Hans Hahn/Maximilian Stotz

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by VtwinVince

I'm not 'blaming' anyone or trying to establish some sort of moral high ground. But I do see much zeal, on this and other forums, to attempt to call into question German claims without similar impetus given to the other side.

This applies to the Eastern Front because information on Soviet losses became available, and turned a bot of a shock. Nobody bothers with the ETO or MTO because it is not spectacular, there is no paperwork available online and the information about Luftwaffe are scarce.

Stig

In most cases it was victory award system responsible. RAF was a bit liberal at first, but then became strict, and since 1943 it seems that credited victories are fairly accurate. USAAF remained liberal to a degree. I cannot say for USN or USMC. IJN or IJA - nobody was able to tell me, how the system worked, and even claimed there was no such system at all, and no victories were ever claimed. Not sure if true, but if so, they certainly did not overclaim. I cannot say anything about Soviets, but financial awards for downed enemy aircraft may have contributed towards overclaiming.
Still, those were Germans who were credited with the greatest numbers of victories, claimed to be confirmed by absolutely reliable and sophisticated system, contrary to others. Propaganda in this regard was very strong until recently, so no wonder it is now being debunked, much to pain of some.

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

we all known of the British "ace" Douglas Bader's claims, and lack of actual truthful victories. Post war he published a book about his "aceness" but it was proposed that a National hero should not pat tax for his efforts. Yet Stanford Tuck, and Johnny Johnson were honest British aces.

If the truth was known Günther Rall and Gerhard Barkhorn would be the top aces, with top medals, not merely other Schwerter winners.

Stotz I feel was led astray by Hahn, yet just as Stotz leaves the seen, another great "over-claimer" begins his run of unbelievable claims........Emil Lang, so somewhat endemic within the Staffel, but I do not believe all pilots even within this Staffel were doing such things.

These "super over-claimers" sure seemed to cause inflation when it came to medals.

Keep Well

Johannes

[@irnimal]

Originally Posted by Johannes

Hi Guys

we all known of the British "ace" Douglas Bader's claims, and lack of actual truthful victories. Post war he published a book about his "aceness" but it was proposed that a National hero should not pat tax for his efforts. Yet Stanford Tuck, and Johnny Johnson were honest British aces.

If the truth was known Günther Rall and Gerhard Barkhorn would be the top aces, with top medals, not merely other Schwerter winners.

Stotz I feel was led astray by Hahn, yet just as Stotz leaves the seen, another great "over-claimer" begins his run of unbelievable claims........Emil Lang, so somewhat endemic within the Staffel, but I do not believe all pilots even within this Staffel were doing such things.

These "super over-claimers" sure seemed to cause inflation when it came to medals.

Keep Well

Johannes

At the same time that Lang (and Rudorffer) were making spectacular claims, there were, in II/JG 54, guys like Albin Wolf and Hugo Broch that were very VERY accurate claimers.
Paulo

[VtwinVince]

Hmmm, I agree with a deeper study of all claims. I don't think any participant in the last wars was innocent of the abuse of propaganda and the associated releasing of ridiculous figures to bolster morale. Just have a look at the ludicrous figures given out by the English during the BoB.

[Franek Grabowski]

I am not aware of Bader lacking actual victories, though no doubt his choice of Spitfire VA was weird one and reduced chances of scoring victories.
Cannot say anything about Stanford-Tuck.
Johnson's victories are listed on Wiki with an attempt to attribute losses. Does not look spectacular, I would say about average.

Basically, the problem starts after the Battle of Britain, where there are no details of German losses or operations in general. In the effect it is extremelly hard to match combatants of both sides. Funnily enough, it looks that JG 26 attributed all aircraft downed in their area to their pilots, not knowing actual reasons of losses. So a kind of hidden overclaim.

[@irnimal]

