Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Dear folks,

First of all, let me wish you all a Happy New Year!

I was in a discussion yesterday with some friends and Reinhard Heydrich's Luftwaffe service was one of the subjects. For those not familiar with this infamous SS officer, he was head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA).

During this discussion, a friend of mine told me that he achieved some success as a fighter pilot, something that I told him that is incorrect. I never heard that he had a confirmed kill.

A quick research in Wikipedia showed me that I was right as follows:

"... despite his advanced age, he completed a fighter pilot course in 1940, probably due to reasons of ambition. Heydrich wanted to set an example and show that the members of SS are not "asphalt" soldiers acting behind the front line, but a leading elite of the Third Reich. In April 1940 he flew a Bf109 in the II./JG77 "Herz As" in Norway. The planes flown by Heydrich had an ancient Germanic runic character S (Sieg = victory) painted on the side of the fuselage. On May 13, 1940 he crashed his plane during take-off and was injured. For a short time in May he flew patrol flights over North Germany and the Netherlands. Then, after a new accident, he returned to Berlin. In mid-June 1941, before the German attack on the USSR, he resumed flying, ignoring Himmler's ban. He flew his personal plane Bf 109E-7 again with Group II./JG 77 from Baltsi on the southern Eastern Front, which put the wing commander under pressure due to Heydrich's position and lack of experience. On July 22, 1941, his plane was badly damaged over Yampol by Soviet AA artillery. Heydrich managed to crash-land in no-man's land, and run back to the German lines. After this adventure he was forbidden to fly once again, as it was realized that Heydrich's capture as a POW would be a major security breach for Germany, and he never again returned to active flying. Heydrich was too old and inexperienced for a fighter pilot and he lacked the necessary free time for training flights. But despite his lack of combat success, he was decorated with the Iron Cross Second (1940) and First (1941) Classes. The number of missions flown by Heydrich is not known, it is only recorded that he was shot down, but he was awarded the Frontflugspange (Fighters Clasp) in silver, which usually was awarded after 60 successful combat missions."
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich )


However I would like to hear from you guys if there is any further information about any Reinhard Heydrih's claims.

Thanks in advance.

Douglas.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hello,

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Rob,

Many thanks for the additional information.
Wishes,

Douglas.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

I have a pair of original photos that show a tall SS man near a Bf 109. By any cance, could he be 'Major' Reinhard Heydrich?

http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/1...ssdenesrx1.jpg

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hello,

This is definitely not Heydrich. And the aircraft is an F.

Regards,
klemchen

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

You're right. It's a Friedrich. It looks like it belonged to II./JG 54.
Unfortunately, there is nothing written on the prints' verso.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hello

There are a few photographs of Heydrich and his aircraft.

1. In Norway he flew with 6. /JG 77. The only success he had was not being killed when he overturned his aircraft. The aircraft was coded Yellow 3 + -, thus a standard marking for the unit. I have a few photographs in my collection showing Heydrich with this unit.

2. The SS runes marked aircraft was used while he had a short spell with JG 1, a few photographs exist of this aircraft also, and has been published amongst other places by Ries in his 'Dora Kurfurst und Rote 13' series.

3. The aircraft he used on the eastern front is not known. A photograph showing a bellylanded aircraft with a single SS rune from the unit is not the aircraft flown by Heydrich, but the aircraft of Georg Schirmböck. The rune marking is attributed to his Jungvolk attachment.

Regards,
Andreas B

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Eric Mombeek's "Reichsverteidigung" shows a couple of photos of Heydrich's 109, but no mention of any claims.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Denes,
the SS officer on your photo belongs to the Panzertruppen. His rank is no higher than Hauptsturmfuehrer.
Regards
emil

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hi,

can´t add anything to his victory claims but as for the incident when he was shot down there are some details in Ch. Bergström´s Barbarossa: the Air Battle. Seems that Heydrich was shot down either by St.Lt. Aleksandr Pokryshkin or Ml.Lt. Leonid Dyiachenko from 55 IAP who both claimed a Bf 109 in the combat. Pokryshkin and Diyachenko were flying as escort to some Su 2s whose mission was to bomb Dniestr Bridges at Yampol when a pair of Bf 109 attacked the bombers. Only one Messerschmitt was lost though and it was the one piloted by Heydrich who came down in a no man´s land and was later rescued as described by one of the posts above.

Diyachenko was to be killed just three days later , probably in combat with Uffz. Franz Schulte from II./JG 77 (his claim no.2) while Heydrich was assassinated by members of Czechoslovak exile army in May 1942. Pokryshkin went on to claim 59 aerial victories troughout WW2 and become one of the most notorious Soviet aces and 3 x HSU.

