Hans Hahn

[Johannes]

Hi

In my opinion claiming was more honest in the West, this is due to the Luftwaffe having more scope to examine crash-sites, and generally larger Luftwaffe formations. I guess the units C.O makes a difference also......Adolf Galland a very honest claimer seemed to have kept a tight reign on his pilots, he was followed by Priller another very honest pilot as leader of JG 26. In my opinion all the units in the med(except JG 2 during it's brief stay in Africa) were an honest bunch i.e JG 27, JG 53.
In Russia the pilots of JG 5 seemed to believe they were abandoned with inferior aircraft, and their air-battles were usually over the sea(as per JG 2 in the West). Usually in the East combat was behind enemy lines, so less scope for investigation, and it seems there were always dishonest and honest claimers within units.....over-claimers sometimes is too light a word for it. We all know of the four JG 27 pilots caught firing-off their ammunition over the African desert, and claiming large numbers of "kills", but reported doing so by a lost comrade who happened upon them.
The Luftwaffe method of reporting claims was very rigorous, you couldn't "over-claim" without help......being an officer helped, classic i'll scratch your back, you scratch mine would be Rudorffer/Tangermann.
Generally JG 51 and JG 77 in my opinion were the most accurate claimers(again perhaps leaders helped i.e Vatti Molders).
Sometimes authors print(which is cast in stone) doesn't help. Walter-Franz Woidich springs to mind, we were always told 110 confirmed claims, and we had the dates, but Woidich himself has the last twenty-eight of these over Russian missing from his abschüße list i.e somebody made it up, and it stuck!, and this guy was a honest claimer, it's difficult now to convince enthusiasts now that his total is 82 not 110 ! same with Walter Schuck his total of 206 is based only on the pilots statement that Hermann Goring told him that twenty-five of his previously unconfirmed claims had(by some miracle it would seem) all been confirmed, therefore his total is 181.

Often a pilot transferred West with a large number of claims, doesn't make any in the West, for it was more difficult do actually do, and the scope for "over-claiming" is less.

So it was easier in the East.......if, and a big if you wanted to do it.

Kind Regards

Johannes