WALTER J. KURON,
OF RED BARON ERA, DIES AT 102
The myth is a tribute to nostalgia for a rapidly fading era of living memory, to the lasting glow of the Red Baron’s gallantry, to Mr. Kuron’s own longevity—and, just possibly, to his own sense of humor.
A man who had three pianos in his house but not one scalemodel Fokker, Mr. Kuron spent more than 60 years directing church choirs, playing, building and repairing church organs, performing on the piano, organizing and leading chamber-music recitals and listening to recorded music. And yet he is still remembered chiefly for military duty he performed 80 years ago, although maybe not exactly the way he recalled it.
Mr. Kuron had to be prompted to talk about his war experiences. But according to his family and friends and the evidence of some old photographs, flight logs and a three-inch shoulder scar he carried to his grave, Mr. Kuron flew a Fokker D-7 fighter biplane on some two dozen combat missions over Russia and France, shooting down three Allied planes and being shot down once himself in France.
As friends recall his account, Mr. Kuron, who was a 19-year-old music and classics student at St. Peter’s College in Breslau when he was drafted into the German Air Force in 1914, did not fly in just any of the 81 German fighter squadrons of World War I, but in Wing Commander von Richthofen’s own Flight Wing No.1.
Alas, while there is ample evidence that Mr. Kuron was a German fighter pilot in World War I, and indeed apparently one of the last four survivors, he almost certainly did not fly in the von Richthofen wing.
Peter Kilduff, a New Britain, Conn., historian whose seven books on World War I aviation include the English translation of von Richthofen’s memoirs and his definitive biography, checked the meticulously maintained rosters of each of the wing’s four squadrons: the blue-tailed 4th, the black-and-white 6th, the yellow-marked 10th, and von Richthofen’s own red-flecked 11th led by the all-red Fokker Dr-I triplane that gave the Red Baron his name. The name Kuron, he said, does not appear on any of the lists.
At the same time, after a telephone conversation with Mr. Kuron’s daughter, Alwine Kuron of Tewksbury, N.J., who was thumbing through old flight logs, Mr. Kilduff, who has encountered many von Richthofen wing impostors, was convinced that Mr. Kuron had in fact known the Red Baron well.
Whatever the details of his military service, after the war Mr. Kuron returned to the world of music, completing his education, playing piano on German radio and working for an organ company until the rise of Nazism and the first stirrings of anti-Semitism against his Jewish musician friends led him to immigrate to the United States in 1929.
Mr. Kuron, who helped build organs for St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Carnegie Hall and churches in Mendham and Madison, N.J., became a United States citizen in 1935 and settled in New Jersey, first in Linden and later in Westfield.
As choirmaster and organist at several Roman Catholic churches until the 1980’s, Mr. Kuron became a familiar figure in New Jersey music circles. A man of eclectic musical tastes, he once played “The Merry Widow” on a church organ, startling a priest who could not believe the instrument was capable of such music.
After working in an aviation defense plant in World War II, Mr. Kuron used a stint as a repairman in the Bamberger’s department store piano department to start his own lucrative repair business, becoming so indispensable to his private clients that they would not let him retire until he was 92.
A man who arranged chamber concerts for prominent visiting musicians, Mr. Kuron also pursued music as a member, or “knight,” of the Schlaraffia, an offbeat German-speaking culture club.
His association with a club that uses medieval mumbo jumbo to spoof 14th-century romanticism suggests that Knight Kuron may have embellished his war record as a tongue-in-cheek elaboration of his association with a fellow knight of the air. Then again, club members may simply have misunderstood his tales of the Red Baron.
At least the Schlaraffians know that his love of music was real. One of his three pianos sits in the club’s meeting room in Dover, N.J.
Mr. Kuron’s wife, Anne Marie, died in 1989. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by a son from a previous marriage, Gunther of Freehold; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
November 3, 1997