[Johannes]

Hi Rob

Regarding Heinz Knoke, only fifteen of his claims were actually confirmed! I don't wish to defend him too much because he was a real nazi, probably why he got the Ritterkreuz.
Regarding Marseille six of his first seven with LG2 were unconfirmed, leaving him 152 confirmed.
With Walter Schuck 25-31 of his 206 were unconfirmed.

Marseille is an interesting one, he was very much like Josef wurmheller, they even look alike, however with Wurmheller Egon Mayer had problems, personally I think that Mayer thought that Wurmheller was on the fiddle, and he'd be correct. Marseille was surprisingly honest, however his method of attack caused confusion, I believe he thought he had shot down all 152, but was just mistaken, he was not lying!

We never here anything about JG53's great aces! however of the big three Muller,Tonne and Crinius, mullers claims seem okay, tonne's are good, but Crinius's would seem to have been on the fiddle!

You say the Erich Hartmann's are questionable, he was in fact unpopular, perhaps that's why, his claims were all at high altitude, therefore he avoided the risk of being hit by flak and groundfire. I should think the the leaders of the claims race(in the East), and therefore future Brillanten recipiants are the bad guys i.e Gollob, Graf, Nowotny and Hartmann.

There is also a set pattern to fraudsters, this would be huge daily claims i.e Hartmann, Rudorffer, Nowotny, Graf, Batz. Whereas the slower claimers i'e Hrabak, Priller, Galland, Molders, Krupinski, Rall, Barkhorn would seem to be the honest guys(Marseille the exception), Kurt Welter was a massive fraudster and indeed not well liked at all, and it is known that the reason for his unpopularity was his huge over claiming, for him ot was easy, he was flying alone at night, the nightfighters probably average out as the most accurate claimers as there were three crew members, and the bomber would fall on Axis territory, in Russia the aircraft largely fell on Soviet held territory, therefore could not be confirmed as actually crashing by groud evidence. So perhaps you had to be that way inclined, and have the opportunity!