Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

Hello Knusel, I have looked at many German pilots that were killed in action and received credits to there scores afterwards. Comrades, I figured filed claims for them. I can give you the example of Hans Beisswenger on his last dogfight in which he was killed, there were no Soviet losses in that fight. I am a real admirer of Beisswenger and his scoring, which is very close and accurate for the most part. Some lesser scoring German pilots achieving 1 to 3 kills that I found in some cases no matching losses, appear to be made for the dead pilot, probably to provide the family with a Iron Cross either 2nd or 1st Class to the family.

Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

Good afternoon Nokose,

you mean Kittel's claim on his last day is his official 267th kill ?
If that's true we need a suitable candidate claim for his 266th confirmed kill.

Have a nice day,

Michael

Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

Hello Knusel,

Since the Luftwaffe stopped confirming victory claims in late 1944 from all the information that I have read in previous books, there was no “official” confirmation. So any confirmation was probably at the Jagdgeschwader level and in the pilot flugbuch. There seems to have been a lot of claims in flight books that were denied for lack of a witness. I have read about Soviet aircraft shot down by Bf 109 but no matching German claim. So the possibility of a claim being written into Kittel’s flugbuch is possible. After death claims though could be only symbolic or maybe possibly real.

Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

Hello Nokose,

yes, what we need is his Flugbuch.

When he died, was there a newspaper headline like "...Otto Kittel, victor in 265/266/267 air combats died yesterday…" ?

Cheers,

Michael

Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

This would be a good place where you could look: http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/an...m=1945&zoom=33

Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

Good morning,

I found no Otto Kittel death announcement in the February issues.
Meanwhile, I started working through the article which is very enjoyable to read. I found a minor typo on page2: The Eichenlaub and the Golden Oak Leaves are two different levels of the Ritterkreuz and the correct translation should simply "Oak Leaves".

Cheers,

Michael

Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

..great resource , thanks for that. It's possible to do a daily search which will bring up every scanned Zeitung, Zeitschrift, Heft, Illustrierte for a particular date which in many cases can be 40-50 different titles...

Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

What I’ve found is that multiple papers will publish basically the same (centrally approved) article but sometimes some of them have a fuller version than others.

Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

The victor over Kittel was Vadim Petrovich Komendat. Was is it only aerial victory ?

Re: eArticle available: 'The Life of Otto Kittel'
 

Hi Michael,

He claimed three enemy aircraft in the air and five on the ground (source: http://airaces.narod.ru/all15/komendan.htm). Type his name in Google, Вадим Петрович Комендат, and you'll come up with plenty of information about him.

Cheers,
Andrew A.
Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com