[Johannes]

Hi Guys

With regards to Hartmann the pattern of his claims would suggest he was "over-claiming" from 5th July 1943, judging by his claim times I would speculate if true that his "enablers" were Werner Puls and Güther Toll, later Hermann Wolf and Herbert Bachnick. But contrary to pass "200" his honesty dramatically dropping I cannot find an enabler, though his claiming certainly does become spectacular. With regards to Wilhelm Batz earlier on the name that sticks out as an enabler would be Heinrich Sturm, but at this earlier time Batz in my opinion was honest, I base this on the number of ground witnesses he had. Later two pilots claimed on a regular basis with Batz.......Wolfrum and Düttmann, Wolfrum's claims pattern does match that of an "over-claimer" whereas Düttmann's really doesn't, yet Russian loss experts state Düttmann was an "over-claimer", whereas I'm not sure that Wolfrum was. I also suspect that Hermann Wolf enabled Hermann Graf.....along with Heinrich Füllgrabe, Johann Kalb, Friedrich Brückmann and above all Leopold Steinbatz, I would wager the associated pilot Alfred Grislawski was not involved !

With Nowotny, there is the famous Schwarm i.e Nowotny himself, Anton Dobele, Rudolf Rademacher and Karl Schnorrer. Yet scrutinizing the claims I would exclude Rademacher from this Schwarm, and include Gerhard Loos.

When Kommandeur I./JG54 Schnorrer and dobele would be the enablers, but they were borrowed from 1./JG54.

With Emil Lang the enablers would be Alfred Gross and Reinhold Hoffmann, after his transfer to the west......Günter Zilling and Erwin Schleef, with JG26 I can find no connection, but his pattern would suggest it continued, but yet again he is a Kommandeur, there must be some way the ranking officers abused there power to self-certify......controversial I know, but perhaps between us all we can prove or dis-prove this one.

If the above is true, it would prove the honesty of other Kommandeur who had the opportunity to "self-certify" but certainly did not.

Also it looks like a dis-honest Kommandeur may mean a dis-honesty Gruppe, or it could just be his enablers.

Keep well

Johannes