German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?

[Bombphoon]

Originally Posted by Andrew Arthy

Hi,

His name was Hubert Greim, not von Greim.

These secret recordings are sometimes a useful source, but at other times the Germans were simply boasting and telling tall tales. We came across this while researching our latest eArticle - the pilot was telling his captured colleagues a series of very unbelievable stories about his Luftwaffe career, which we could find no evidence for in German records (in contrast, his account of being shot down matched exactly with British combat reports).

According to his Flugbuch, Greim never flew any Jabo or strafing raids to England, and he served with the Geschwaderstab and 11. Staffel. Neither of those units were involved in tip-and-run operations, so it seems very likely this is a case of a pilot telling tall tales. However, as Jochen says, there were plenty of terror attacks in 1942 and 1943, so the kind of thing he described certainly did occur (as Luftwaffe Fighter-Bombers Over Britain by Chris Goss details on many occasions).

Hubert Greim passed away last year, on 14 October: https://trauer.sueddeutsche.de/todes...e/hubert-greim

Cheers,
Andrew A.

Thanks Andrew.

[Nick Beale]

And to add to what Andrew said about tall tales, later in the war there’s constant competition between the prisoners over who can dream up the biggest and best secret weapon that he’s seen. I felt that Neitzel and his psychologist co-author tended to over-analyse what sounds at times exactly like young blokes showing off.

[Jochen Prien]

With respect to post # 9 - you are absolutely right, his name was Hubert Greim without the "von" in his father's name. The reason for this was that his family was not part of the nobility so that they would have had the "von" by birth. Instead father Greim was bestowed with the lowest degree of nobility - Ritter von = knight of - for his exploits as a pilot in WWI, which could not be passed on and inherited by his son, who therefore was born as just Hubert Greim.

Sorry for my mistake.

KR

Jochen Prien

[Andrew Arthy]

Nick, my thoughts exactly on the Neitzel book. The reports are an interesting and sometimes valuable source, but should be treated with caution.

And Jochen, definitely no need to apologize. My correction on his name in post #9 probably came across a little harsher than intended! However, I've seen the same mistake repeated on numerous occasions on the Internet, so thought I should clarify it in this thread.

Cheers,
Andrew A.
Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com/earticles

[Andrew Arthy]

Col,

Thanks for that - looks like Neitzel and Welzer got it wrong.

Cheers,
Andrew A.
Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com/earticles

[Jukka Juutinen]

Wasn't it an American author Michael Gannon who actually first used these records?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

Wasn't it an American author Michael Gannon who actually first used these records?

Quite possibly, but I don't know his work (he writes about U-Boats, doesn't he?).

I quoted three sentences from an NSG 9 prisoner in "Ghost Bombers" so although I got in early (2001), it wasn't exactly a major exploitation of the reports.

Neitzel said in Soldaten that he and his team indexed all of these reports, which would save a lot of time if the information is publicly accessible anywhere.

[Steve Coates]

David Irving also started a book project on this theme 'Secretly Overheard' in 1988: http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Overheard/

This project never saw print for various reasons which Irving notes in his post. A reconstruction of his manuscript can be downloaded from here: http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Overheard/CSDIC.pdf

I am posting this purely for those who might find it helpful. It is not my intention to start a debate about Irving's credentials as a historian.

[VtwinVince]

I think we need to convene a court of inquiry to establish whether or not this merits a war crimes tribunal.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Originally Posted by VtwinVince

I think we need to convene a court of inquiry to establish whether or not this merits a war crimes tribunal.

AFAIK, the recording was done in wartime, and Allied authorities did not decide to start a war crime trial. The issue of air attack on civilian targets was sensible enough to not start such a trial, with thousands of Allied airmen prisoners for both sides, and both sides attacking civilian targets since 1940. So the risk of reprisals war too high. Even if such attacks were forbidden according to international texts between both World Wars, but these texts were just forgotten during the war.