Hi Craig,
Great overview you did. Well done. Agree with you all the way.
But talking about Hartmann it's like a taboo subject. I think that most of us got hooked on him when we read the bible ''The Blond Knight''. Like all those books written in the 60s, it is a comic book on words, to gev people hooked on a fantasy world of air combat, a thing that most of us probably longed to do. And they got what they wanted.
But in terms of real research.......
I, more or less, have been able to build a partial picture of how Hartmann's claims fair against Soviet losses during 42/43 (while looking for Rall's).
I say partial because I ran through most of the Loss Files (that I could find online) on the units involved in the fighting in his area of operations. To have a broader picture I still have to go through the Combat Reports, a thing that I still haven't had the time to do.
Hartmann was not a single mission multiple claimer. Like you said, he just was in the air all the time. Specially after the Battle of Kursk started. Rall was the same thing, always aloft. So their chances of bein able to claim were high. So, for that time period I am very inclined jo say that hi accuracy looks to be very very reasonable/good.
For 1944 onwards I still haven't had to the research myself, so I have to rely on the work made by others, specially for late 44.
For now just an example, 26 February 44 : overall 16 claims made by the Germans (14x Airacobra, a Il-2 and a Pe-2). Since Hartmann just claimed fighters, lets us stick to the 14 Airacobras claimed.
- [09h08~09h16] 2 claims (Hartmann - 2)
- [11h45~12h03] 8 claims (Hartmann - 5)
- [14h37~14h50] 5 claims (Hartmann - 3)
The only unit in the area operating P-39s was 205 IAD, and overall they lost 5 aircraft shotdown, 1 Mia and 1 CL (the pilot was OK and returned to unit).
Of these losses :
- [11h00~11h36sovtime] 1 shotdown, pilot b/out and returned to unit.
- [13h40~14h55sovtime] 3 losses (1 KIA, 1 Mia, bvt later pilot returned, 1 CL, pilot later returned)
- [16h15~17h15sovtime] 2 losses (1 Mia, pilot later retrned and 1 b/out, pilot returned)
- There was one more P-39 lost (Mia, pilot later returned) but no time given.
- from 203 IAD [153 GIAP] one Yak was lost (Mia, pilot later returned), to time available because still haven't been able to check Combat Report from that unit.
So, still a partial overall view but we can take some conclusions. Will leave that to everyone to do it individually.
And, Happy New Year to everyone.
Paulo

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

With regards to Hartmann the pattern of his claims would suggest he was "over-claiming" from 5th July 1943, judging by his claim times I would speculate if true that his "enablers" were Werner Puls and Güther Toll, later Hermann Wolf and Herbert Bachnick. But contrary to pass "200" his honesty dramatically dropping I cannot find an enabler, though his claiming certainly does become spectacular. With regards to Wilhelm Batz earlier on the name that sticks out as an enabler would be Heinrich Sturm, but at this earlier time Batz in my opinion was honest, I base this on the number of ground witnesses he had. Later two pilots claimed on a regular basis with Batz.......Wolfrum and Düttmann, Wolfrum's claims pattern does match that of an "over-claimer" whereas Düttmann's really doesn't, yet Russian loss experts state Düttmann was an "over-claimer", whereas I'm not sure that Wolfrum was. I also suspect that Hermann Wolf enabled Hermann Graf.....along with Heinrich Füllgrabe, Johann Kalb, Friedrich Brückmann and above all Leopold Steinbatz, I would wager the associated pilot Alfred Grislawski was not involved !

With Nowotny, there is the famous Schwarm i.e Nowotny himself, Anton Dobele, Rudolf Rademacher and Karl Schnorrer. Yet scrutinizing the claims I would exclude Rademacher from this Schwarm, and include Gerhard Loos.

When Kommandeur I./JG54 Schnorrer and dobele would be the enablers, but they were borrowed from 1./JG54.

With Emil Lang the enablers would be Alfred Gross and Reinhold Hoffmann, after his transfer to the west......Günter Zilling and Erwin Schleef, with JG26 I can find no connection, but his pattern would suggest it continued, but yet again he is a Kommandeur, there must be some way the ranking officers abused there power to self-certify......controversial I know, but perhaps between us all we can prove or dis-prove this one.

If the above is true, it would prove the honesty of other Kommandeur who had the opportunity to "self-certify" but certainly did not.

Also it looks like a dis-honest Kommandeur may mean a dis-honesty Gruppe, or it could just be his enablers.

Keep well

Johannes

[NickM]

Originally Posted by Johannes

Hi Guys


With Emil Lang the enablers would be Alfred Gross and Reinhold Hoffmann, after his transfer to the west......Günter Zilling and Erwin Schleef, with JG26 I can find no connection, but his pattern would suggest it continued, .

Keep well

Johannes

Happy New Year, Johannes! I can only add what Caldwell commented on Lang in II/JG26---that, in spite of his 'overly enthusiastic' claiming, his vigorous, energetic and aggressive style of leadership, combined with the excellent staffel and schwarm leaders made sure II/JG256 remained an effective top scoring Gruppe in JG26 (and, I daresay, in the Western Theater).

[Johannes]

Hi Nick

I do not believe it was so easy to "over-claim" in the West, crash-sites were investigated, bit more difficult over Africa. JG 2 was far worse than JG 26, I assume because a lot of their claims were over water i.e no investigation possible. In the East they were usually made over enemy territory.

There is naturally opportunism, don't think that Hermann Graf would have had the opportunity to "over-claim" in the West.

I would suspect that most single claims by these "over-claimers" were genuine, just a feeling that they were unable(due to their company) to "over-claim", in fact when I jugged claims I was actually quite shocked that it was the same old wingmen involved in big mission claims, and when the leader makes a single claim, the same old didn't claim, I assume they were in "unknow" company.

Also looking through so many flugbücher is startling fact(in the east), very often these guys were flying as a pair, and that's not the Stab, in the East it was hardly ever a full Staffel event, usually two, three or four together !

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Nokose]

I did a thread on Hans Hahn’s Western victories claims on here. It was not really a reliable score.