Erich Hartmann's individual victories researched

[Johannes]

Hi Nick

Source of Hartmann's late claims was an abschüßelist, which has proved to be completely unreliable past 1943. My co-author John Foreman always stated that once something has been published "It's cast in stone" meaning basically that typo's, mistakes and mis-information become "FACT".

A good point to this is Woidich's "110", his own abschüßelist has only eighty-two confirmed claims on, the first eighty-one match the mikrofilms exactly, plus one for 1945. It seems likely now that Ernst Obermeier was fed false information i.e "110" and this has become the reconised truethful number. Woidich didn't attend reunions, and I suspect didn't even know of the mis-information. It would appear that nobody asked him "82 or 110" !!!

I suspect that Hartmann's abschüßelist was stitched together largely by authors given snippets of information from Hartmann himself, probably he gave the flugbuch details correctly 1-150, but what he lacked for details 151-352 he just made-up.........like the real events, allegedly Hartmann used letters he sent home, but perhaps this is made-up also. This has been "cast in stone" for decades. For decades his claims were written-off at fake-claims for no other reason than the huge total, not based on factual investigation, because even if we had reliable Russian losses details he would appeared dodgy anyway because his claims being incorrect information would appear to be fake anyway....worse even than the truth. WE don't actually know the name of a single witness to the Hartmann claims, for these people helped him for whatever reason, and having tried to work-out who they are by Staffel claims, I must confess that I can work-out who these guys are, but not past 1943.

Hartmann was going to be Kommandeur of II./JG52 towards the end of the war, but this was changed because of protests from within this Gruppe, and why such a short spell with JG53. He was unpopular it has been said many time, surely it's because people thought he was dodgy, rather than just envy.

Anyway he spent ten year as a POW because of his "352", so you can say he got his just reward.

Keep Well

Johannes

[Nick Hector]

Johannes, Gabor

Thanks for your replies to my question (...which I hope didn't come across as harsh, just burning curiosity). The thing being it had appeared as though very strict criteria had been applied to everyone in the volumes except Hartmann (and perhaps Barkhorn) when perhaps it was known that the sources that Hartmann's later tally, even post-Toliver and Constable were not fully substantiated and not fully certain. I had always understood the point that Gabor was driving at, and NickM sums it up very well too: our knowledge increases and improves as more archival material is examined and added to our base of knowledge.

Will there be a second edition to the Aces' Biographies series in years to come? I hope so...

[Johannes]

Hi Nick

My ambition is getting it as perfect as possible, so any pointers to mistakes greatly received.
Actually the books work mostly on the mikrofilms, which are exhausted in that respect. Flugbücher, Leistungsbücher, abschüßeliste KBT papers and abschüßetafeln are what I am collecting now, mostly from gracious TOCH members. abschüßetafeln and KBT papers will be totally honest, occasional mistakes. I have seen one flugbuch that has been doctored....post-war I think. Abschüßeliste are open to dis-honesty(Walter Dahl springs to mind), and I have seen one actual fake one from a 103 claims SG2 pilot. Leistungbücher I believe are self made, so again open to tests of honesty.

Would love to do a second edition. Have acquired much information for the periods not covered by the mikrofilms, especially 1945. John Foremn wrote the text, sometimes just proofing my improving, but not so good literacy. John has not been well for several years now, So I'd have to complete any future work myself. Originally I wanted to do a fifth book with missed aces, amendments, additions and corrections, but there are so many updates that a second edition is probably a better route.

Another comment about Hartmann is that he may have thought cheating the norm because of his association with "Karaya" Staffel. Would love to know how he approached the subject to other pilots.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Broncazonk]

There is a shocking amount of world-class research going on in this thread...

Bronc