Otto Parschau

Leutnant Otto Parschau (11 November 1890 – 21 July 1916) was a German World War I flying ace and recipient of the Pour le Mérite, Royal House Order of Hohenzollern, and Iron Cross, First Class. He was noted as one of the pre-eminent aces on the Fokker Eindecker. He was one of the world's first flying aces. Parschau and Leutnant Kurt Wintgens were the pilots chosen to fly the prototype of the revolutionary Fokker Eindecker fighter plane with a machine gun synchronized to fire safely through its propeller arc via use of a gun synchronizer.

Background Parschau was born in Klausen (now Klutznick, Poland), in the Allenstein district of East Prussia. He became a commissioned officer a year after having joined the Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 151 in 1910. Parschau was trained as a pilot in Johannisthal, Darmstadt, and in Hanover and received his licence on 4 July 1913.

World War I Upon the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914 Parschau was already serving with the Luftstreitkräfte, and soon found himself flying two-seaters in operations on the Champagne front and then in Flanders and Alsace-Lorraine before being posted to West Prussia and Galicia, on the Eastern Front. It was requisitioned by the Fliegertruppe and von Buttlar was commissioned as an officer in the German Army at the outbreak of hostilities. The airplane was painted in a shade of green that was the same as that used by von Buttlar's previous Marburg-based Jäger Regiment 11. Parschau had served He was awarded the Pour le Merite the following day. On the 14th, AKN was severed from FFA 32 and Parschau was appointed to its command.

On 21 July 1916 Parschau was mortally wounded during combat with Royal Flying Corps aircraft over Grévillers.