Our second Albatros WOW586 was flown by Lieutenant Otto Paul Wilhelm Höhne (30 April 1895 – 22 November 1969). Hohne was a German WWI flying ace credited with six confirmed aerial victories. He was the first pilot to score a victory while flying the Albatross D.1. He was severely wounded in action during  January1917 and hospitalized for most of it due to these wounds, he returned to his unit in 1918 to command Jasta 2 which was then equipped with the Fokker Triplane, however realizing he was not fully recovered enough to command the unit he stepped aside.

Hohne flew with the Condor legion during the Spanish Civil War and then returned to service during World War II, serving in the Luftwaffe and rising to Major General. As lieutenant colonel in KG 54, he led one of the two bomber columns during the Rotterdam Blitz, but managed to abort the attack of his column at the last minute.
He also commanded a wing of KG 54 during the Battle of Britain, the invasion of Poland, and the battles over France. He was again badly injured as a passenger in the crash of a Heinkel 111 on 15 August 1941 and subsequently served as Generalmajor and commanding officer of the flight combat school in Bavaria. He was awarded the Knights Cross for his service during WW2, surviving the war he died in 1969 aged 74 years old.
His son, Joachim Höhne, served in the Luftwaffe, first as a Flak gunner and then as an Me163 Komet pilot with JG 400.

Aircraft History:   The Albatros D.I was an early fighter aircraft designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Albatros Flugzeugwerke. It was the first of the Albatros D types which equipped the majority of the German and Austrian fighter squadrons (Jagdstaffeln) for the last two years of the First World War. Despite this, the D.I had a relatively brief operational career, having been rapidly eclipsed by rapid advances in fighter aircraft.

The D.I was designed by Robert Thelen, R. Schubert and Gnädig, as an answer to the latest Allied fighters, such as the Nieuport 11 Bébé and the Airco D.H.2, which had proved superior to the Fokker Eindecker and other early German fighters, and established a general Allied air superiority. It featured a then-radical semi-monocoque fuselage design that was paired with a relatively powerful six-cylinder water cooled inline engine. Unlike the majority of preceding aircraft, the D.I could be armed with twin fixed Spandau machine-guns without incurring a meaningful performance loss.

The D.I was ordered into production during June 1916 and introduced into service with the Luftstreitkräfte only two months later. While not being a particularly maneuverable aircraft even at the time of its introduction, the aircraft proved to be effective in combat, largely due to its superior speed and firepower over most contemporary military aircraft. Despite its success, no more than 50 D.Is were ever produced, having been rapidly eclipsed by the Albatros D.II, which was broadly identical in terms of its design save for the repositioning of the upper wing to be less of a hindrance to pilot visibility.

The figures and accessories are shown for scale comparison purposes only and are not included.