Thought some might be interested

Jan

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

This perfectly shows low reliablility of books of the author, based on propaganda rather than documents. Neither Pokryshkin was credited with the victory nor he scored 59 kills. Check Asy velikoj otechestvennoj for further details.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

No, the author (who does not speak Russian), refers to propaganda and not documents.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

But he was helped by Russian researchers. Once again your statements are not reliable and they are rather for (your) propaganda/private war purposes.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hi, guys.

Before this gets out of hand:

The original loss record from GenQu6Abt clearly state that the loss reason was 'Jägerbeschuss', thus the aircraft was hit by gunfire from an enemy fighter aircraft.

I think in general that one should be very cautious when referring to a publication if one has not also checked the original records available, but I also think one should not dismiss an authors entire production based on one factual error.

In this case Bergström seems to have the correct information.

Regards,
Andreas B

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Andreas
There is a problem of several factual errors in certain authors publications, originating from lack of research of either original documents or recent publications. This was stressed eg. in recent discussion on the author's Battle of Britain book, which was based on outdated sources, despite the author was awared they cannot be trusted anymore.
In this case, the author provided false information that Pokryshkin may have been responsible for the kill, and that he scored 59 kills during the war. It should have been obvious for the author if he ever checked primary documents, which do not support Pokryshkin memoirs.
Thus said, I am not going into the problem of the author's Russian collaborators, it is neither my interest nor problem. The only point is that the author was and is perceived as the only one.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hi.

OK, I was just responding to the loss reason 'discussion' here. The german side acknowledged this as being due to enemy inflicted damage by a fighter, and not Flak.

In my opinion this discussion underlines my point, that you cannot necessarily take a publication by face value only, without a natural critical attitude.

In this case we have one source or author that state the wrong loss reason all together, while another get the loss reason right, but according to your comment, not necessarily the details with reference to the pilots participating.

With regards to russian sources - where will one be able to locate claim information? Still have to go down to individual unit level documentation to get any form of details??

Regards,
Andreas B

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hi,

for the sake of fairness I should stress out first that the number of Pokryshkin´s kills is not a quote from Bergström but my remark only. I know Bykov credits Pokryshkin only with 46+6 but as valuable and informative as his book may be it is not flawless (the same holds for Bergström´s books of course). Pokryshkin´s number of kills is uncertain and different Russian sources give great variety of his final score ranging from 52 to 81.

As for the combat discussed in this thread no definitive answer will probably ever be known. The description of it in Bernád, Karlenko and Roba book From Barbarossa to Odessa part 1 is different from Bergström´s and is more traditional in the way that it credits Heydrich´s aircraft to AAA. On the other hand Pokryshkin describes the combat in at least two of his memoir books exactly as Bergström.

As for the propaganda issue I do not know what Franek had in mind since from my point of view hardly any author gave more sober and unbiased description of air war over Eastern front than Bergström in his books. But that might be just my opinion so maybe we should let the readers decide.

And finally I do not know if Bergström speaks Russian but I would be very surprised should he not have at least basic knowledge of Russian language given the quanta of information he had to go through for his books.

Jan

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Franek,

could you point me to these corrections?
Cheers,
Boris

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

My co-author, Jean-Louis Roba, is responsible for that particular piece of info.

By the way, Jochen Prien et co., in their Jagdwaffe series (No. 6/II.) also mention that Heydrich's mount was hit by flak fire in the cooling system compelling him to force land in enemy territory.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Again Mr. Grabowski supply the community with not fully correct data.

First, quite all soviet pilots from the Bykov's book have inconsistences in their accounts. Especially it is very often for the aces, who started in Juny 1941. Sometimes the documents show only 1/3 from public known kills. If we know, that all documents from 55 iap were destroyed during their retreat in 1941, it is not unthinkable that some of Pokryshkin kills were "burnt" too. And may be the higher command instance (division) was not informed about these.

Second, in case of Pokryshkin, Bykov&Co violete their own methodology: if they stand to their own rules( see page 13), the account of Pokryshkin looks at least as 53 personal kills as noted in the award record for the 3rd gold star of HSU.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hi,

this one is probably what Franek had in mind

http://www.avia-hobby.ru/publ/sovaces/errata1.html

Jan

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hi, all

Well... after seeing a new documentary on Chernobyl I have a slight sceptical approach with regards to ex-Soviet reports... but I really would like to be proven wrong and able to compare objectively reports from all sides of the conflict. Also, it seems that access to most of the archives in Russia have been effectively cut off lately... letting only 'approved' parties see original records which is a definite warning sign with regards to objective research

One of the more scary moments in the Chernobyl film was in my opinion when the personnel in the control room were assessing the situation, and discussing the radiation level they were going to report to Moscow.

