[Johannes]

Hi Nick

My writing partner John Foreman stated to me decades ago that Marseille, Bär Müncheberg and Schroer were honest, and that Dahl and Bartels were not.

Regarding Batz, he flew a lot with the staff...….never a good sign, yet a lot of his confirmed claims early on had no air witnesses, but did have witnesses from ground units, so we would expect these at least to be "real", nobody but Batz would gain from fraudulent claims in that scenario.


Actually as a child I wondered why Erich Hartmann should have to have 202 victories for the Eichenlaub, and even more strange 148 for the Ritterkreuz. My friend Bernd Barbas thought that JG52 didn't lobby so hard for decorations! I know that Hartmann at this point was moving swiftly through the numbers, but I suspect his Kommandeur or Kommodore might have smelt a rat! Hartmann was not popular amongst his comrades...…….I wonder why, he has been associated with Walter Krupinski, yet they must not have been together so long, in fact Hartmann's claims become staggering at a certain point, by memory July 1943, perhaps a new regular wingman. I have been surprised looking at flugbücher of how few Luftwaffe aircraft flew together in the East. With Emil Lang's eighteen claims(seventeen confirmed) in a day, he according to Norbert Hannig pre-planned who would be his wingman for each mission that day.....that can't be good. I still believe that you can have honest pilots flying in a Staffel of cheats, the lead cheater would probably only overclaim whilst in the company of certain people.


Kind Regards


Johannes