Ludwig Meister (14 December 1919 – 26 November 2011) was a Luftwaffe night fighter ace and recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross (German: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) during World War II. The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. During his career he claimed 39 aerial victories, 38 of them at night.
Meister was born on 14 December 1919 in Rohrmühle, present-day part of Erbendorf, at the time in the Free State of Bavaria within the Weimar Republic. In October 1939, Meister joined the Luftwaffe and reived his basic military training with 4. Kompanie (4th company) of Fliegerausbildungsregiment 51 (51st Flight Training Regiment) at Weimar before he was transferred to the Air War School Klotzsche in Dresden in November. On 30 June 1940, Meister then attended the advanced Flugzeugführerschule C 9 (FFS C 9—advanced flight school) at Altenburg. He the attended the blind flying school Blindflugschule 1 (BFS 1—1st blind flying school) at Brandis, Germany from 21 February 1941. He was then posted to the Zerstörerschule (destroyer school) at Neubiberg where he received operational training on the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter. In mid-June 1941, Meister was posted to Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 (NJG 1—Night Fighter Wing 1).
A map of part of the Kammhuber Line. The ‘belt’ and night fighter ‘boxes’ are shown.
Following the 1939 aerial Battle of the Heligoland Bight, Royal Air Force (RAF) attacks shifted to the cover of darkness, initiating the Defense of the Reich campaign. By mid-1940, Generalmajor (Brigadier General) Josef Kammhuber had established a night air defense system dubbed the Kammhuber Line. It consisted of a series of control sectors equipped with radars and searchlights and an associated night fighter. Each sector named a Himmelbett (canopy bed) would direct the night fighter into visual range with target bombers. In 1941, the Luftwaffe started equipping night fighters with airborne radar such as the Lichtenstein radar. This airborne radar did not come into general use until early 1942.
The effectiveness of RAF Bomber Command to accurately hit German targets had been questioned by the War Cabinet Secretary David Bensusan-Butt who published the Butt Report in August 1941. The report in parts concluded that the British crews failed to navigate to, identify, and bomb their targets. Although the report was not widely accepted by senior RAF commanders, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, instructed Commander-in-Chief Richard Peirse that during the winter months only limited operations were to be conducted. Flight operations were also hindered by bad weather in the first months of 1942, so II. Gruppe only saw very limited action and Meister was the only pilot of II. Gruppe to claim an aerial victory during that period.
On 8 February 1942, Meister along with other pilots of II. Gruppe was transferred to Koksijde Air Base. The objective of this assignment was to give the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen fighter protection in the breakout from Brest to Germany. The Channel Dash operation (11–13 February 1942) by the Kriegsmarine (Navy) was codenamed Operation Cerberus by the Germans. In support of this, the Luftwaffe under the leadership of General der Jagdflieger (General of the Fighter Force) Adolf Galland, formulated an air superiority plan dubbed Operation Donnerkeil for the protection of the three German capital ships. II./NJG 1 was briefed of these plans in the early morning hours on 12 February. The plan called for protection of the German ships at all costs. The crews were told that if they ran out of ammunition they must ram the enemy aircraft. To the relief of the night fighters they were assigned to the first-line reserves. The operation, which took the British by surprise, was successful and the night fighters were kept in their reserve role. On the evening of 12 February, II. Gruppe was relocated to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. They then relocated again to Aalborg-West in Denmark from where they made a low-level flight in close formation over the Skaggerak, landing at Stavanger-Sola. Over the following days they operated from the airfield at Forus, making a short-term landing at Bergen-Herdla. In total, Schnaufer made two operational flights without contact with the enemy. Following this assignment they relocated to 5. Staffel‘s new base in Germany at Bonn-Hangelar via Oslo-Gardermoen, Aalborg, and Lüneburg.
On 11 August 1943, Meister was appointed Staffelkapitän (squadron leader) of 1. Staffel of Nachtjagdgeschwader 4 (NJG 4—Night Fighter Wing 4). On 6 December 1944, Meister was appointed Gruppenkommandeur (group commander) of III. Gruppe of NJG 4, succeeding Hauptmann Hans-Karl Kamp in this capacity.
