Hans Hahn/Maximilian Stotz

[NickM]

Originally Posted by HGabor

We have already put something on the table on this-> Verified Victories: Top JG 52 Aces Over Hungary 1944-45 which is ground breaking and simply unparalleled in detail for the Eastern Front (1944-1945). The closest similar book for the Eastern Front would be the works of our forum member Carl Guest, yet he specializes in mainly in the Winter War so early war. A work like Chirs Shores for the Eastern Front would be impossible (too much information, too little time no matter how many people you through at the task, the scale just does not compare, let the troubles to gain access to that quantity of information) and impractical (you would physically need a dedicated library to house the books, it would be too expensive to produce and next to no one would buy the entire corpus... much more realistic would be to go to TsAMO and read the documents you specifically want). If one picks up a copy of Verified Victories, they will quickly realize why it is impossible to write like that for the entire Eastern Front! ~1 page per claim! The JFV series is an average of ~500 pages per book and ~ 20 have been published so far, thats "only" 10,000 pages (!!!), so still not enough to cover the Eastern Front's claims in detail.

If one looks at Prien et al. and his series of books, even they reduced the scope down to only the fighter units and that is taking decades, will span over 20+ books, and is forced to lighten its detail level by offering briefer texts on the units compared to his dedicated units chronicles. There is simply too much. Christer Bergström's book series on the Eastern Front is also forced to make those trade-offs... less focus on the individual aircraft losses and claim analysis and more on the general course of the air war with useful personal accounts by those who were there over the Eastern front in the given period of time he is writing about. For our book Verified Victories we chose to go detailed into 1 specific subject over 1 country, that is why it presents unprecedented levels of detail into claiming and victory analysis. Doing the same thing for the entire Eastern Front is simply not an option. Broad vs deep. All encompassing vs surgically specific. These are the trade-offs one has to make as an author, and one the reader must be willing to purchase...that is the balancing game we play.

But this is not about Hans Hahn/Maximilian Stotz...

Cheers!

First let me say, I can vouch for your book and, having bought it and read it (going thru it for the second time now), I can attest to it's quality and accuracy. It's a great book on a not very well known theater of war.

Secondly, a Chris Shores style treatment for the Eastern Front is a project I would love to see, but as you say it's probably an impossible task...BUT doesn't Christer Bergstrom's 'Black Cross/Red Star' series sort of 'fill the bill'?


NM

[Stig Jarlevik]

Franek

Have you ever tried to put human nature into your equation?
If you do, you will be surprised to see what happens.

I have worked for an international company all my working life and I have thus come across loads of
individuals on every continent we have.
I also have seen how people "develop" through time and how this effects their "climbing the ladder".
I also worked very closely for many years with a Polish woman who were our controller. She was very....
ehhh...Polish in her way of handling her work. Nuff said....

There simply doesn't exist any system which ensure an absolute fair status for everyone. There are always
individuals who use systems for their own benefit.
There are also individuals who use such systems to write reports which they know their superiors like to
hear. I came across that far too many times. There was even one idiot who stole my evaluation report on India
and put his own name on it, since it was very beneficial for his career.

So again "we-were-not-there" is extremely valid, since all we can do is to try and evaluate the system and
the documents it has left behind.
Since these documents all too often does not fit human memories, especially not the books they wrote,
usually putting the writer in a more favorable position than actual reality.

Human nature Franek. Militaries are also driven by that, oddly enough....

Since again this is not part of the topic, I will stop any further discussion on it, since I believe I have made
my points quite clear. If you feel you want to discuss this further I suggest a new topic or feel free to send
me a private message.

Cheers
Stig
PS: I also have Polish origin, but that was almost 500 years ago.....