Kurt Schulze

Kurt Schulze was born in  Germany in 1921. After graduating  from High School in Berlin, Kurt entered German military service in 1939 as a Cadet with the Air Signals Corps. In 1940 during the “Blitzkrieg“ he served in Holland, Belgium and France. In 1941, now a Leutnant(2nd Lt),  he was a Wireless operator and Air Traffic Controller.  That year he flew on 6 long range reconnaissance missions in ME-110C’s over Southern Russia. From 1942 to 1943 he served as a Communications and Navigation Officer.  As a Navigator he flew 23 night missions in DO-217’s over England.
 

In September of 1943, he received his wings as a pilot and in March 1944 started fighter pilot training. In July of 1944 he was assigned to *JG-5 in the Petsamo region of Finland, 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle at the Barents Sea and just 60 miles west of Murmansk, Russia. While there, he flew the Messerschmitt  Bf-109 (photo right) on 65 missions and was credited with three victories. On September 16,1944, he was shot down over the Russo-Finnish border. Rescued by German Mountain Troops, it took sometime to get back to his base, but when he arrived, his Commanding Officer pulled out a bottle and they celebrated his save return. Later he volunteered to fly daylight photo reconnaissance missions over Murmansk in a Bf-109. He was lucky as the flak was intense. When Finland signed a peace agreement with Russia, Sept 19 1944, his unit was moved to Bardufoss in northern Norway.

On November 12, 1944, Kurt (photo left) flew on an unsuccessful mission to protect the German battleship “Tirpitz“ from RAF "Lancaster" bombers each armed with a 12,000 lb "Tallboy" bomb. Their effort would be a few minutes late arriving, the "Tirpitz.“ was already capsized at it's anchorage near Tromso. On March 2, 1945, after commanding a training squadron in Germany for two months, Oberleutnant(1st Lt) Schulze flew a Bf-109G into the city of Danzig (Gdansk) in Eastern Germany (now Poland) that by then was encircled by the Russian Army. He was given command of the first *JG-51 squadron. It was there that he flew the last 9 of a total of 103 missions. He  returned to Norway on May 2, 1945, just days before the War ended.

As a POW, he was turned over to the American Forces and then to the French where he was sent to several locations in France and finally released in June of 1947. His ability to speak fluent French as well as English, was a great help during this time. In 1951 an uncle visiting Berlin and suggested that he and his wife immigrate to California. They did and settled in Inglewood. In 1958 they became U.S. Citizens and Kurt received his Real Estate Brokers license. Some years later, he joined some friends that were developing an area in Vista and San Marcos. In 1990, he retired in Vista after a successful career in Real Estate and Banking.