Buckler, Julius, born 28-03-1894 in Mainz-Mombach, Großherzogtum Hesse, 
the son of the master roofer Julius Philipp Buckler and Wilhelmina “Mina”, born Bott (both Catholic and marriage was on 30-09-1893 in Mainz). He had three sisters, the youngest, Elisabeth, but died in 1901 of the long-term effects of malnutrition at the age of only nine months. Buckler’s father was a roofer, and Buckler followed him into the family trade It was not until 1906 that Julius ’father received a major order and earned enough to start his own business. The times of poverty were over for the time being. Another major order came in at the end of 1909, but his father fell seriously ill (pneumonia). On 06-02-1910 he could not get up, and on 10-02-1910 he died. However, he had previously leased a small restaurant, which his mother, who later remarried, was now running successfully. At 15 years of age, Buckler had an interest in architecture and worked for the Dutch builder of German Fighting Aircrafts 1940, Anthony Fokker, 
but left in 1913 to join the Infantry Life Regiment 117. After suffering a bad wound on the Western Front in September, 1914, he applied for a transfer to the German Army Air Service. He trained in Flieger-Ersatz -teilung 6, and by the summer of 1915 was flying artillery direction missions over Verdun as an aerial observer in Flieger -teilung (Artillery) 209 before training as a pilot.
Once he was qualified, Buckler returned to his two-seater unit as a pilot. On 21-03-1916, he was lining up an attack on a French Voisin when a Fokker Eindekker cut in and shot it down. The Eindekker followed Buckler and his observer back to their base; the pilot introduced himself as “German Flying Ace” Oswald Boelcke.
Meeting the leading ace of the war evoked Buckler’s intense desire to become a fighter pilot.In November 1916 he transferred to a fighter squadron, Jagdstaffel 17, as a founding member. Just after he joined Jagdstaffel 17, they re-equipped with the Albatros D.II. Oswald Boelcke died in a flying accident when his plane collided with one of his best friends during the take-off on a sortie in October 1916.
On 18 November Buckler, here with Flying ace the red baron Manfred von Richthofen
was commissioned as a Leutnant. He was wounded for the fourth time on 30-11-1917, wounded in both his arms and chest. His subsequent crash 
then completely broke both arms. He lay under his smashed aircraft for hours before counter-attacking German infantry overran the wreckage and rescued him. On 04-12-1917, while he was recovering from his wounds, he was awarded the Pour le Mérite. 
The injuries kept him out of action for months and he would not score again until 16-04-1918. After recovering, he rejoined Jagdstaffel 17. At this time he had two airplanes dedicated for his personal use. He dubbed them Mops and Lilly. He flew “Mops” and “Lilly” to score three more victories before he was severely wounded yet again on 06-05-1918, this time in the left ankle. His next victory came five months later on 5 October. He scored twice more in the final days of the war, and had his second unconfirmed triumph on 08-11-1918.
After his discharge from military service, Buckler became an employee in the auto industry, and shortly thereafter until 1928 he became a flight instructor and stunt pilot at the German Aviation School in Staaken. In the address books he was always listed as a “businessman”.
On 01-04-1936 Buckler was reactivated as a first leutnant in the reserve in the air force of the Wehrmacht. At the beginning of August 1939 he was promoted to Hauptmann of the reserve, and on 27-08-1939 he was promoted to Major of the Reserve. In September 1939, at the beginning of World War II, he was appointed as an officer z. b. V. commanded to the Werneuchen fighter pilot school. At the beginning of March 1940 he was made an indispensable operator, and then in 1942 he was in command of the Strausberg Air Base. Oberstleutnant of Reserve Buckler is said to have also served in the Staaken Air Base Command and as leader of Air Base Command 42 / III. On 18-03-1945, in the final battle for Germany, he is said to have been in command of the air base command A (o) 25 / III (Neuruppin). At the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the Western Allies, from which he was released in 1945/1946.In the post-war period Buckler ran a successful construction company (GmbH) in Bad Godesberg (Bismarckstrasse 13) and Cologne (Am Alten Posthof 82). After the terrorist bombing, there were more jobs than time and employees. It was not possible to determine whether the “Peter Buckler structural engineering office” in Bonn was the company of a son or a grandson. In 1955 he received a civilian license again.
Buckler, here in conversation with Generaloberst Werner von Fritsch,
married his fiancée Helene Semmler (born 27-01-1894 in Rüdesheim am Rhein) for the first time on 25-07-1919, living in Eltville, daughter of the winery owner Anton Semmler and his wife Elisabeth, both living in Eltville. Due to the judgment of the District Court III of Berlin, which became final on June 20, 1926, the marriage was divorced (Frankfurt am Main, July 1, 1926). In the same year he married again in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. He got his third marriage in 1935 in Potsdam.On 25-05-1946 he married Erika Adele Katharine Klara, born Freiin von Braun (born 27-03-1908 in Potsdam; she died 27-04-1986) in Timmendorfer Strand on the Baltic Sea. Son Michael was born from the marriage.
Death and burial ground of Buckler Julius.
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Festival of the Aviators, 1934; Buckler (center) hooked his right arm to Generaloberst der Luftwaffe Ernst Udet, 
next to Udet is August Wilhelm von Prussia, SA-Gruppenführer Karl Ernst 
hooked his right arm to Buckler. Prior to joining the Nazi Party, Karl Ernst had been a hotel bellboy and a bouncer at a gay nightclub. Ernst was arrested and brutally beaten in Bremerhaven together with his wife and his friend and his adjutant Martin Kirschbaum as he was about to get aboard a navy cruiser in order to travel to Tenerife where he planned to spend his honeymoon. Later on, he was handed over in Bonn to an SS-commando unit led by Kurt Gildisch where he was tortured and interrogated. He was then flown back to Berlin and taken to the barracks of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, where he was shot by a firing squad in the early evening of June 30, age 29, in the Night of the Long Knives.
Julius Buckler survived two World Wars and died on 23-05-1960, age 66, in Bonn. Julius Buckler with his wife Erika, born von Braun, who died 27-04-1986, age 77, are buried on the Bonn-Bad Godesberg cemetery.
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