Strange case of Walter Dahl

[Nick Hector]

Originally Posted by Johannes

Hi Nick

Don't seem to be any South African aircraft, by memory they seemed to fly P-40's during 1942, do you have South African loses?

Kind Regards

Johannes

There don't seem to be any South African aircraft???

A quick CTRL-F search of the text reveals nine instances of the acronym "SAAF"

[knusel]

Back to the original topic.
Back to Dahl.
Were there any Viermot claims by Dahl in the 29Mar-12Apr1945 period ?

[FalkeEins]

er..no. Sorry Michael. Having made an assertion I've looked at Bauer's record a little more closely - there are big gaps. Just about every source agrees with his total of 57 including 32 Viermots although I can't actually find more than about half of that Viermot total....just goes to show how the same old figures get repeated over & over.

[knusel]

Good evening FalkeEins,

these are some Konrad Bauer scores mentioned in the books:

• Aders/Held: 18 with JG51, 18 Western front, 14 four-engined, 36 total
• Forsyth: 14/32 four-engined between Apr-Aug44, 39/57 total
• Musciano: 31.10.1944 RK after 34 kills, 32 four-engined, 60/68 total
• Schumann: 18 Eastern front with JG51, 31.10.1944 RK after 34 kills, 32 four-engined with JG3&JG300, 57/68 total
• Toliver/Constable: 32 four-engined, 68 kills total

Let's assume his score of 34 at the time of the Knight's Cross receipt is valid. From Johannes Mathews we know of two claims after that date. Therefore maybe the total of 36 indicated by Aders/Held is correct (?)

Have a nice weekend,

Michael

Michael Knusel
answer to your question regarding the exact score of K. Bauer is detailled on page 201 of JG300 chronicle Vol. 1 (by JY Lorant and R. Goyat)
Enjoy the reading !
Dom

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

I have had the fortune to look at the last page of Walter Loos's flugbuch basically flights from 6th March until 30th April 1945. Over this period Dahl states that Loos was witness to nine of his claims, however Loos was not airborne in any of the nine cases, also I cannot see a signature signing-off Dahls Leistungsbuch, actually who outranked him to sign it off?

However Dahl does mention 133 confirmed claims in his own publication, therefore I believe the Leistungsbuch is probably his own fiction, prior to his own flugbuch running-out he probably would be guilty only(sorry I am not trivialising his fraudulent claims) of overclaiming, yet at some point he just seems to make-up a whole rap-sheet of additional claims, I would think this would probably start when he becomes General der flieger and just gross abuses of his authority.
Probably he didn't know that claims records would not be around to contradict him, possibly just a coincidence that this helped keep his secret safe for three-quarters of a century. I would think also the Walter Loos didn't even know about his name being used as a witness.

Surely Dahl must have therefore have ben the worst unofficial over-claimer as opposed to Walter Nowotny as the worst official over-claimer, and frankly I still don't know how he did it at the end, he would be the only guy claiming with the Staff, so no sharing the fraud like he did earlier with Gerhard Loos and Anton Dobele. I would really like to know how he did it, guess it's too bizarre that he could have abused his status as Kommandeur to somehow self witness, would love to see a few of his last abschussemeldung.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[knusel]

Good evening Johannes,

that's a disgrace.

Red Baron,

there Konrad Bauer discussion goes on over there:
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showth...uer#post258344

Michael

[Alfred.MONZAT]

Originally Posted by Johannes

Surely Dahl must have therefore have ben the worst unofficial over-claimer as opposed to Walter Nowotny as the worst official over-claimer, and frankly I still don't know how he did it at the end, he would be the only guy claiming with the Staff, so no sharing the fraud like he did earlier with Gerhard Loos and Anton Dobele. I would really like to know how he did it, guess it's too bizarre that he could have abused his status as Kommandeur to somehow self witness, would love to see a few of his last abschussemeldung.

From the start Johannes you "assume" that Dahl made all this claims during the War, day by day. Have you something to back this ? (no need to show me anything, I'll believe you on word) Because with what I know (and I know much less than you), he may have wrote the Leistungsbuch after the War when he was sure that most Luftwaffe documents were lost.

Regards

[Johannes]

Hi Alfred

Actually I am now believing that Dahl wrote his Leistungsbuch post-war. To say the document is a "fake" is probably not true, it's real in the sense that it's really Dahl's original fiction. There were two other pilots names Dahl used as witnesses a Leutnant Meyer and Oberfeldwebel Bohnenkamp, guess if we can prove behaps that these guys were killed before having their names abused then that would be great, and we are assuming the name used was Walter Loos, but I am 99% sure this is the case.
I am in agreement that it is a disgraceful abuse of Dahl's position, he would have known that the destruction of Luftwaffe documents was ordered at the time, but not how far in reality it actually went. The Leistungsbuch fiction he had written probably must have occurred before 1961, hopefully somebody can confirm it is in Dahl's handwriting, though I guess he could have got anybody to write it!


As to any future biography on my behalf of him, as previously stated I have been warned-off in mentioning any fraudulent claims(so like to point out the honest ones), or mention of any pilots honesty in a bad way, however these were not even fraudulent claims just fictional claims, so without adjusting the status of any fraudulent claims he made prior to 1945, I guess I could list the post General der flieger claims as fiction.

Hope this doesn't put other General der flieger's in bad light, Galland and Molders did not indulge in such a practice of authority abuse. In fact I think the position carried a "combat flying ban" i.e Molders, Galland and Gollob were all banned from further combat, therefore in theory ALL of Dahl's post General der flieger appointment claims should in my opinion be regarded as fiction...……...makes you wonder how he got the position in the first place, actually rumour has it that Gollob was not as honest as his predecessors.


Kind Regards


Johannes

[knusel]

Good morning Johannes,

Dahl clearly assumed that there would never be such a dedicated historian like you.
A definite proof for his 1945 kills being a postwar fake would confer the top ace title for that calendar year to Günther Josten:
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showth...379#post258379

Have a good Wednesday,

Michael