The German who killed the Prince

Prince

Paris. Germany's Horst Rippert, 88, admitted being the gunman who shot down the plane piloted by the French writer Antoine de Saint Exupéry in 1944, whose body was never found.

Recognized by Rippert told the newspaper La Provence, which unveiled yesterday the end of that mystery through the investigative work performed two Frenchmen, a diver and an expert in search of aircraft lost during the war.

Saint Exupéry took off on July 31, 1944 from its base on the island of Corsica for a reconnaissance mission aboard a Lightning P38 aircraft, but never returned.

In 1998, a fisherman found in their nets a bracelet that belonged to the author of The Little Prince, and six years later were found wreckage off the coast of Marseille, but the case was never solved.

Just looking. "You can stop looking. It was I who shot down Saint Exupéry "said Rippert when he was spotted by French investigators after an extensive and thorough search, the newspaper reported.

The German driver had two weeks of service on the southern coast of France when on the morning of July 31, 1944 identified a P38 Lightning and went to the appliance.

According to the story published in the newspaper Saturday edition Gallo, Rippert followed the French plane and made white in it with several hits, after which it was falling on the water, but could not see what happened to the pilot.

"Then I knew it was Saint Exupéry. I was hoping that it was not him, because in our youth we had read his books and adored, "said the now octogenarian Rippert, who after World War II became a journalist with the television channel ZDF.

The Prince is one of the books sold worldwide and been translated into more than one hundred languages.


Source: http://www2.lavoz.com.ar/08/03/16/secciones/internacionales/nota.asp?nota_id=171899