Uncouth Obsessions @uncouthobsessions - Tumblr Blog

The proper scientific way for determining who's Marseille in a picture

@xylaif posted some pictures today from Robert Tate's book. This one here says Marseille is on the right, although – the author adds – it is not clear. I have a different conclusion: the person on the right is standing straight. Marseille was in the habit of standing cunty. Thus, I'd wager he's the second from the left.

#hans joachim marseille

Duty and Devotion

Though Hans-Joachim Marseille had many talents, his talent for insubordination was something else entirely. Few in the Nazi Luftwaffe would have thought to strafe their superior’s tent; fewer yet would have lived to tell the tale. Yet if you are exceptional enough, it turns out exceptions can be made – and Marseille was nothing if not that: an exception in every way. But if he was "grumpy" (Emil Clade's word) towards his superiors, the same was not true for Marseille's behaviour towards men technically beneath him in the military hierarchy. According to Eduard Neumann, this was even his most defining trait: an unusual kind of warmth, a solicitousness and care he’d afford his own ground crew as much as ordinary soldiers who needed his help.

It seems that affection very much ran both ways. In a German television documentary made some fifty years later, we catch a glimpse of what Marseille, in turn, inspired in his men. A fierce, inconvenient devotion sitting somewhere south of duty. Here, Fritz Janssen — Marseille’s armourer — recalls what parachute rigger Paul Geisinger said to him when news of Marseille’s death came over the radio: “Just so you know: I’m setting off now. And if the parachute didn’t open,... that cannot be. If it turns out that it didn’t open, I’ll take a pistol and shoot myself.” Paul Geisinger: “The day Marseille was killed was the darkest day for us — in fact, the darkest day of my life. Because I was the parachute rigger. And Rainer Pöttgen landed, came to me, and said the parachute hadn’t opened. I said: that’s not possible. ‘Yes,’ said Rainer, ‘it’s still closed.’

I wanted to drive out to the crash site immediately so I could see it with my own eyes. But there were so many truck drivers and others already heading out that I was left behind. I said only this: bring the parachute back in such a way that nothing is disturbed.

The parachute came back. And before that, the doctor and others had already established that all the safety mechanisms were intact, and that the parachute had not been pulled.

At that, a stone fell from my heart.”

#hans joachim marseille

Als Andenken und Erinnerung

At the height of his success – and, yes, celebrity – in the summer of 1942, Marseille was on a propaganda tour through Germany. He was, at this point, already a 101 kill ace; even if he hadn’t the military bearing, that plus the looks was enough to have him ferried around as the Luftwaffe’s golden boy. And while the German war effort was short on many things, admirers for its heroes wasn’t one of them. Over the course of those weeks, Marseille would sign hundreds of postcards – typically Hoffmann cards, traded like baseball cards, the faces of Nazi Germany’s heroes circulating through kitchen drawers and school satchels. If there was one thing the regime knew, it was how to invest in its mythologies.

And so here he was, in that final summer of his life: twenty-two, exhausted, immaculate, writing countless short dedications to friends and fans alike. Several of those remain.

But what strikes me, above all, is the peculiar phrasing he’d employ, again and again. Whether he was writing to a dear friend, Hans Arnold Stahlschmidt (above), Luftwaffe auxiliaries, or simply some boy who’d asked for an autograph, the same odd invocation turns up: “Als Andenken und Erinnerung” It’s such a strange double gesture, and one I haven’t seen elsewhere. Andenken and Erinnerung: two words that, at first glance, seem to say the same thing, and yet together feel oddly funereal. Andenken was once the softer word — the souvenir, the lock of hair, the token of affection. By the 1940s, it had already begun to tilt toward mourning, appearing on memorial cards and in the language of the fallen. Sure, you could have an “Andenken an schöne Stunden” – say, of a holiday – but that too contains the knowledge of their finality. It’s the material memento, yes, but one that nonetheless points to the mori.

Erinnerung, meanwhile, is inward: it references less material object, but the act itself, the remembering it wants to evoke. Writing both almost collapses the distance between the tangible and the psychic, between the keepsake and the grief it foreshadows. As if he were writing from the far edge of the photograph, already half-vanished, already envisaging himself in past tense only, yet demanding that the image hold. The self written into aftermath, insisting he be both commemorated *and* remembered. I’m reminded here of the line from Rilke, “Sei allem Abschied voran als wär er schon hinter dir”

#hans joachim marseille

Found this on pinterest, not sure how/whom to credit. Nonetheless: appropriate.

