[Johannes]

Hi Gabor

Sorry to have questioned the completeness of Russian losses. I have the British losses, but need to be careful as the coastal units get listed separately.

I have all the Luftwaffe confirmed claims some 67,000, but this is incomplete, the mikrofilms fade-out end 1944, flugbücher and abschusseliste help, but they will never be found for all pilots. Also there is only really the period of completeness for the mikrofilms of October 1943 until October 1944....and then some SG units are omitted, but between these two date runs the daily mikrofilm entries, prior to this it's done by Gruppe and staffel, of which several units are missing, abschussetafel survive for some of these units, but most do not indicate if the claim was confirmed or not.

I was told that Düttmann related a story about the death of Otto Fonnekold so outrageous that it was unbelievable. But I investigated it anyway, basically story went that another Luftwaffe pilot who hated Fonnekold challenged him to a duel in the air, which Fonnekold lost. I looked into the other pilot and he was wounded at the time, also his Gruppenkommandeur relates his death in some detail, naturally it is possible that the Kommandeur was told a lie, as Fonnekold was killed by a single bullet to the heart I did wonder if it had been a duel on the ground, but how could it be allowed to happen in either senario ? Perhaps Düttmann could talk a good tale, though in this case it was allegedly supported by another pilot.

With about half the very top pilots being "over-claimers" and not just mistaken, it makes the actual honest guys even more outstanding in my eyes.

Helmut Lipfert was Düttmann's Gruppenkommandeur, but seems not really to have flown much with him. So if Lipfert is fooled my Düttmann it just goes to show that it can be done. I am surprised though about Düttmann, his pattern of claiming isn't so bad, and he had large numbers of unconfirmed due to lack of witnesses, I can only imagine then that if flying alone he would just claim a few "over-claims", or that he claimed among honest men who would not support his claim, but in almost ever case I cannot find evidence of him having company.

Kind Regards

Johannes