Karl Brill

[Adlerhorst]

Hi,

i am just wondering if somebody of you could help me in my research regarding the former Luftwaffe pilot Karl Brill. I met him lot's of years ago and just remarked, that he must have been a pretty successful fighter pilot in WW2, flying FW 190 and Me 262. Checking the internet, i was not really successful in getting lot's of information about him. Maybe somebody out there could provide me with some more specific information, in the 1960' ies he was flying as a target tug pilot for the new German Luftwaffe, using Hawker Sea Furies for that job, sharing this job with my father - attached a photo i found today in my fathers archive ....

Thomas

[John Beaman]

He is listed as claiming 32 kills with JG 54 between 7-Mar-43 and 18-Dec-43. All on the Eastern Front except for the last one, a P-51. He may have been with III gruppe at that point.

[Tom Semenza]

Thomas,

This is what I have on Brill:

Born: 20.03.1920.

A group photo of 5./JG 54 from the summer of 1942 places him as a member of that Staffel with the rank of Feldwebel (Die Jagdfliegerverbände der Luftwaffe, Teil 9/III.) Various sources give his victory total as 35 or 52 with the former seeming more likely. In Tony Wood's claims lists are found 33 claims. The first is on 7.03.43 with 5./JG 54, at this time his rank was Oberfeldwebel, and there are a total of 21 up to 14.09.43. His next claim was on 11.10.43 now with 10./JG 54. There are 11 claims with this unit up to 18.02.44. He was then posted to 1./JGr. Ost as an instructor before returning to his previous Staffel, which had by then been redesignated 13./JG 54. By this time he had been promoted to Leutnant and, as John pointed out above, the final claim listed for him was a P-51 on 18.12.44. At some time in 1945 he was transferred for jet conversion training, but I have no details on his service with JG 7 and he appears not to have made any claims with the Me 262.

For what it's worth, in Osprey's Aircraft of the Ace #6 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Aces of the Russian Front there is a profile of an Fw 190A-8 (White 3 + ~) which allegedly was flown by Brill as an Oberleutnant and Staffelkapitän of 10./JG 54 (later 13./JG 54) in the Summer of 1944.

Brill, whose nickname (Spitzname) was "Ede," passed away on 19.01.1994.
His dates of birth and death are from a posting on this forum from 17.09.2005.

Regards,
Tom

[Adlerhorst]

John and Tom, thank you very much for your info, which helps me a lot !

Thomas