German overclaims in the East. Hartmann and others...

[Johannes]

Regarding unconfirmed........Hannes Trautloft's wingman was Otto Kath, but Otto didn't like to fly into enemy territory, so whenever he could when he reached Russian lines he'd make-up some excuse to return to base, so it seems that he would invariably not get his claims confirmed because he had no witness. This should mean that Trautloft was alone when making his claims, in which case he had no witnesses, but by his authority of being Kommodore they were confirmed.
Now Trautloft was well respected, and probably honest.
Rudorffer and Tangermann may well have flown alone as a pair then, and perhaps Rudorffer as Kommandeur of II./JG 54 was able to swing things, whereas the Stabst./JG 51 seemed to fly(oddly) as a much larger group, perhaps even full Staffel strength!

I have calculated Hartmann's crash-sites from grid references if anybody is interested in pinning the guy down, these run until late 1944, I can't really see any point in researching 1945 as for one most of his claims are rather speculative datewise(logbook stolen by the Americans) and two even if the dates are correct the place and time will be unknown!

Regards

Johannes