The conversation went something like this:

- What does the radiation meter say?

- It says 3.6, but ....

- But what?

- The scale only goes to 3.6 R/hr

- But we cannot say for sure that it is above 3.6 R/hr?

- No

- Well, then 3.6 R/hr it is, and that is what we are going to report to Moscow.

In reality the radiation level was later estimated by the armed forces to be approximately 15000 R/hr in some of the areas

(To be honest the most horryfying part is when the local political authorities want to keep the entire accident a secret, and not even inform the power plant workers and their families, even disallowing the workers to use protective clothing as not to cause panic.... not until the real possibility of more or less wiping out Ukraine was an imminent danger they reluctantly decided to act...)

Well, a bit off topic... but makes you wonder how reports written in a system like that relate to what really happened.

Hypothetical discussion:

- How many aircraft have we lost?

- Well, I saw two crashing, but 17 has not returned to their base.

- Can you say for certain that the missing 17 were shot down?

- No

- Well then 2 aircraft lost it is!! Type up your report!

Regards,
Andreas B

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Documentary is not necessarily really based on document, the conversation could be imaginary. I assume the Moscow know very good the real situation

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

While authors should make every effort to be accurate let us not forget that official records are not always right. For example while looking at the Luft.QM's lists for Do215 losses these show the loss of Oblt. Plotzius' crew on 23-7-41 in LW+AS wn. 0048, a later report has exactly the same crew on the same day in L2+AB wn 0011 as far as I could see no correction note. In the Steinbock attack the RAF report gives the w.n. of a crashed-landed at He177 Hindhead Surrey but a luftwaffe report shows the same w.n. as crashing in France following technical problems. When 'K' reports were released in the USA several authors, in good faith, stated aircraft of EinsatzSt/JG104 flew on Bodenplatte which later documents shows to be mis-information by the JG54 pilot taken POW. A recent television programe about the shooting down of an RAF ace implies the whole truth may not have been put down in the reports following his return to the UK, possible friendly fire incident ? The other things with official reports is that some are written in a protective manner to avoid the writer spending some time in the Con.Camp or Gulag, and others are written for propaganda.
One wonders what future historians will make of the Official Reports stating Iraq had weapons of mass destuction and the post invasion reports saying apparantly they did'nt, which ones will surface first.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

OT: Andreas, having lived under Communism for long enough to get a good grip on how it really worked (thanks God I can put this verb in the past tense!), the scenario you suggested seems to me perfectly plausible.

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Hi, all

Brian: With regards to errors - definitely! They were made then and will be made also in the future. The term human error wouldn't have been as widespread if humans were flawless (or systems created by humans were). When dealing with times of conflict (a state our world sadly seems to be in at all times....), the concept of propaganda must be taken into account.

kalender73: The quote was according to the memoirs of the person in charge of the subsequent investigation.

My point here is only that we can not take anything as 100% certain, but there are also times when the probability of something being correct is simply to low.

Regards,
Andreas B

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Really?
Bykov stressed this point while discussing the Pokryshkin problem. He found no evidence that any victory was missing. In fact, there was positive evidence that records of other pilots were complete, so why the ones of Pokryshkin should be destroyed?
In general, the whole story perfectly fits into the typical Soviet scenario, mentioned by Denes or Andreas. Reagan once called it Empire of Evil, but I think it would be more appropriate to call it Empire of Lie.
I have no idea as to what do you mean. There is a note by the name of Pokryshkin indicating differrencies between records, and that the score of 59 kills cannot be supported by any documents. If you know otherwise, provide documents, but please not citation! It is just laughable if such, often not very correct documents are referred to!

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Perfect! Let me prolong this hypothetical situation. Next day in the morning commander of VA gives an order to cover most important bridgehead.

"- We can not scramble, cause we have zero planes, all were lost yesterday.

- In you report regiment lost only two. Now you have 15 combat ready planes.

- Sorry. We lied you.

- Oh. That is okay. We are an Empire of lies. Please request another 17 planes for your regiment..."

It is nice to see old stereotypes alive...

Re: Reinhard Heydrich air victories?
 

Nikita, those stereotypes are well just because of dosens of years of lies.