Life Member Lothar Konietzko, 83, Was German Fighter Pilot

 

SALINE, MI (January 7, 2009) – NPPA Life Member Lothar Ehrenfried Konietzko, who along with his two of his brothers were German Messerschmitt fighter pilots during World War II, died December 10, 2008, after a long battle with stomach cancer, his family reports. He was 83.

Sponsored by an American pilot after the war, Konietzko immigrated to the United States in 1954 and settled in Wayne, MI, where he found a job with the Associated News Papers. He joined NPPA in 1957. The photographer worked in Michigan for his entire career and was one of the founding members, and a past president, of the Michigan Press Photographers Association. He retired as the chief photographer of the Wayne Eagle.

Born on March 15, 1925, in Kalitka, Prussia, Konietzko grew up in Brandenbergerheide near the Baltic Sea. After attending grade school, he received his glider license at age 16 and went on to obtain a pilot’s license. He came from a third generation forestry family and became a fourth generation forester like his father and grandfather before him. During World War II, he was a Messerschmitt fighter pilot enrolled in the Luftwaffe along with his brothers Siegfried and Wolfgang Konietzko.  
 
As the war progressed and the Russians moved through Prussia, Konietzko escaped Prussia during the wintertime and headed toward Germany, his family says. Konietzko left his family home and walked across an 18-mile stretch of ice covering the Frische Half Lake close to the Baltic Sea. Once in Germany, and after the war, he became a refugee seeking work because Prussia had been overtaken by Russia. Unable to find forestry employment, Konietzko emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York Harbor aboard the SS America.
 
Konietzko won many awards for his photography, and his family says he took pictures of every U.S. president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to William J. Clinton. In 1965 he received NPPA's President's Award. After retirement he enjoyed deer hunting, and he spent time at his cabin on the Thunder Bay River and at the V-8 Club in Atlanta, MI. 

He is survived by his youngest brother, Roland Konietzko; his children, Karin Konietzko, Lothar (Kelly) Konietzko, and Heidi (Michael) Hagen; his grandchildren, Natalie, Stefanie and Alex Lembovski, Olivia and Alexis Konietzko; his nephews Harald, Mathias, Andreas, Norbert (Cindy) and Stuart Konietzko, and niece Hella Konietzko. 
 
A funeral was held December 13, 2008, at Green Funeral Home in Atlanta, MI, and was buried at Briley Township Cemetery in Atlanta.

 

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