First, thanks for the nice words Stig, Mikael and Juha
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik
Are you still convinced there is an error in the Swedish interrogation back in 1945 and that was the reason the wrong individual was credited with the shoot down? Been thinking about it now and then and I find that theory quite plausible.
Cheers
Stig
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I'll try to answer that.
We've here a unique possibility, IMW, to compare the original "Gefechtsbericht" (seen below in the thumbnail section)with what the German authorities put together, and some time after the "incident" gave to the Swedish flight attaché in Berlin. A finely doctored report to a, at that time, not so friendly "neutral" nation...
The Swedish author Bo Widfeldt - who I guess is not totally unknown for many here in this forum - got the chance to see this report, translated it into Swedish and put it in his book "In Memoriam" (Swedish losses within the Swedish Air Force). I refrain from copying it here - you've to believe me when I compare it with the original "Gefechtsbericht"...
The report for the Swedes, as seen in that book, looks well translated from German so I want to point out some discrepancies to the original report given and signed by the one pilot who did all the shooting-downs of the Capronis, Feldwebel Paul Schalk.
The most important difference is Schalk reporting he attacked from behind and
beneath, while in the "Swedish" version the attack came from behind and
above. Why so important? Because, as we've seen, the Swedish Caproni did'nt have any national markings on the upper side of the wings...and that sort of gave the German pilot Carte Blanche to attack a possibly Russian aircraft...!
At least it sounded much better on the report to the Swedes...
Then, all the German names were omitted in the censored report: The Jägerleit-Offz. Off Jung was not mentioned, the second pilot, Uffz Zacharias was not mentioned - and most important, the name of Fw Paul Schalk is nowhere to be seen.
Instead the Swedes find "
Oberfeldwebel Gerhard Frenzel aus Plauen" at the end of the Swedish report.
And the second "kill" was of course denied by the Germans and not even mentioned...
Now, why did the Germans put Frenzel there instead of Paul Schalk? We can only speculate for now. Two possibilities as I see it: The few pilots belonging to II.JG5, Jagdkommando Libau came from Finland in sort of a secret mission, it shouldn't be common knowledge - for some reason - that they existed at that place...and that time. Ergo, they were not to be mentioned - somebody else who anyway was stationed in that area had to put his name on the report...Gerhard Frenzel.
Or, Schalk was already gone, somebody in the very German manner had to sign off on the report...Gerhard Frenzel happened to be there...
Anyway, Frenzel was most certainly aware of the Swedish report and the content, so when he came to Sweden on the 8th off May 1945, he confirmed that it was his signature on that paper. So, I don't believe there was any error from the Swedish authorities - they just got a confirmation what they saw at the end of the "faked" German report.
I've been trying for some time to get hold of the Widfeldt documents, perhaps they we'll enlighten us - or not...
Hans K