Hans-Joachim Marseille - Memorials

Memorials

• Hans-Joachim Marseille appeared four times in the Deutsche Wochenschau. The first time on Wednesday 17 February 1942 when Oberst Galland, the General der Jagdflieger, visited an airport in the desert. The second time on Wednesday 1 July 1942 when Marseille traveled to Rastenburg to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords from Adolf Hitler. The third time on Wednesday 9 September 1942 announcing Marseille's 17 aerial victories from 1 September 1942 and that he had been awarded the Diamonds to his Knight's Cross. His last appearance dates from Wednesday 30 September 1942 showing Hauptmann Marseille visiting Erwin Rommel.

• A wartime pyramid was constructed by Italian engineers at the site of Marseille's fall but over time it decayed. On 22 October 1989, Eduard Neumann and other JG 27 survivors in co-operation with the Egyptian government, erected a new pyramid that stands there to this day.

• In the weeks following Marseille's death morale was low. In an attempt to improve morale Oberleutnant Fritz Dettmann persuaded Eduard Neumann to rename 3./JG 27 the "Marseille Staffel" (seen in photographs as "Staffel Marseille").

• His grave bears a one-word epitaph: Undefeated. It is understood that after the war, Hans-Joachim Marseille's remains were brought from Derna and reinterred in the memorial gardens at Tobruk; it was there that his mother visited his grave in 1954. His remains are now in a small clay coffin (sarcophagus) bearing the number 4133.

• In 1957, a German film, Der Stern von Afrika (The Star of Africa) directed by Alfred Weidenmann, was made starring Joachim Hansen as Hans-Joachim Marseille.

• On 24 October 1975, the Bundesluftwaffe's Uetersen-Appen Barracks was renamed the "Marseille Barracks".

• The Memorial of the Reuter-Marseille family can be found in the graveyard in Berlin, Alt-Schöneberg. The left side bears the insignia.

• The tail rudder of his second to last Messerschmitt Bf 109F-4/trop (Werknummer 8673) now bearing 158 victory marks is on display at Luftwaffenmuseum der Bundeswehr in Berlin Gatow. It had initially been given to his family as a gift by Hermann Göring and was donated to the museum in the 1970s.

• Twenty-five years after Marseille's death, fighter pilot veterans of World War II gathered to honour Marseille at an "International Fighter Pilots Meeting" on 7–8 October 1967 at Fürstenfeldbruck. Attending this meeting were fighter pilots from six different countries, including Erich Hartmann, Robert Stanford Tuck, Adolf Galland, Günther Rall and Mike Martin, who was shot down by Marseille on 3 June 1942. The guests of honour at this meeting were Marseille's mother, Frau Charlotte Reuter-Marseille and his ex-fiancée Hanne-Lies.

• The 16th Deutsches Afrikakorps reunion took place on 1–2 September 1984 in Stuttgart. The German Bundesregierung invited as guest of honour Corporal Mathew P. Letuku from South Africa. Matthew, alias Mathias to everyone in JG 27, was a South African soldier taken prisoner of war by German troops on the morning of 21 June 1941 at fortress Tobruk. Mathias initially worked as a driver with 3. Staffel then befriended Marseille and became his domestic helper in Africa.