Werner Schwipps
In Memoriam Gunther Pluschow
Fifty years ago, the pilot from Tsingtao crashed over Tierra del Fuego.
Shock across much of the world was triggered on January 28, 1931, by an urgent dispatch from Buenos Aires: the German aviation pioneer Gunther Pluschow had crashed to his death in the Andes.
"Captain Gunther Pluschow and flight engineer Ernst Dreblow crashed to his death with the aircraft Silver Condor near Lake Argentina," the dispatch reported laconically. Shepherds had observed B's single-engine seaplane—a two-seater, open biplane from the Heinkel aircraft works—go into a spin shortly before landing on Lago Argentino. Both Pluschow and Dreblow were able to bail out of the aircraft, but not to save their lives. Their bodies were found shattered among the rocks a short time later.
At the beginning of the First World War, Pluschow had made a name for himself as a daring reconnaissance pilot in the German protectorate of Kiautschou in the Far East. After the war, he became widely known as a travel writer and expedition pilot. He led three film expeditions to Tierra del Fuego and made the first feature-length cultural films about it.
Gunther Pluschow, born in 1886, came from a Mecklenburg family and, following tradition, became a naval officer. In early 1913, he also passed his pilot's exam in Berlin-Johannisthal and, almost as an aside, participated in a world flight record attempt: as the companion of Rumpler pilot Otto Linnekogel, who flew his first of several altitude records over Johannisthal. In early 1914, Pluschow was stationed as a naval aviator in Tsingtau, the capital of the 500 square kilometer protectorate of Kiautschou on the Chinese coast. Kiautschou had been leased by China to the German Empire in 1898 for 99 years with all sovereign rights and served as a naval base. After the outbreak of war, Pluschow conducted adventurous reconnaissance flights with his Rumpler Taube against advancing Japanese land and naval forces. He left the fortress on orders shortly before its fall, and he managed, in an unbelievable way, to return to Germany via China, the USA, belligerent Great Britain, and Holland. His account of his experiences, "The Adventures of the Aviator of Tsingtao," was translated into many languages, including Japanese.
Pluschow undertook his first expedition to Tierra del Fuego in 1925/26. With the Hamburg sailing ship "Parma," a four-masted vessel, he crossed the ocean, sailed past the Falkland Islands, around Cape Horn, and along the coast of Chile. He was a photographer, film director, writer, and sailor all in one.
The resulting book and film, titled "Sailing Trip to Wonderland," were enthusiastically received.
At the end of 1927, Pluschow set off again, with a small sailing cutter, to explore the uncharted Tierra del Fuego between the 51st and 45th degrees south latitude in more detail: an almost uninhabited area the size of Germany. In an airplane, the "Silver Condor," he flew with Dreblow over the unknown ice world of the Cordillera. He was the first to see the fantastic glaciers from above, film them, and map them, with the permission of the governments of Chile and Argentina. The two Germans daringly ventured to altitudes of up to 5,000 meters in an open airplane, without oxygen, and in temperatures as low as minus36 degrees Celsius. It took two years until their return. The result: the film and book "Silver Condor over Tierra del Fuego." in addition, boxes of scientific, geographical, and ethnological records.
In the summer of 1930, Pluschow and Dreblow embarked on their third Tierra del Fuego expedition, during which they perished. Pluschow's grave is located in Berlin, in the Lichtenfelde Park Cemetery. However, it is impossible to find. It was leveled a few years ago. But his name remains in the history of aviation.
Even in Latin America, Pluschow is still revered as an aviation pioneer. A memorial stone has been erected at the crash site, where commemorative ceremonies have already taken place in recent years.
