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Peter Werfft

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Allegiance
  
Nazi Germany

Commands held
  
III./JG 27

Name
  
Peter Werfft

Rank
  
Major

Years of service
  
1940 or earlier - 1945

Other work
  
chemist

Service/branch
  
Luftwaffe

Unit
  
Jagdgeschwader 27


Born
  
8 October 1904 Wien, Austria (
1904-10-08
)

Battles/wars
  
World War II Battle of Britain Unternehmen Bodenplatte

Died
  
July 23, 1970, Vienna, Austria

Awards
  
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Battles and wars
  
Battle of Britain, Operation Bodenplatte, World War II

Dr. Peter Werfft-Wessely (Wien, 8 October 1904 – 23 July 1970), an Austrian chemist, was a Luftwaffe fighter ace in World War II, and a chemical industry entrepreneur after the war. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (German: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes). The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership.

Contents

Luftwaffe Ace in World War II

As a Gefreiter flying with I/JG 27 Werfft participated in the Battle of Britain; the two air victories which he scored against RAF Hurricane fighters on 27 September 1940 [1] were probably his first.

Werrft served with JG 27 in North Africa during 1941-42, claiming five kills over the Desert Air Force. Werfft was commissioned as a Leutnant (Lieutenant) in late 1942. Service over Greece and the Balkans followed in 1943, where he claimed the destruction of a P-38 Lightning and three USAAF heavy bombers.

Werfft claimed 11 more heavies in 1944, he was a Hauptmann (Captain) by October 1944. He was awarded the Ritterkreuz on 28 January 1945.

At the end of World War II he was a Major and gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 27, flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 fighter ("Yellow One") with a green fuselage band signifying dedication to Reich strategic airspace defence; he also had a total of 26 air kills.

On 3 May 1945 he disbanded his III./JG 27 in the Austrian Alps near Saalbach, together with the acting unit commander Hauptmann Emil Clade, eventually becoming a prisoner of war of the United States.

Pharmaceutical Entrepreneur

Returning to Austria after his release from captivity, Werfft established InterChemie GmbH, a Vienna-based pharmaceutical and chemical limited liability enterprise, in 1948. Among the first commercial activities of the fledgling trading company in this difficult post-war period was the Austrian sales representation for certain American Cyanamid products. By 1961 the firm had been restructured into a successor company, Werfft-Chemie GmbH. In the years following the founder's death in 1970, Werfft-Chemie continued, initially as a family-run business, but met with increasing economic difficulties. It was taken over by the Austrian Sanochemia Pharmazeutika Group in 1983 and was subsequently converted to a purely veterinary medicine company. The legacy of Werfft-Chemie survives under the name Alvetra u. Werfft AG, a Sanochemia company with subsidiaries in several central and eastern European countries.

Awards

  • Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st class
  • Ehrenpokal der Luftwaffe (15 July 1944)
  • German Cross in Gold on 23 July 1944 as Leutnant in the III./Jagdgeschwader 27
  • Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 28 January 1945 as Hauptmann and Gruppenkommandeur of the III./Jagdgeschwader 27
  • References

    Peter Werfft Wikipedia