Leutnant Rudolf von Eschwege was a German World War I flying ace who was a fighter pilot operating on the Macedonian front.

[1] Rudolf von Eschwege was born in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, the German Empire, on 25 February 1895.

[3] There, on the fringes of the great war, a polyglot air force of Turks, Germans, and Bulgarians battled a vastly numerically superior French and Franco-Serbian foe.

His brief was to patrol a 99 mile (160 km) long front and guard the Bulgarian 10th Aegean Division against enemy air activities.

[3] On 25 October 1916, piloting a Fokker Eindekker,[4] he put in his first claim for an aerial victory when he "splashed" a Farman, but it went unconfirmed because the Bulgarian witnesses at a ground observation post had been transferred.

This sense of chivalry was manifested in a different way after Eschwege's next win of 22 March, when he visited his latest victims, a wounded pilot and observer, in the field hospital, bearing them gifts of cigarettes, chocolate, and books.

The balloon had been fitted with a dummy observer and 500 pounds of high explosives; the booby trap was command detonated to kill Eschwege.

[3] Rudolf von Eschwege's coffin was carried to his grave by six British aviators, and he was buried with full military honors.

The officers of the Royal Flying Corps regret to announce that Lt. von Eschwege was killed while attacking the captive balloon.