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Old 25th March 2014, 06:00
RodM RodM is offline
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Ofw. Kurt Welter 5./JG302 Jan-Mar 1944

Hello One & All,

I am hoping to gather some learned opinions concerning the claims made by Ofw. Kurt Welter during the period between January-March 1944, while flying with 5./JG302.

Firstly, there is the documentary evidence of such claims from the Chef für Ausz. und Dizsiplin material as transcribed by Tony Woods et al. From this source there are three claims attributed to Welter by name and an additional three claims without a name (but attributed to Welter by researchers) during Jan-Mar 1944

Secondly, there is additional 'evidence' of unknown (to me at least!) provenance that appears in the late Willi Reschke's book, "Jagdgeschwader 301/302 "Wilde Sau"". This includes four claims not included in the Woods list (in addition to three un-named confirmed claims from the Woods list, attributed to Welter by Reschke).

Thirdly, there is contemporary German propaganda piece, details from Welter's Wehrpaß, and a photograph of Welter beside the tail of his FW190 which provide clues as to his tally during the period. In late 1944 a propaganda article was written that mentioned Welter having claimed 14 victories in 11 missions. There exists an unrelated photo of Welter beside the tail of his aircraft, showing 14 victory bars.

In looking at the various sources, I do not trust the Reschke work without knowing the provenance of the data that he used to compile his claims lists.

Question 1: Can anyone provide details on the documentary sources used by Willi Reschke to compile his lists, specially with regards to Welter's claims on 28-1-44, two on 18-3-44, and second on 24-3-44?

I am sceptical that Welter lodged any of these additional claims as referenced by Reschke because:

1. Between September 1943 and the end of March/mid-April 1944, Welter claimed 17 victories in 15 operational flights (as evidenced by his Wehrpaß), of which only 8 are known to have been confirmed by OKL/RLM by the end of the war, as evidenced by the Chef für Ausz. und Dizsiplin material.

2. Of the 9 unconfirmed/rejected claims between September 1943 and the end of March/mid-April 1944, four from October 1943 and a fifth from March 1944 are detailed in the Chef für Ausz. und Dizsiplin material, and exclude the four referenced solely by Reschke.

3. Of the remaining four unconfirmed claims by Welter during this period, I would think it likely that they were all made in January 1944, during the period when the Chef für Ausz. und Dizsiplin material only includes the Abschußübersicht - i.e. the lists of confirmed claims - and when the documentation on all submitted claims is missing.

Thus I believe in the absence of evidence, that four of Welter's claims as listed by Willi Reschke are most likely unfounded, and that the corresponding unconfirmed and undocumented Welter claims from the period Jan-Mar 1944 were all made in January 1944; a period for which it appears that documentary evidence confirming the submitting of these claims hasn't survived.

According to a propaganda piece written and published in late (Oct-Dec) 1944, Welter had achieved 14 victory claims in 11 operational flights. This corresponds with an unrelated (to the late war article) photograph of Ofw. Welter by the tail of his FW 190, which bears 14 victory bars:

http://odkrywca.pl/forum_pics/picsfo...urt_welter.jpg

I suspect the photograph and statistic may be linked to an earlier propaganda piece from/written in Jan-Feb 1944, but haven't confirmed this.

Question 2: Can anyone provide any evidence of a date when the photograph of Welter by the tail of his FW 190 photograph was taken?

I suspect that Welter had claimed the 14 victories prior to 20 February 1944, and that further claims on 20 February 44 (two) and 24 March 44 (one) took his tally up to the 17 as recorded in his Wehrpaß. This theory is not plausible if documentary evidence does exist for the additional Welter claims listed by Willi Reschke...

Regards

Rod
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