Walter Nowotny (7 December 1920 – 8 November 1944) was an Austrian-born fighter ace of the Luftwaffe in World War II.

Nowotny achieved 255 of these victories on the Eastern Front and three while flying one of the first jet fighters, the Messerschmitt Me 262, in the Defense of the Reich.

Nowotny joined the Luftwaffe in 1939 and completed his fighter pilot training in 1941, after which he was posted to Jagdgeschwader 54 "Grünherz" (JG 54) on the Eastern Front.

He was credited with three victories in this aircraft type before being killed in a crash following combat with United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) fighters on 8 November 1944.

[4] Due to his father's relocation, Nowotny transferred to the secondary school (Oberschule) in Laa an der Thaya, where he received his diploma (Matura) in May 1938.

[9] Nowotny also trained as a fighter pilot at the Jagdfliegerschule 5 in Wien-Schwechat (1 August 1940 – 15 November 1940), the same school that Hans-Joachim Marseille had attended one year earlier.

After graduation from the Jagdfliegerschule 5, Nowotny was transferred to the I./Ergänzungs-Jagdgruppe Merseburg on 16 November 1940, flying fighter cover for the Leuna industrial works.

[11] Nowotny flew a Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-7 (Werknummer 1173—factory number) "White 2" on his 24th operational mission on 19 July 1941 and claimed his first two enemy aircraft, both Polikarpov I-153 biplanes of Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily (VVS—Military Air Forces) KBF's 12 OIAE/61 BAB, over Saaremaa.

Nowotny spent three days in a dinghy in the Gulf of Riga – on one occasion almost being run down by a Soviet destroyer – until finally being washed ashore on the Latvian coast.

[12][13] Nowotny quickly recovered from his ordeal and on 31 July claimed a Beriev MBR-2 flying boat north-west of Saaremaa and an Ilyushin DB-3 bomber south of the island.

[14] For the rest of his combat career, Nowotny always wore the trousers (German: Abschußhose roughly "shot down pants" sometimes also referred to as "victory pants") that he had worn during those three days in the Gulf of Riga – with one exception, his last sortie, at Achmer on 8 November 1944, when he was killed flying the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter.

After having downed three enemy aircraft on 11 August, Leutnant Nowotny carried out three victory passes over the airfield, despite having sustained combat damage to his own Bf 109 "Black 1".

[25] In August alone, he shot down 49 aircraft – a number matched exactly by Jagdgeschwader 52's (JG 52) Erich Hartmann – bringing Nowotny's total to 161 victories.

Three other Luftwaffe officers were presented with awards that day by Hitler, Major Hartmann Grasser and Hauptmann Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein were awarded the Oak Leaves, and Hauptmann Günther Rall also received the Swords to his Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves.

Nowotny was celebrating this feat in the Ria Bar in Vilna when he received a phone call from Hitler himself, announcing that he had been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillanten), making him the eighth of 27 men to be so honored.

Shortly before Christmas, he visited the Focke-Wulf production site at Bad Eilsen, where he was met by Professor Kurt Tank.

[Note 3] Hanns Blaschke awarded Nowotny the city's ring of honour on 11 January 1944, the presentation taking place a week later.

Nowotny was made Geschwaderkommodore of Jagdgeschwader 101 (JG 101) and commander of the Jagdfliegerschule 1, a Luftwaffe fighter pilot training school at Pau in southern France, in April 1944.

Galland had already visited Kommando Nowotny several times and was deeply concerned over the high attrition rate and meager success achieved by the Me 262.

[36] The next morning, 8 November 1944, the Generals arrived again at Nowotny's command post and Keller declared that the aces of the past years had become cowards and that the Luftwaffe had lost its fighting spirit.

Two Rotten of Me 262 were prepared for take-off, Erich Büttner and Franz Schall at Hesepe, and Nowotny and Günther Wegmann at Achmer.

At first only Schall and Wegmann managed to take off because Büttner had a punctured tire during taxiing and Nowotny's turbines initially refused to start.

Nowotny radioed that he had downed a B-24 Liberator and a P-51 Mustang before he reported one engine failing and made one final garbled transmission containing the word "burning".

[39]It remains unclear whether Nowotny was killed due to engine failure or whether he was shot down by United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Captain Ernest C. Fiebelkorn (20th Fighter Group) and 1st Lieutenant Edward "Buddy" Haydon (357th Fighter Group) east of Hesepe.

In recent years, United States military historians proposed that Nowotny's victor may have been P-51D pilot Lieutenant Richard W. Stevens of the 364th Fighter Group.

Many witnesses observed Nowotny's Me 262 A-1a (Werknummer 110 400) "White 8" dive vertically out of the clouds and crash at Epe, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) east of Hesepe.

The commemorating plaque on the memorial read: "Here on 8 November 1944, following 258 aerial victories, the recipient of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, Major Walter Nowotny, fell for the people and the fatherland."