[P Alvim]

Hello

I have been reading this discussion and others related in this forum and I would like to drop a few words.

Discussions about 'fraud' and 'overclaiming' seem to forget the reality of the day: a war between countries, each with their own politics, armies, culture, military cultures, etc.

In my opinion, it is not possible to compare fraud/overclaiming between Germany, the US, the Soviet Union and so forth, without a deep research into the political/cultural/historical environments in which the respective air forces operated.

This contention seems to level beligerant fighter pilots and air forces operating in very different cultural/military environments into a international score board of truthfulness or the opposite.

To illustrate what I'm trying to say I would like to draw your attention to the photo after page 112 in "The Blond Knight of Germany", entitled 'Hungarians with the Luftwaffe': Hartmann, Barkhorn, Lipfert with Hungarian pilots.

How possible it was for a german pilot to conceal his frauds from a colleague in a total war environment? If there were frauds and overclaiming how could these men be smiling in 44 and keeping their high spirits?

Of course, misclaiming must have happened and the technology of the day is consistent with this possibility.

Perhaps the answer is in culture, especially military culture. German pilots were few and their veterans had experience brought down from older generations while, for instance, soviet pilots were many but lacked experience from command to individual flying skill level.
We must remind that Germany was, until 1945, a nation orientated to war, as it had been in the previous centuries; as such it was a nation of warriors from grandfathers to grandsons and unity between soldiers taught and learnt from generation to generation. Fraudulent soldiers would be the total and early undoing of the German Armed Forces even more than the efforts of their leader(s).

It is not possible, in my opinion, to discuss Hartmann or any other alone, detached from the Luftwaffe as a whole (or the sum of 'many wholes'). As an example, I think, Hartmann was part of a system and if he overclaimed, the rest would have known and would have talked or written about it. Otherwise, it seems to me, it is like the 'conspiracy theory'.


I think it must have been very hard for a pilot like Hartmann, Rall, Barkhorn, Rudorffer, Lipfert, Nowotny or any other to overtly overclaim, under Luftwaffe's confirmation rules, even with the urge of propaganda, without controversy between fighter colleagues and the complete disestablishment of the Luftwaffe's structure as a fighting force.

Just my perspective.