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

[yogybär]

Definitely, the mentioned 11 Hartmann claims were already "confirmed" by Propagandakomapnie and the GröFaZ himself. And looking at H.'s claimlist one can definitely say that he was not as heroic as many "Sturmovik- and Bomberkillers".

But who can judge on that? His advantage was: He survived.

Anyway, I would not say that the Bundeluftwaffe looked into Hartmann "frauding" or not, that was a different time then now, the whole democratic Germany was full of Ex-3rd-Reich people in high positions. They needed good people as well as "Aushängeschilder".

Overcaliming itself is definitely something personal (frauding also), as it also happens in todays world:
Some humans are selling themselves as "expensive" as they can, others do not want/need this. One more (very small) group even makes up some stories about their successes, but they are definitely a minority and I guess they were also back then.

==>
1) I think overclaiming is stronger in some pilots/persons then in others
2) I would not call them liars, but over-optimistic (also keep in mind their age: 90% = 20-25...)
3) I don't know what is the sense in identifying THE overclaimers in VVS, Lw, USAAF, ...
EDIT: Can anyone answer point 3 please?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by yogybär

1) I think overclaiming is stronger in some pilots/persons then in others
2) I would not call them liars, but over-optimistic (also keep in mind their age: 90% = 20-25...)
3) I don't know what is the sense in identifying THE overclaimers in VVS, Lw, USAAF, ...
EDIT: Can anyone answer point 3 please?

1) Agreed.
2) Agreed but also they were people trying to make sense (in retrospect, full of adrenalin, amazed to still be alive) of a series of fleeting impressions. Our minds do try to put all these memory fragments together into a coherent story.
3) Only that historians try to establish what actually happened and a lot of the stories/reputations that became established do not stand up to examination. But frankly, if Hartmann only shot down 10% of his claims, he was still a highly successful fighter pilot.

There's also something about incentives to overclaim in different air forces' approaches to medals/promotions. Some may have made the problem worse.

P.S. A lot of my research makes me suspect that the Luftwaffe verification process wasn't always followed to the letter.

[Ruy Horta]

I see a lot of speculation, but hardly any foundation.

So certain that in response to defeat A, propaganda victory B was executed.

The simple fact that Nazi Germany thrived on propaganda means that all these claims must be seen in that light.

I disagree.

That doesn't mean that there is an element of wanting to create heroes, but there is a difference of intent. To what extend this wishful thinking differed from the other combattants, or was worse than the other combattants is arguable. Only the high claim numbers differ and that must be seen within a proper context.

There is a big difference between numbers fed to the public and those that are official. The Volkische Beobachter would have been the tool of propaganda, but not the regular claim's system.

Today we say that Marseille's claims are legit, but not long ago people like Johnny Johnson called it Nazi Propaganda. Marseille is not alone with having plus 100 claims that seem to be reasonably accurate.

In the east those figures seem to fall apart, but do we have access to all the Soviet figures?

We easily dismiss German claims, but also dismiss that not little part of the fighting was witnessed by friendly ground forces, since the Luftwaffe was playing fire fighter for most of the time in direct support of the troops.

So if the claim for type A isn't correct, we shouldn't dismiss that type D might have been shot up. That perhaps the damage to type D was reported a day later or whatever.

I find the claim that some of the Jagdwaffe claims to be directly related to some defeat to be pretty far fetched.

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

1)
P.S. A lot of my research makes me suspect that the Luftwaffe verification process wasn't always followed to the letter.

good points .. and of course it wasn't followed at all from some time during January 1945, when Hartmann had, what, a 'mere' 280-odd vics....I blame Alfred Price - and the chapter on the validity of Jagdwaffe claims process in his old 'Luftwaffe handbook'. 'Claims' are basically worthless unless there is a corresponding loss.

But then on the other hand we can hardly blame Hartmann for all those fantasy artworks with the '352' rudder marking. It seems to me that much of the 'propaganda' occurred post-war ..at the height of the Cold War..

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by FalkeEins

good points .. and of course it wasn't followed at all from some time during January 1945, when Hartmann had, what, a 'mere' 280-odd vics....I blame Alfred Price - and the chapter on the validity of Jagdwaffe claims process in his old 'Luftwaffe handbook'. 'Claims' are basically worthless unless there is a corresponding loss.

But then on the other hand we can hardly blame Hartmann for all those fantasy artworks with the '352' rudder marking. It seems to me that much of the 'propaganda' occurred post-war ..at the height of the Cold War..

FalkeEins - on a slightly different tangent to this discussion, I have researched very thoroughly several battles from 8th Bomber and Fighter Commands perspective, and two that you may be interested in.

Contact me via PM to send me an email contact so that I can send you November 26 in particular - for the battle over Misburg.Erich contributed very strongly on JG301 attack and I put the JG1/JG6 part (still researching).

The focus was the 355th FG which was the sole escort for the 389th, 445th and 491st BG that day. The 361st was on a sweep to the Brunswick - Wittengen area and first encountered JG1/JG6 inbound from east-northeast. The 339th was to provide withdrawal support just east of Dummer Lake. From Gardelegen to Celle to Misburg to south of Misburg to south of Hannover from 1210 to 1245 only 40 Mustangs from the 355th and 7 from the 2SF, attached to 355th, were available to try to fight off the two German thrusts into Misbutg.

If the Tony Woods list is used as the primary source of Luftwaffe awards, then the ratio would be close to 2:1. If Reschke's narrative is used as a foundation for research, the overstatement of both the number of USAAF a/c destroyed, particularly Mustangs, as well as the number of US fighters that he encountered would be far overstated.

Regards,

Bill Marshall

[Dénes Bernád]

In the book I wrote about the June-Oct. 1941 air campaign over the Southern sector of the Eastern Front (‘From Barbarossa to Odessa’), I tried to collect - together with my co-authors - all available information from all warring sides on a day-by-day basis. One cannot really go into any more detailed research than that.

Having all available shotdown claims (including many submitted by anti-aircraft artillery crew - a detail often overlooked by historians, who tend to focus on the actions of the fighter pilots) it came to my surprise how claims did not match losses. And by rather great margin. This was valid to both the Axis and Soviet side (however, the Soviets seem to have overclaimed more).

I decided not to get engaged in the overclaim issue - except for one notable day - as this was not the main scope of the historical research.

Quite understandably, people tend to look at the spectacular side of the otherwise rather dry historical narrative. In my opinion, this secondary issue should never cloud the focus of the authors, as it only leads to endless debates.

Personally, I would like to see more books written in a similar way, namely a day-by-day account of the events, with a general overview and conclusions at the beginning and the end of the book, so every Reader could draw his/her conclusions, including about the overclaim issue.