[Kapper]

John/all,

This is interesting.

With respect to 43 Abschüsse by 05.07.43, both Prien’s JFV series and Johannes lists have 43 claims listed by this date – the match (though T Woods list is missing the first 2)

With 108 Abschüsse by 21.06.44 there are 102 known claims thus 6 missing. In Priens JFV series, his team has a gap in late Sept 43 of claims data where he attributes 6 missing claims, thus also appears to be working to 108 by 21.06.44 – though 1944 data has yet to be published.

As to 111th Abschüsse on 25.09.44, there are at least 6 claims in the period after 108 so it doesn’t add up. Johan has an additional claim on 26.06.44 while T Woods has an additional claim on 28.06.44 (which Johannes has attributed to Ltn Carl Resch) – these are probably the sam. John can you post the details of the claim to confirm this or determine if it is another claim?

To confuse things further, Obermaier in his Ritterstrager book has the following

Sterr having 32 Luftsiegen by May 1943
Sterr being awarded the RK on 05.12.43 at 86 Luftsiegen.
His 100th in November 1943 (a contradiction- dates?)
Total 130 – probably 127 in Russia

I’d attach a scanned photocopy (poor quality but readable) of what Obermaier wrote in his book but I haven’t figured out how to do attachments yet.

My understanding is that Obermaier was working on mostly wartime communiques, news reports plus pilot recollection etc and that much of archival information was not available to him when he published in 1966, so verification may have been difficult at that stage.

So, this is what we have to date:

Reported Known
By 05.43 32 31
05.07.43 43 43
11.43 100 83 ????????
05.12.43 86 83
21.06.44 108 102
25.09.44 111 108? (+26.06.44 & 28.06.44 claims?)
13.11.44 128 108?
KIA 26.11.44 130 108?

There seems to be agreement at the 43 Abschusse on 05.07.43, - I put the 1 claim difference in the earlier “by May 43” total down to an early rejected claim.

With 86 Luftsiegen at time of award of RK, and Sterr wbeing WIA on 08.10.43 and not getting back to action until January 1944 one could assume that no further claims were made during the period between recommendation and award of the RK. There are 83 known claims up to this time so 3 claims are missing between 05.07.43 and 05.12.43 and another 3 missing between 05.12.43 and 21.06.44. This is in contradiction to Priens data - there doesn’t appear to be a gap in the 1943 data for JG 54 which makes me think Priens team have it wrong and the missing claims were more likely rejected or unconfirmed claims. Keep in mind that many of the 1942 and 1943 claims were not processed until well into 1944 and due to the backlog in the claim process, Sterr would probably have not known at that stage of his award of the RK that some, if any of his formally submitted claims were formally rejected at that stage.

By 25.09.44 the backlog in processing claims of 1942 and 1943 was well underway so the by this stage Sterr may have had an idea that several of the claims were rejected or remained unconfirmed. Therefore the 111 may have been the adjusted total of which 108 are known – this leave 3 missing claims (or 1 missing claim if the 26.06.44 and 28.06.44 claims can be verified)

The confusing thing is the 100 in November 43, 128 on 13.11.43 and 130 by the time of his death. Could this have been a personal total? In the claims process, the pilot had to get the claims past the Spiess before they were forwarded to RLM. Could the additional 14 claims have been claims that were rejected at unit level? Add the 14 to the 108 and you have 122, plus 6 for the post 25.09.44 claims = 128 and the 2 disputed claims = 130 (all guess work). As the unit was fighting the western allies late 44 it is unlikely he would have scored around 20 additional claims and not have it reported

Awaiting more on this mystery?

Regards,

Craig…