by another source which was originally supplied by a Flak officer at the time:

"On January 16, around 1200hrs, an Air Force major arrived in a pilot's blue station wagon to the makeshift infirmary in Yeshovka, 7 km south of Gumrak. He asked me where he could take two wounded crew members for medical care. The major also made the following statements: He was the Gr Kdr of an He 177 unit and had only been in Zaporozhye for a few days. He was attacked by six fighters and forced to belly land after the supply bombs were dropped. Two of his crew were wounded, one slightly and the other seriously. His crew behaved in an exemplary manner. He had to destroy his plane. He also asked about a connection to the VIII Air Corps and wanted to go to Gumrak Air Base himself. Then he left".

"Another witness reports that the machine was pursued by Russian fighters at an altitude of around 100-400m and that it was constantly turning.
Dr. Trurnit reported: “…The crew drove a vehicle to Gumrak Air Base. It stopped 3 km northeast in the Talovoy Gorge near one of our vehicles that had broken down there. During this stay, a direct bomb killed Maj. Schede and his crew. This happened around 1600hrs in complete darkness.”

Therefore the Ukranian crash is not Schede's and in any case how could his EKM etc be in an aircraft which was destroyed by him after crash-landing?

[Stig Jarlevik]

Thanks Chris!!
Cheers
Stig

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Chris,

That's indeed is full documental evidence about what happened to his crew and I believe that this close (in a fantastic way) the matter.

What has been the sources of the Russian authors, I do not know. This is why I asked if photos of the EKM or Pilot's Badge existed...or of the wreckage, therefore confirming their version. I only quoted what they wrote on their book, which raised new options and versions to Schede's dismise.

HOWEVER, we can not discard that Russian researchers may have found the actual place where the He 177 belly landed and was burned (apparently by the German crew). Whatever the sources for the Russians' authors quoting seems "foggy" and not totally clear.

Thanks Chris for those new information.

A.

[Larry deZeng]

Adriano -

If you will look at a battle map of Stalingrad for ~ 16 January 1943, preferably a German military map in 1 : 100,000 scale, you will see that the city was completely surrounded. So, if Gumrak airfield sent a truck out to the crash site, they couldn't have gone very far. I have such a map in that scale and Gumrak out to a radius of ~ 15 km. to the north, west and south, is infested with place names typed in very fine print. Unfortunately, I cannot magnify (zoom) my computer image enough to read these place names, but my guess is that you will find "Poljakowka" among them. I don't think it was more than a few kilometers from Gumrak. This is consistent with the 10th September 2023 10:30 post above by Chris.

L. deZ.

[Nick Beale]

Thanks for that Chris. It's unusual to get such a clear answer to a question.

For those who have copies of Robert Forsyth's "To Save an Army", you'll see on page 232 that he has Schede dying after crash in flames at "Poljakawa", on his return flight. However, on page 247 he quotes a letter home from a I./FKG 50 airman dated 18 January and ending: "Unfortunately there is still no news of Major Schede who has been missing for three days". If the arithmetic is inaccurate, then it does show that it took some time to learn what had happened, as the death card suggests.

Interestingly, there is a Poliakova Street in Zaporizhia, Ukraine (47°50'53.60"N / 35°13'55.87"E) according to Google Earth. This is about 5 km WSW of the present-day airport so a connection with I./FKG 50 seems possible (billets or command post?).

[Chris Goss]

If anyone needs to know the source:
Quelle: BArch Abteilung PA Berlin Bericht von Lt. Erich Righi (I./FlakRgt 37) und Stabsarzt Dr. Trurnit (I./FlakRgt 241)

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Chris thanks for the source at BAMA. I will surely have a loot at it.

Guess I found PULJAKOWKA, between the red rectangle and the name of Stalingrad onto this map (high up). So, he may have been killed with his crew around this area.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Stalingrad.jpg