#hans joachim marseille #what is dead may never die

"Jochen was a practical joker; he was forever playing pranks. He came to see me and my squadron - No. 8 Staffel - one day in his colorful Volkswagen jeep. He called it Otto. After a talk, a cup of sweet coffee and a glass of Italian Doppio Kümmel, he got into his jeep and drove it straight at my tent flattening everything. Then he drove off with a grin stretching across his face."

- Werner Schroer, 8/JG 27

#hans joachim marseille #luftwaffe #idiot boy #ww2

Things That Go “BSSSSTTTTTTT”

You know he did the sound effects.

#hans joachim marseille #wwii #luftwaffe #bf 109 #fighter ace

A Man Full of Art

“I knew him very closely. The fighters and we were so to say married and so we visited him several times in his airport. He was a man full of art. Typical artist. He was not a very military stiff brush, not at all.”

- Stuka pilot Heinz Migeod, interviewed in 2010

(Spicy cross censored bc it’s too spicy for my country.)

#hans joachim marseille #wwii #luftwaffe #stuka

Death of a Ladies’ Man

Much has been written of the dashing seducer Marseille, and much less of Marseille the awkward love-struck schoolboy.

Here‘s what Fritz Janssen, one of Marseille‘s ground crew, says about the final days of his life:

“In the evenings he’d be sitting there with his candle, writing letters to his fiancée, it was like he was in a haze. Quite like a middle schooler who got his first girlfriend. That’s what he’d talk about.”

If Marseille was so besotted, did his engagement in March 1942 spell the end of his Slüttiness™️? Heaton suggests it did not, albeit with recourse to unreliable source material. And if indeed it didn‘t, does that tell us anything about his relationship? Also no. We simply know nothing about what was really between them.

It’s all very unsatisfying. I’m still hoping those letters will resurface in some dusty antique chest in Bad Saarow and somehow find their way into my hands.

#hans joachim marseille #wwii #luftwaffe

seelenvollpilot

What if Marseille worked as a civilian pilot?💙 Here he is, the second pilot. Behind him is the constellation Sagittarius. On the chest is the Eagle, Southern Cross, Snake and Fox.

HJM & the sandals

Wearing your dead sister’s sandals is a normal and not at all a weird thing to do at the best of times, but especially a) as a combatant in an actual war b), in an institution obsessed with the traditional signifiers of white, violent masculinity. (Not sure women’s sandals make the cut here is what I’m saying.) So yeah, let Rommel put on his dress uniform to meet the as-yet-deadliest member of his Coloniser Twink Flying Squad—and leave it to Marseille to turn up looking morbidly casual in girly shoes.

Why? Because HJM, that’s why.

(Also that’s a lot of pant for not much leg.)

The sandals in question, retrieved from the crash site:

#hans joachim marseille #luftwaffe #erwin rommel #ew stinky shoes

fuckyeahhistorycrushes

This adorable little fucker is Hans Joachim Marseille (1919-1942), a German Luftwaffe pilot. Though I can’t say he was something noble like a resistance fighter, he was an utter badass with that touch of brokenness and sensitivity. He was a lazy student and got kicked out of his first unit, once the war had started, because of insubordination, concretely because of lack of discipline, arrogance and a liking for liquor, girls and jazz music, even though he was repeatedly evaluated as a very gifted pilot. After a while in his new squadron in North Africa, he started intensive self-training and later developed his own tactics, leading to outstanding success and ultimately the highest decoration for bravery in Nazi Germany.

So much about his life, but the crush-worthy stuff is yet to come. Even though he was forbidden to continue to do so, he performed several ‘mercy missions’, means he drove to remote crash sites to rescue Allied pilots or, if he couldn’t, flew to their airfields to deliver letters of regret (in two cases). When he coincidentally learned of the 'Final Solution’, he ran off to Italy and refused to keep on serving in the army, unfortunately he was tracked down by Gestapo and forced to go back. Several biographers have written about his disdain for the National Socialist movement and authority in general.

