Total Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot Casualties

[kaki3152]

In the book "A Higher Call" by Adam Makos,there is a statement by Franz Stigler:"Of 28,000 German fighter pilots, only 1200 survived the war"

This is a survival rate of roughly 4% which seems a little high. Can anyone verify?

BTW, the book is well written for a general public type of publication and gives a good history of Franz Stigler (II/JG-27,IV/JG-27 and JV-44) in WWII. There are some erroneous facts and dates but overall, a welcome addition to my library.

[Horst Weber]

Originally Posted by kaki3152

In the book "A Higher Call" by Adam Makos,there is a statement by Franz Stigler:"Of 28,000 German fighter pilots, only 1200 survived the war"

This is a survival rate of roughly 4% which seems a little high. Can anyone verify?

BTW, the book is well written for a general public type of publication and gives a good history of Franz Stigler (II/JG-27,IV/JG-27 and JV-44) in WWII. There are some erroneous facts and dates but overall, a welcome addition to my library.

Oh wow !

This seems to start a rough discussion.

My basic-school teacher was a Bordfunker in a German Nachtjäger unit (believe Bf 110) and he survived WW 2.

What's with him ?

Best greetings

Horst Weber

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

According to the Gemeinschaft der Jagdflieger a total of 8,500 day fighter pilots were killed, 2,700 went missing or were taken prisoner and 9,100 were wounded or injured. Any comments or corrections to this are more than welcome and I hope this helps.

Horrido!

Leo

[Andrew Arthy]

Hi,

I have a list of subscribers to Jägerblatt in 2001 who flew in the Second World War, and it numbers around 1,300. I would estimate that at least half to three-quarters of them would have been fighter pilots. Given the hundreds of ex-fighter pilots who would have passed away between 1945 and 2000, I think the figure of 1,200 surviving the war is rather low, to say the least.

Cheers,
Andrew A.
Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com

[Merlin]

I have in my files some 10.600 names of lost fighter pilots (killed, POW or MIA) between 09.39 and 05.45.

There were roughly 65 fiighter groups (from JG, KG(J) and EJG) disbanded during the last weeks of the war. The last available strength return from Luftflotte 6 dated 26.04.45 gives for the last groups of JG 53 and JG 300 figures from 50 to 71 pilots per group.

If we assume an average strength of only 50 pilots per group, this may result to some 3.300 fighter pilots who survived the war.

[Rob Romero]

Could it have been a typo and Stigler meant 'Of 28,000 German fighter pilots, only 12,000 survived the war'.