I Was Hitler’s Pilot : The Memoirs of Hans Baur by Hans Baur

Author:Hans Baur [Baur, Hans]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: (Auto)biography and memoir
Publisher: http://inclibuql666c5c4.onion
Published: 1958-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

One day Hitler told me that he would be making a long journey – by rail. It was to meet General Franco on the Franco-Spanish frontier. This meeting took place on 23 October 1940, at Hendaye, and Hitler demanded that Franco should allow his troops to march through Spain to attack Gibraltar. I was given instructions to follow with three Condors, and to do the journey by stages. My first stop was Bordeaux, where we stayed for two days waiting for the arrival of the Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop.

Ribbentrop arrived at eight o’clock in the morning. The weather in Bordeaux was good, but it was reported to be very bad along the route to Tours, where I was to fly him. Cloud cover was between one hundred and a hundred and fifty feet. I told Ribbentrop that the bad weather, plus the fact that I did not know Tours airfield, meant that I could not fly him on my own responsibility. Ribbentrop was very upset on hearing this, and I learned that the meeting between Hitler and Franco had already taken place, and that Hitler was on his way to Tours to meet Marshal Pétain there. It was absolutely essential that Ribbentrop, as Foreign Minister, should be there too.

In the circumstances I agreed to do my best – on his responsibility. I took off all right, and for two-thirds of the way I flew blind. When we approached Tours I got a beam from the station there, and the information that if I decided to land it would have to be at my own risk. When I broke through the cloud I found we had just skimmed a hangar. I landed – safely. A bit of luck.

Ribbentrop drove off at once to the country house where Marshal Pétain was staying, and I received instructions to fly to Belgium and wait there till further notice. After his meeting with Pétain, Hitler went on to Italy to meet Mussolini. When I got back to Berlin I heard Hitler talking about his meetings with Franco and Pétain. The taking of Gibraltar would, of course, have been of enormous importance for Hitler, who had his soldiers in North Africa, and desperately needed the command of the Mediterranean. Hitler had promised that if Franco would let him take Gibraltar he would give it to Spain, and the Spaniards would then be rid of the British ‘once and for all’. But Hitler found Franco, as he said, a great disappointment. The Spanish statesman refused to have anything to do with the affair, and Hitler irritably declared that he had ‘the manners of a sergeant-major’. On the other hand, Hitler always spoke of Marshal Pétain with sincere respect, and assured us that he had always treated him with the greatest consideration, doing his utmost never to play the role of victor towards him.

One evening I was in Vienna strolling along the Kärntner Ring, when Flight-Captain Stöhr, Messerschmitt’s chief test pilot, who was sitting outside a cafe, called out to me.

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