In summer 1942, he was to play the piano at a party in Berlin (because the little shit also was a really talented musician), attended by the very elite of the Third Reich, like really, there were Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Messerschmitt (an industrial) and Hitler himself. After an hour of playing Beethoven like a good boy, he proceeded by playing American jazz like a total badass.

But actually I think his arrogance, lack of discipline and overall playboy behaviour were mostly a result of his parents having divorced when he was a young child, concluding in a difficult relationship with his natural father. Okay I know this sounds cheesy and cliche but I guess this was even harder back then, especially in a culture that glorified the traditional family abnormally. In addition, in 1941 his sister was murdered and in early September 1942 two of his closest friends died, leaving him as an emotional wreck for the last few weeks of his life.

This leads me over to his death, another nominee for the most tragic story. On September the 30th, he insisted the new airplane he was to fly for an escort mission wasn’t safe but eventually was forced to. The mission passed without combat, but on their way back the engine caught fire and the cockpit filled with smoke so as soon as they reached friendly lines, he tried to bail out. Due to the smoke and slight disorientation, he didn’t notice his plane had turned so as he jumped out, his chest hit the vertical stabilizer (the broad thingy on the back) what either killed him instantly or made him lose consciousness so he couldn’t open his parachute anymore. He had planned to take leave for Christmas to marry his fiancée, only 3 months later.

Also just look at that dorky little shit who can’t wear his stupid uniform hat properly so his stupid hair is flowing in the wind and his stupid adorable grin I mean how dare you

Source: wikipedia

uncouthobsessions

”Though I can't say he was something noble like a resistance fighter, he was an utter badass with that touch of brokenness and sensitivity.”

And that’s the 🫖

#hans joachim marseille #luftwaffe

HJM’s Hitler Youth ID

The reason he‘s named there as “Hans-Joachim Reuter” is that Reuter was his stepfather’s name. I’ve heard conflicting stories of how (or rather why) Marseille reverted to, well, Marseille. One account said he did so voluntarily, another claims his father sued for the name change in some way. There should be court records, come to think of it—I‘ll need to dig into that, as the lasting fallout from his parents’ divorce is so often cited as the reason for his troubles/temperament.

By the way: Marseille was not with the Flieger-HJ, but with the Marine-HJ, i.e. the naval branch. Following his Abitur he applied for training as a naval officer, but was turned down for being too weedy. (That‘s according to his brother.) Well, the newly founded Luftwaffe was glad to have him, even if, at least initially, he tried his hardest to make them regret it.

#hans joachim marseille #luftwaffe #deadly twink

HJM’s memorial in Berlin

The Riemer/Reuter (Marseille’s mother and stepfather respectively) family grave at Evangelischer Friedhof Alt-Schöneberg features a memorial plaque for HJM. Ingeborg‘s is on the other side.

It‘s not hard to find if you know where to look. There is a main sort of path cutting straight through the cemetery, and the memorial is on the right side, located fairly centrally, if you were walking away from Hauptstraße and towards Belziger Straße. I‘ve marked the general area in the pic on the left; it‘ll be more obvious when you click on it.

Remember though that Marseille isn‘t actually buried in Schöneberg. He was first laid to rest in Derna, then exhumed in the early 1950s and interred with 6000 Afrika Korps dead in the German war cemetery (“Totenburg”) in Tobruk.

I was somewhat taken aback by the positively pocket-sized coffin—he was teensy but not THAT small, certainly—but uh, I guess after 10 years in the ground you might be in some disarray.

#hans joachim marseille

Marseille X Riefenstahl

Marseille went on his final home leave in July/August 1942, during which he spent a weekend with director/propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.

Riefenstahl—a good 17 years Marseille’s senior—never explicitly confirmed or denied rumors of their affair, but would later tell his biographer Colin Heaton:

“He was such a handsome man! I only met him once, for a couple of days, but I just could not take my eyes off of him. I know that others could easily see that I was infatuated with him. I always liked men very much, and Marseille was simply irresistible. I had even asked him to be an actor and star in one of my films later. He inquired as to what kind of film I may have in mind, and I told him that Hitler and Göbbels liked traditional films, military films. I even said that he would be perfect playing himself in a great air combat film. Then he asked me if I thought films like that would be popular after we had lost the war. I was shocked.”