Luftwaffe Battle of Britain Fighter Ace Award Documents and Photographs Group of a Fighter Pilot of the “Horst Wessel” Squadron – POW Canada

The group is comprised of four award and promotion documents of fighter pilot Franz Sander of the Horst Wessel Squadron, together with approximately 54 photographs of various sizes. The documents include the 1938 award document for the pilot badge; the 1940 promotion document which elevated Sander from Unteroffizier to Feldwebel; the 1941 document promoting Sander from Feldwebel to Oberfeldwebel; and the 1941 document awarding the Day Fighter Clasp in gold to Sander. The documents show fold lines but they are intact and in overall very good condition. The group further includes approximately 54 photographs depicting Luftwaffe personnel in various theaters as well as aircraft. A few of the photographs have penciled annotations on the reverse. Two of the photographs are group photographs that were apparently taken in a Canadian prisoner of war camp and made into postcards. They appear to have been sent by a captured member of the Horst Wessel squadron named Heinz Wienstroet to his father, and a third postcard that was sent by Franz Sander to his wife after he himself had become a prisoner of war in 1942.to Sander’s wife or mother (As an additional note, the award document for the Day Fighter Clasp appears to have been signed by Major Karl Kaschka as Group Commander of the Horst Wessel squadron. Kaschka was a member and in fact the captain of the Austrian saber team in the 1936 Olympic Games. He was killed in action in 1941). Research has shown that Franz Sander himself was a recipient of both the 1939 Iron Cross First class and the German Cross in Gold. He was credited with shooting down three Spitfires over England during the Battle of Britain on August 18 of 1940, with a later downing of a Hurricane over England that same month. He scored his fifth victory with the downing of a Hurricane over Malta in April of 1941, and his sixth victory was the downing of a Blenheim in May of 1941.