German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?

[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.