Crash place of Otto Kittel found

[Ruediger Kaufmann]

Hi all,

we would inform you that we had found the crash place of well known Oberleutnant Otto Kittel in Latvia.

We had searched for it together since 2009 and my friend Sergej Azarenoks hat found the crash place.

Here is our report.

Short History about Otto Kittel: Oberleutnant Otto Kittel was born at 21. February 1917 in Kronsdorf. After fighting at the east front he was the fourth German Fighter ace with 267 areal victories. He was high decorated by Adolf Hitler himself with the “Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords”.
He was team leader of fighter unit 2. Staffel of I. /JG54 and flow a Focke Wulf Fw190 A-8 with Marking “black1” and Serial Number 690282 at the Kurland battle in Latvia. At the 16. February 1945 he attacked together with his comrade Oberfähnrich Renner 14 Russian IL2 planes that made a low level attack on German positions. He shot down one of the IL2 but was shot by another and crashed at the battle line. He is/was still Missing In Action. The shot down IL2 made an emergency landing.

After a lot of private investigations and searching teams in the last 67 years our Team was the first one that found the crash place and gets the allowances of the “State of Latvia” for a search in this area.
From the „Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V“: (German War Grave Commission) visited two experts at the crash place. They get Administrative from Germany and Poland.
Since 2009 the son of Otto Kittel was involved at our searchings and visited the crash side together with his wife at the recovery.

Investigations, searching and digging at the crash area:

After some talkings with old eyewitnesses and check up the official German position of the lost, it was 100% clear that the fist found parts are from the plane of Otto Kittel. We had found later parts of the Aircraft serial number too.
The hole area are today a smal wooden and swamp place with a lot of Mosquito’s and other small animals. The only way for a search and digging was at the summer time.
All of our team and some friends of Sergej were searching four days in the area with special metal detectors also for deep signals of steel and aluminum parts square feet by square feet. We had found all parts in the earth and identify them exactly for rebuild the situation of the crash in February 1945.

This is our investigation in fact of the found parts and there places:

After the shot down in about 150 Meters highness (450 feet) Otto Kittel must have open his safety belt and his harness of the parachute too!!! So he must be still alive before the crash and prepare an emergency landing!!!
The canopy parts so it was still closed! So he had not time to shot the canopy off by a special Focke Wulf system.
At the emergency landing his plane scattered for about 300 Meters in a not lucky downhill area. We know that there was a lot of snow at February 1945. The plane was totally broken in thousands of pieces at the first small trees and stopped at a high wooden place and exploded by broken of its fuel tanks. The radial 14 cylinder BMW 801 engine was cut and thrown about 70 Meters into the woods.
The broken parts of the 12mm steel protection pilot seat show that the pilot must be killed immediately after passing the first small trees and the broken off of the cockpit section of the plane.
We searched the area from the broken cockpit to the last parts of the broken engine steep by steep for any human remains. Some bones were found here, but was not identified as human at time. The hole area was a fighting zone too. The experts of the German War Grave Commission take it for further analyses but we think all together that it must be from Otto Kittel. The next weeks / months will show there analysis.

We had fund one Stainless steel parachute harness belt lock and a small piece of his flying glaces as personal items. The Stainless steel belt lock was not destroyed in any case, so he must have open it before the crash. Sergej gave it to the son as present. (see photo)

We had recovered a lot of Aircraft parts but please note that we would give no further special details about the crash place and the recovery.

Ruediger Kaufmann (Germany) and Sergej Azarenoks (Lativa)
31. July 2013

Here are some photos about:
Team
Crash area
Sergej together with the son and his wife
Stainless steel Parachute belt lock
Please excuse the bad quality of photo from the Fw190 Gas trottle