Barkhorn: claims vs. victories

[Juha]

A short note from one who had not went very deep on claim/overclaim research.
Air fighting was most of time very different on the Eastern Front that in the NW Europe, being much less "concentrated" over the very long Eastern Front. Jagdfliegern often operated in pairs or fours there, so making things much easier to us, later day reserachers. Air fighting there was so different that the LW learned that it was best to give some retraining to the units transferred from East to West, so that they relearned the fighting tactics used with bigger formations.


Juha

[Franek Grabowski]

Yes, it is true, no such massive dog fights like over the Channel or Germany, but still such a combat could be a complete mess. So without a narrative it is hard to tell if overclaim was due to a heat of a combat or intentional fraud.

[Johannes]

Hi Franek

What I am doing at the moment is checking pilots claims against other from the same staffel and see who claims with who. Have just completed Joachim Kirschner as he has been fingered as an "over-claimer", initially his claims with 5./JG3 are not spectacular, and are not unless he is claiming the same time as Hans Grünberg and Arnold Bringmann, if another 5./JG3 pilot claims the same time as Kirschner then it's usually just a single claim, if a whole bunch of 5./JG3 pilots claim, then again usually just one or two claims. When only Grünberg and Bringmann are the other claimers then it's multiple. With Grünberg in particular it's in a ratio of two for Kirschner to every one of Grünberg's. Grünberg's claims without Kirschner claiming are again singular.

Other pilots within 5./JG3 do not seem to be involved, in fact all Kirschner's A.S.M claims are either without any other pilot claiming, or the guys I personally do not think were involved claiming.

Kirschner then transfers to a unit(Stab.IV./JG27) who's claims match Allied losses relatively well. So how does he continue "over-claiming", answer is "Heinrich Bartels of 11./JG27 who he seems to borrow.....Kommandeur's privilege I would guess, but also an abuse of power. In fact I have not checked, but I put money on the newly formed fourth gruppe of JG27 being the least honest gruppe of the Geschwader as it seems that the outsiders that formed it brought bad habits with them.

However the question that hasn't been answered is how Kirschner new of Bartels inclination to "over-claim", as said before perhaps they had a "Freemasons" type handshake, or wore a yellow button or something....who can say.

I have also looked in Heinrich Erhler, but alas it's hard to workout, so as he was Franz Dorr's witness quite a few times I checked him(I have all his witnesses names) anyway Helmut Neumann would have been in collusion with him, but so were most of 7./JG5, it was endemic sadly. Of note also is how often pilots from other Staffels and even Gruppe were the witnesses.
Surely JG5's claims would be the easiest to scrutinize in the East.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Franek Grabowski]

Hi Johannes
I can imagine a situation when leader and wingman knew themselves so well, and trust each other, that they could go in a whatever melee could have happened. The bigger melee the bigger overclaim. So the point is, that each dog fight should have been analyzed in detail. I have tried to do so for a number of combats over ETO 1940-1945, and on several ocassions, the actual course of events seemed much different to what transpired from claims & losses data. My observation is, however that narratives are just essential. Sadly, there are so few from the German side. Of course, it happens that narratives seem a fiction. I recall a one of a German pilot claiming his unit being attacked by 150 Thunderbolts. Only a squadron of Mustangs was around.
All the best
Franek