Anti-Nazi German Ace

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As a boy, Hans-Joachim Marseille was physically weak, nearly dying from the flu. His parents divorced shortly after he was born in Berlin in 1919, and as a result, his relationship with his father suffered. This caused his mother and stepfather to dote on and shelter him from typical childhood activities and experiences. Yet this shaky start did not deter Marseille from becoming the top German ace against Allied forces, with 158 kills, according to German records. (About 100 of those kills coincide with Allied records.)

Marseille never excelled in school and got into trouble there, where he was viewed as lazy. In addition, his younger sister Inge was killed by a jealous lover when he was a teenager, an emotional blow he never recovered from. Toward the end of his schooling, however, he began to work harder, and by age 17, he had become one of the youngest people to pass his final exams.

Of French Huguenot ancestry, Marseille joined the Luftwaffe in 1938. At 20, he graduated from one of the Luftwaffe’s fighter pilot schools in time to participate in the Battle of Britain. A charmer, his busy night life sometimes left him too tired to fly the next morning. Early on, he had an almost suspicious number of engine failures. One, he landed his plane on an abandoned highway. When nearby farmers came to help him, they found that he was relieving himself and then going to take off again. None of his superiors doubted his skill even though he disobeyed orders, womanized obsessively, and flew directly into swarms of enemy planes while his squadron watched. His “insubordination”—rumored to be his love of American jazz, womanizing, and inability to fly as a wingman—got him transferred to Fighter Wing 27, JG 27, which relocated to North Africa in April 1941.

Under his new commander, who recognized Marseille’s talent, his abilities as a fighter pilot quickly improved. He found his niche in North Africa. He strengthened his legs and abdominal muscles to help him tolerate extreme G-forces. He had outstanding situational awareness and excellent eyesight. He mastered the technique of turning by slowing down and using his flaps, which gave him an advantage over pilots using full throttle during a dogfight. He honed his skill in deflection shooting. Considered the hardest shot in dogfighting, deflection shooting occurs when an enemy airplane in front of a pilot is turning so that the pilot has to turn more tightly than the enemy to lead it with bullets and make the kill. In such a case, the enemy is not visible because of the pilot’s own wings. Marseille was known for using a minimum amount of bullets to take down an enemy plane—often with a short burst to the cockpit. 

According to a fellow pilot—

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He was the most amazing and ingenious combat pilot I ever saw. He was also very lucky on many occasions. He thought nothing of jumping into a fight outnumbered ten to one, often alone, with us trying to catch up to him. He violated every cardinal rule of fighter combat. He abandoned all the rules.

His career climaxed in September 1942, when he embarked on three combat sorties, claiming 17 enemy fighters shot down and earning the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. A couple of times late in his career he downed four to five planes (some flown by aces) in about 10 minutes. He would often return to the crash sites of planes he shot down and help survivors.

From 1940 to 1942, Marseille outsmarted, outmaneuvered, and outflew everyone who challenged him, achieving 100 aerial victories. He was 1 of just 11 Luftwaffe pilots at the time to do so.

In September 1942, Marseille led an escort mission through enemy territory when his cockpit began to fill with smoke. His wingmen tried to lead him back across German lines, but the smoke overtook him. He radioed to his wingmen to tell them he was going to evacuate. As they backed off, they watched him execute a perfect evacuation maneuver, flipping his plane upside down so he could eject. As he exited the smoke-filled cockpit, however, he was dragged back by his plane’s slipstream and bounced off of the plane’s tail end. Experts later theorized that the impact killed him instantly; his parachute showed no sign that he had tried to open it.

Though he may have fought for Nazi Germany, Marseille was no fan of the Führer. According to his biographers, Marseille was “openly anti-Nazi,” going so far as to publicly express his dislike for Hitler. Unimpressed after meeting Hitler in 1942, Marseille told his friend, Eduard Neumann, “The Führer was a rather odd sort.”

Not a member of the Nazi party,  Marseille said unflattering things about Hitler, even in the company of SS officers. When asked if he would ever consider joining the Nazi party, Marseille responded that if he saw a party worth joining, he would consider it, but there would have to be plenty of attractive women in it.

A gifted pianist as well as pilot, Marseille was once invited to perform at the home of Willy Messerschmitt, a German fighter plane designer. Attending the party were the Goebbles family, Hermann Goering, and Hitler himself. Marseille followed instructions and played pieces that Hitler liked, including Beethoven’s “Für Elise.” Afterwards, however, Marseille—knowing full well Hitler’s disdain for American jazz—began playing ragtime on the piano. Hitler stood up, raised his hand, and said, “I think we’ve heard enough.”

Marseille was buried in Berlin, where the epitaph on his tombstone reads “Undefeated.”

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