Military Zollingers
Otto Schröder - Zollinger, Hamburg, Germany, 1899 - 1980
His grand-parents had emigrated from Zürich to the Near East, and built up a prosperous trading company, first in Haifa, Israel, and later in Aleppo, Syria. There Otto’s grand-father took on German citizenship, and later became not only a very successful businessman, but was also awarded the position of German consul in Aleppo. Otto’s mother Lucia Zollinger must have returned to Germany before WW I, i.e. before 1914, because at the age of 17 Otto enrolled in cadet school in Germany. He soon was able to move up the ranks of the German navy, and spent the years between 1923 and 1925 on the battleship "Braunschweig" as a torpedo officer. Later he was appointed as officer on the torpedo boat "Seeadler", and after one year of service there he was promoted to torpedo officer on the battleship "Königsberg".
In 1933 he decided to transfer to the German Air Force, where from 1934 to 1936 he was commander of the military airfield Rügen, and was then moved to the Air Force regional command center in Kiel. From 1941 to 1943 he was commander of the combat flying school in Parow, and in late 1943 he joined the Air Force (Luftwaffe) High Command. Towards the end of the World War II he was air force commander of the region Belgium/North France.
He was captured by British troops on the 17. July 1945, and became POW # a967272. He first spent some time at the air force collection camp Gettorf, and then was a British prisoner of war from the 17th of July 1945 to the 17th of May 1948. He retired to Schmalenbeck, now a suburb of Hamburg in Germany, where he died in 1980.
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