Hans-Ulrich Rudel

Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the most famous Stuka pilot in Luftwaffe, and is considered to be one of the most prominent fighter pilots of WW II, during which he flew a world record number of flights, 2,530. Post-war, he was a neo-Nazi activist in Latin America and West Germany.

Rudel was born as a son of a priest in Konradswaldau, Prussia, Germany (modern day Kondratów in Poland). He joined the Hitler Youth in 1933. After graduating with Abitur in 1936, he participated in the compulsory Reich Labour Service (RAD).

Following the labor service, Rudel joined the Luftwaffe in the same year, 1936, and began his military career as an air reconnaissance pilot. He then applied to fly Stuka (abbr. from Sturzkampfflugzeug) dive bomber. During the war, He flew 2,530 ground-attack missions exclusively on the Eastern Front.

His flying career turned out to be exceptional. On his flights he is credited for destroying 519 tanks, 70 amphibious warfare ships, more than 800 motorized vehicles, Battleship Marat, a cruiser, a destroyer, four armored trains, bridges, and over 150 artillery locations. Rare for dive bomber pilot, he also won nine aerial victories.

Rudel was never shot down by an enemy plane, but he was shot down 32 times by counter-air defence. In 1945 his right leg was amputated below the knee, but he continued flying, and when he flew Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the Luftwaffe mechanics made him a customized plane by changing the feet-operated brakes into hand-operated breaks.

By the end of the war when the defeat was obvious, Rudel volunteered on suicide missions which were denied. He also volunteered to fly to ruins of Berlin to save Hitler.

Rudel was the single most decorated German serviceman of World War II receiving the all the ranks of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross including the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds in January 1945; the decoration was created specifically for him.

Rudel surrendered to US forces on 8 May 1945. He was then transferred to England from where he could face extradition to the Soviet Union. Rudel said if this took place, he would start training Soviet dive bombers. He was released, he moved to South America.

A committed and unrepentant Nazi, he founded the "Kameradenwerk", a relief organization for Nazi criminals that helped fugitives escape to Latin America and the Middle East. Together with Willem Sassen, Rudel helped shelter Josef Mengele, the notorious former SS doctor at Auschwitz. He worked as an arms dealer and a military advisor to the regimes of Juan Perón in Argentina, of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay. Due to these activities, he was placed under observation by the US Central Intelligence Agency.

In the West German federal election of 1953, Rudel, who had returned to West Germany, was the top candidate for the far-right German Reich Party but was not elected to the Bundestag. Following the Revolución Libertadora in 1955, the uprising that ended the second presidential term of Perón, Rudel moved to Paraguay, where he acted as a foreign representative for several German companies. In 1977, he became a spokesman for the German People's Union, a neo-Nazi political party founded by the extremist politician Gerhard Frey.

Rudel died in West Germany in 1982.