Role model and hero
- In 1944, he freed and rescued 130 captured comrades 50km behind their own lines in a commando operation!
- Lieutenant Colonel of the German Army / FschJgBtl 313! - World record in night parachute jump (8000 meters - 1964!) During the Second World War, he was deployed on all fronts (Corinth, Crete, Russia, Africa, France)
He saved 130 comrades:
In August 1944, he and his regiment were transferred to France to help defend Operation Overlord and, during the Battle of Brittany, to help defend the fortress of Brest.
When an escaped member of the parachute troops reported that he had escaped from being held captive by French partisans from the Forces françaises de l’intérieur (FFI) in the village of Brasparts, 50 km from the German lines, where 130 other German paratroopers were still being held, and that he was being mistreated and executed, Lepkowski was commissioned by the General of the Parachute Troops and Commander of the Fortress Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke to rescue them.
Lepkowski assembled 40 men from volunteers from his 5th Company as a shock troop to free the prisoners.[1] Lepkowski used captured Allied trucks and three captured US Army tanks, which were decorated with US symbols, flags and French liberation slogans.
The volunteers were dressed in French Resistance camouflage, including Wehrmacht uniforms. All drivers had to have a good knowledge of French. Fake written US orders to release the German prisoners to the supposed Allied soldiers were produced.
In the early hours of August 16, Lepkowski's troops advanced with 18 trucks and three tanks, while several paratrooper units carried out diversionary attacks.
The troops made it undetected through several US Army and FFI checkpoints to Brasparts. Here, Lepkowski's men in the vehicles dropped their disguises and released their weapons.
After an accidental gunshot went off, the German soldiers jumped from the trucks and took over the school building where the German prisoners were being held.
They managed to overpower their guards and take them as prisoners of war. The Germans immediately retreated with their French prisoners in the captured vehicles and broke through the lines of the comparatively poorly armed FFI with their heavy weapons. As they got closer to the front line, the resistance of the FFI became stronger, but could not stop the Germans.
The US units were still involved in battles with the other German paratroopers, so that Lepkowski's troops reached the fortress of Brest without any losses of their own - apart from three lightly wounded - with all 130[2] (or 144[3]) freed German prisoners and 15[2] captured French soldiers (or 21 FFI and 2 civilians[3]). During the fighting, 3 resistance fighters were killed in Brasparts, 6 in Tréhou and 16 in Irvillac.[3] Lepkowski ensured that the resistance fighters were treated as regular prisoners of war and not as guerrillas. In total, the soldiers covered around 120 km during the operation.
At the instigation of General Ramcke, all participants in the rescue operation received the Iron Cross First or Second Class. The Oak Leaves, which Ramcke had requested for Lepkowski, were not awarded. However, after this success, Lepkowski was promoted to first lieutenant by General Ramcke. In the last days of the fighting for Brest, he was seriously wounded on September 13, 1944, and lost an eye. At first he was thought to be dead and placed on a pile of corpses with fallen Wehrmacht soldiers, but the senior medical officer Marquard found signs of life in Lepkowski and had him taken to the hospital, where he was unconscious for five days.
On September 16, half a liter of bloody bodily fluid was pumped out of his lungs. The fortress commander, General Ramcke, visited him on September 19th. On September 20th, the Brest Fortress capitulated. Lepkowski spent many months as a prisoner of war in a US Army hospital in the United States without recovering.
About a year after his injury, an American surgeon decided to open his chest, where he found and removed a small piece of grenade splinter in the left atrium of his heart. Only now did Lepkowski's condition quickly improve. In September 1945, Lepkowski was released from captivity as a severely disabled person with a sixty percent disability.
Service in the German army and world record: Lepkowski served as a first lieutenant in the German army from 1960. At first he was not allowed to skydive because of his war injuries and the resulting unfitness to jump. However, on October 23rd, 1962, he was given official permission because he had already jumped privately 120 times.
Two days later, he set a group record with the Parachute Battalion 313 in Wildeshausen by jumping from a height of 7,200 m. In 1964, at the age of 45, Lepkowski set a world record in night parachute jumping by jumping from a height of over 8,000 meters above Ahlhorn airfield.
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