The Volunteer Vol 2

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Heroes in Death, the von Blücher brothers in the Fallschirmjager Crete
May 1941. By Adrian Nisbett
Unfortunately this has no ‘Saving Private Ryan’ Hollywood finish.
This book looks at three brothers involved in Operation Mercury:
Wolfgang, Lebrecht and Hans Joachim von Blücher. The von Blücher
brothers were Fallschirmjager jumping into Crete on 20 May 1941. Heroes
in Death recounts the brothers’ lives before the war, their training
as Fallschirmjagers, the action for which Wolfgang was awarded the
Knight’s Cross, how they died in the invasion
of
Crete and the aftermath of their deaths. This
is
the first full and accurate account of a little
known but remarkable story.
The von Blücher family had four sons and
one daughter, Wolfgang (1917), Adolf
(1918), Gertrud (1921), Lebrecht (1922) and
Hans Joachim (1923). The eldest brother
Wolfgang had begun his training in early
1940 in the Heer paratroop detachment which
was integrated into the Luftwaffe.
Wolfgang was involved in the Olso and Narvik assaults where he received
the Iron Cross, first and second class. The next month he took
part in the invasion of Holland and for leadership and courage during
the assault on the Dordrecht bridges he received the Knight’s Cross.
Lebrecht and Hans Joachim joined the Fallschirmjagers in admiration
for their older brother.
Lebrecht jumped onto Crete with the 7 th company of IIFJR1 to the west
of the airfield at Heraklion where elements of the Australian 2/4 were
defending. Within twenty minutes Lebrecht’s company was wiped out,
every man shot down as they tried to release their parachutes or dead
before they hit the ground. Exactly how Lebrecht died would never be
discovered.
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