Early Life
Hans-Joachim "Jochen" Walter Rudolf Siegfried Marseille was born to Charlotte (maiden name: Charlotte Marie Johanna Pauline Gertrud Riemer) and Hauptmann Siegfried Georg Martin Marseille, a family with paternal Huguenot ancestry, in Berlin-Charlottenburg Berliner Strasse 164 on 13 December 1919 at 11:45 PM. As a child, he was physically weak, and he nearly died from a serious case of Influenza. His father Siegfried was an Army officer during World War I, and later left the armed forces to join the Berlin Police force. Siegfried later rejoined the Army in 1933, and was promoted to General in 1935. Promoted again he attained the rank of Generalmajor on 1 July 1941. He served on the Eastern Front from the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. Siegfried Marseille was killed by partisans near Pyetrykaw on 29 January 1944. He was buried in the cemetery of Selasje. Hans-Joachim also had a younger sister, Ingeborg "Inge". While on sick leave in Athens at the end of December 1941, he was summoned to Berlin by a telegram from his mother. Upon arriving home, he learned his sister had been "slain by a jealous lover"; Hans-Joachim never recovered emotionally from this blow.
While Marseille was still a young child his parents divorced and his mother subsequently married a police official named Reuter. Marseille initially assumed the name of his stepfather at school (a matter he had a difficult time accepting) but he reverted to his patronymic name of Marseille in adulthood. He acquired the reputation of being a rebel from a lack of discipline, a characteristic that would plague him early on in his Luftwaffe career. Marseille also had a difficult relationship with his natural father who he refused to visit in Hamburg for some time after the divorce. Eventually he attempted a reconciliation with his father, who subsequently introduced him to the nightlife that was to initially hamper his military career during his early years in the Luftwaffe. However, the rapproachment with his father did not last and he did not see him again thereafter.
Marseille attended the 12th Volksschule Berlin (1926–1930), and from the age of 10, the Prinz Heinrich Gymnasium in Berlin-Schöneberg (1930–1938). He was considered to be a lazy student at first, and was constantly playing pranks and getting into trouble. Toward the end of his school years he started to take his education more seriously and qualified as one of the youngest (at 17 years, six months) to achieve his Abitur, graduating in early 1938. Marseille then expressed his desire to become a "flying officer."
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