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

[Rob Romero]

The following may be speculative, but I find Hartmann’s 11 Victories on 24 Aug 44 to have be conducted under suspicious circumstances. The Third Reich had suffered its worst setbacks on both fronts. After two months of hard fighting, the Normandy front had collapsed with the Allies seizing a sizeable bag in the Falaise Pocket. Furthermore the East front had seriously and rapidly contracted during Operation Bagration, initiated by the Soviets shortly after D-day in June. This little known campaign resulted in the virtual destruction of the most formidable assemblage of German military might–Army Group Center. (The extent of the loss of territory as well (as some the encircled remnants of Wehrmacht units) is illustrated here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BagrationMap2.jpg ). Let us not also forget the failed assassination attempt on Hitler!
A distraction seemed called for and –so what do you know- a PK unit appeared on the scene to record Hartmann’s 290th -301st victories –and this was all too conveniently wrapped up in one day possibly so everyone could get it over with; Nazi Germany now had a new ‘Babe Ruth Luftsiege King’ or -better yet- a ‘Bubi next door Uberhero’ to distract some from the harsh realities of a disastrous and unsalvageable war.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, all.

From time to time this issue 'spring to life' on this and other boards.

I like the approach Nikita has.

The discussion is however futile until ( if ever) it is possible to research the original documentation from all sides on a detailed level. The main reasons that this has not been done is two - a lot of RLM documentation on detailed level not selected for archiving and thus destroyed during the war, and the fact that availability to check in soviet records has been rather restricted.

We must also take into account that the regimes we are talking about are two of the largest propaganda machines of all time, .



Regards,
Andreas