Hartmann: claims vs. victories

[Johannes]

Hi Franek

Thank you for your input.

As stated before I believe that A.S.M claims were treated differently than non-disputed claims, perhaps going to a different department.

Barkhorn's non-disputed claims are interesting, sometimes it mentions the air witness having since being killed, sometimes months afterwards, so it shows that the witness report is likely to have been followed up on.

The A.S.M report evolve into more complex affairs with extensive air-witness reports, claimants report of combat, and an evolved concise sheet recording ammunition spent, how many bullets own aircraft received e.t.c, if enemy crew bailed-out. Many of these A.S.M reports have only ground-witnesses, lots for Wilhelm Batz early on, if he was making fake claims, then I can't see it being early on(early 1943).

Many of Georg-Peter Eder's claims reports also survive, don't know why so many pilots do not have these.

Helmut Mischke(SG2) was killed in the last days of the war, his daughter told me that her Mother buried all his paperwork and decorations in their garden because they feared what would happen to them if the Russian's found these items with them.

The only reason Hartmann has been fingered as an "over-claimer" is we can now due to the mikrofilms compare his exact claims details against Russian losses. Based on nothing, perhaps Hartmann destroyed his reports to keep his claims vague ?

Keep well

Johannes