Kurt Dahlmann

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Kurt Dahlmann (4 March 1918 – 29 August 2017) was a German pilot, lawyer, journalist, editor and political activist. He was born in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and, after his family moved to Danzig in 1925, he trained as a pilot and even helped smuggle gasoline to Poland in a light plane. He joined the Luftwaffe in 1937 and became a bomber and ground-attack pilot, flying Ju 88s and later Fw 190s. Dahlmann fought in the Polish Campaign, the Battle of Britain, the campaign in France, and the North African Campaign. He specialized in night bombing against high-value targets and also did target-marking missions with a fast Fw 190. He flew more than 350 missions from 1940 to 1945 and was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves for his long combat record, making him one of the most decorated German fighter-bomber pilots of the war. He finished the war as a Major, commanding three squadrons: I./SKG 10, III./KG 51, and NSG 20.

After the war he studied law at the University of Kiel and became a lawyer in 1949. Dahlmann then built a career in journalism. In 1958 he moved to Windhoek, Namibia (then South West Africa) to edit the Allgemeine Zeitung, a position he held until 1978 when he was fired partly for liberal views on apartheid. He later worked in tourism and advertising, and in 1984–85 he edited Namibia Nachrichten, a paper backed by West Germany. Writing under the pen name Stachus, he advocated an end to apartheid and supported Namibia’s independence and equal rights for all. Dahlmann died in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 2017 at the age of 99.