
Franz Stigler (21 August 1915-22 March 2008) was a German Luftwaffe fighter pilot who served in World War II. On 20 December 1943, he famously spared the life of US Air Force pilot Charles Brown and the crew of his damaged B-17 bomber, believing that shooting down the heavily damaged and retreating plane would be as immoral as shooting at parachutes.
Biography[]
Franz Stigler was born in Regensburg, Bavaria, German Empire in 1915, and he started flying gliders in 1927 at the age of 12 and became a Lufthansa instructor pilot during the 1930s. He joined the Wehrmacht in 1939 and was soon placed in the Luftwaffe, training Gerhard Barkhorn, who would become a flying ace during World War II. Stigler served in North Africa and Europe during the war, and, on 20 December 1943, he saw a heavily-damaged American B-17 bomber struggling to return to Britain from a successful bombing run on Bremen.
Recalling his commander and mentor Gustav Roedel's words, "If I hear of one of you shooting a man in a parachute, I'll shoot you myself!", Stigler chose not only not to shoot down the crippled American plane, but also to escort it out of German airspace, suggesting that the American pilot Charles Brown land in Sweden. However, Brown, not understanding Stigler, chose to fly back to Britain, and Stigler escorted the plane to the North Sea coast to protect it from German anti-aircraft fire. Stigler at first never spoke of the incident lest he be court-martialed and executed, while Brown's officers also chose to keep the incident a top secret.
Stigler moved to Canada in 1953 and became a successful businessman, and, in 1990, he reunited with Brown, who searched for the German pilot who had saved his life, and the two remained close friends until their deaths within months of each other in 2008. The incident was popularized by the 2012 biographical novel A Higher Call and the Sabaton heavy metal song "No Bullets Fly".