Zorner continued with the unit and from June to October 1941 flew in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Zorner and his unit were handed over to the Red Army on 17 May and he remained a prisoner in the Soviet Union until December 1949.

[4] Zorner expressed an interest in Glider flying in his early years but the size of the family strained his parents' financial resources and he could not take up the hobby.

[5] Zorner desired a military flying career and he applied to join the Luftwaffe and was accepted as a Fahnenjunker (officer candidate) in October 1938.

[7][Note 1] From 4–30 June 1940 Zorner was based at the Fluglehrerschule (flight instructor school) in Brandenburg and from the 1 July 1940 – 15 January 1941 he attended the Flugzeugführerschule C 11 to complete his advanced training.

[7] Following the 1939 aerial Battle of the Heligoland Bight, bombing missions by the Royal Air Force (RAF) shifted to the cover of darkness, initiating the Defence of the Reich campaign.

Each sector, named a Himmelbett (canopy bed), would direct the night fighter into visual range with target bombers.

At Schleißheim Zorner learned the rudiments of air combat and day fighter tactics which he completed on 28 December 1941.

[10][6] On 3 October 1942 Zorner was moved again, this time to 10./Nachtjagdgeschwader 3 (NJG 3—Night Fighter Wing 3), at Grove, where he remained until 5 December 1942.

[14] Zorner engaged a Lancaster 40 kilometres (25 miles) west northwest of Borkum and claimed it shot down over the North Sea.

Although Zorner claimed a probable, an anti-aircraft artillery battery had witnessed the enemy bomber flying just above the sea before it disappeared into the mist.

[10] In April 1943 Zorner was ordered to carry out two daylight operations against the United States Army Air Force (USAAF).

The Bf 110 was adjudged to be only 40 km/h (25 mph) faster and the most effective tactic, the head-on-attack, could only be executed three times for the aircraft could not position itself in front of the bomber formations quickly enough: the endurance of two hours forty-five minutes was not sufficient for these lengthy manoeuvres.

[33] Zorner saw the Lancaster crash and explode which resulted in a fire-work display of green, red and white flashes.

On 18 August 1943 Bomber Command carried out Operation Hydra, an attack on the Peenemünde Army Research Center.

Operating from Lüneburg, Zorner scrambled to intercept 383 aircraft, 365 Lancaster, 10 Halifax and eight de Havilland Mosquito bombers which attacked Berlin on 23/24 November 1943.

On 20 February at 03:04 and 03:17 near Wesendorf, at 03:26 over Gardelegen, and at 03:41 south of Briest, Zorner claimed a Lancaster shot down to record his 28th–31st aerial victories.

A single Lancaster was engaged and destroyed north of Oberhausen at 22:01, west of Sint Truiden at 23:03 and then southwest of Brussels at 23:12.

[47] On 4 April 1944 Zorner was appointed Gruppenkommandeur of III./Nachtjagdgeschwader 5 (NJG 5), based at Mainz Finthen Airport having relinquished his command of 8.

[10] In the early hours of 21 April 1944 Zorner claimed a rare victory for the German night fighter arm—a de Havilland Mosquito.

It was not presented to Zorner until 2 December 1944 when he was handed the medal by Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe at the Reichsluftfahrtministerium.

[10] Zorner was transferred from front-line operations and on 13 October 1944 he appointed Gruppenkommandeur of II./Nachtjagdgeschwader 100 equipped with Ju 88G night-fighters based at Nový Dvůr.

[54] The promotion came six days after his radar operator Feldwebel Heinrich Wilke, was awarded the Knight's Cross on 25 November 1944 for participating in all Zorner's 58 victories.

[52] The Geschwader relocated several times owing to Red Army advances, moving to Vienna, Linz, Prague and finally to Karlsbad in western Germany.

The prisoners had to travel some 5–6 kilometres (3.1–3.7 mi) on foot every morning to a quarry were they worked for eight hours drilling out limestone and fed 600 grams of bread and half a litre of cabbage soup.

In March 1949, Zorner and others planned to escape to Turkey, but events overtook them and the prisoners were repatriated to Germany.

Zorner then travelled to Kaiserslautern in the French zone of occupation to obtain his discharge certificate and was officially a civilian on 3 January 1950.

[60] In May 2006, Zorner received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) for his voluntary services as founder of the "Silesian Partnership" (Partnerschaft mit Schlesien).

The association, which was founded in 1995, aims to improve German-Polish relations and, among other things, has organised help during the 1997 Central European flood.

[63] Obermaier also lists him with 59 nocturnal aerial victories, claimed in 272 combat missions, 110 of which as a night fighter.