The South African
The Society joins the family in mourning the passing of Jochen on 19 June 2023 in Somerset West.
He was born in Königsberg in East Prussia (now Kaliningrad after Russian annexation) on 8 December 1926. The family moved to many places because of his pilot father's career in the Luftwaffe while his grand-parents' farm in East Prussia became his happy place. He was still in school when called up by the Wehrmacht and assigned to go to Russia.
But he found himself in Italy where he became a PoW of the British until 1948. In Germany afterwards it was his English that got him a job in an export-import business, despite his not having finished school. He met Hilke there and they married in 1955. Two years later they came to South Africa where they raised their two sons.
Jochen's first lecture to the Society, about the German Air Force from 1910 to 1918, was in September 1987 when he started attending lectures at the military museum in Johannesburg. He also spoke about his experiences as a PoW in Egypt until 1948. His last lecture to branch in Johannesburg was in 1992, about the Zeppelin Era. He was Chairman of the Johannesburg branch from April 1993 to April 1995, after which the family moved to Cape Town and by 1998 he was on the committee of the Cape Town Branch. He served as Scribe and Vice-Chairman until 2003.
He authored two books after the age of eighty - one about the career of his father in the Luftwaffe and the second about incidences surrounding submarines along the South African coast during WWII. This later went into a second printng with additional material from other readers.
Hilke passed away on Christmas Day of 2016, shortly after their 61st wedding anniversary, having been in frailcare for some time, where Jochen frequently visited her.
He continued to drive his trusty Honda until his 93rd birthday and kept in electronic touch with his grandchildren and greatgrandchildren even as he himself moved into frail care in the last few months of his life.
Compiled by Joan Marsh
From an eulogy supplied by his son Ralf-Eckard.
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