Anyone who climbs the Valtenberg via the so-called Valtenbergweg will be able to discover what is currently the youngest memorial stone in the Hohwald area. This was inaugurated on April 27, 2012 and commemorates a tragic plane crash that happened exactly 50 years ago at this point. On the morning of April 27, 1962, the 22-year-old pilot, Lieutenant Gerd Scheibe, from Jagdgeschwader 3, took off with a MIG-19 S from the military airfield in Preschen. An interception exercise in the Dresden area is said to have been planned for this day. There was low cloud cover and rain showers that day. Whether Gerd Scheibe lost his orientation and therefore dived under the cloud cover can no longer be clarified. In any case, the young pilot's plane crashed into the towering Valtenberg massif at around 9:30 a.m. Gerd Scheibe had a fatal accident. His plane was blown up into lots of debris, which was scattered throughout the forest. The crash site was then cordoned off over a large area and the forest area cleared for days. Due to the strict secrecy about this accident, numerous stories and legends about this accident formed in the following decades. It was only around 20 years after the end of the GDR that the local historian Matthias Hüsni began to come to terms with this misfortune. He sought contact with the family and former comrades of the pilot. In order to keep the memory of this terrible accident alive, this memorial stone was erected on the initiative of Matthias Hüsni.
Source: bergbau-im-hohwaldgebiet.de/discovery-am-wegsrand/gedenkstein-für-gerd-scheibe

Translated by Google •

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Location: Neukirch/Lausitz, Bautzen, Upper Lusatia, Saxony, Germany

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