JG26 Siegfried Sy

[Don Caldwell]

A few points:

NickM -- I have no idea why Sy's family had no interest in his memoirs, but I can guess -- He wrote them very soon after the war. My impression, gained thru many conversations & much correspondence, is that most of the survivors and the first post-war generation wanted to forget the war, not perpetuate the memories thru books, etc. Some of the veterans, OTOH, felt that the best way to purge themselves was to write their memories down, and some were able to get them published. Some Luftwaffe veterans (e.g., Bloemertz, Heilmann, Dahl) perferred the technique of "historical fiction", whether or not that's what they called their books. People are complex.

WEISNER -- Despite what you seem to think, I don't have a garage full of pilot's accounts. I started late (mid-1980s) and concentrated on JG 26. By the time I broadened my interests to the entire Jagdwaffe, it was almost TOO late, but I did the best I could from the late 1990s to a few years ago. I always use my best material in my books -- those already published or the two I'm now working on. A book full of unpublished accounts would be interesting, but I don't know who would pull such a project together and where the material would come from. Interviewing veterans directly is no longer possible, and anything wothwhile that comes on the market is scarfed up by sudek13. And a book without illustrations, which you've mentioned before? I have no interest in that at all. No author I know wants to deliberately cut off a large part of his market.

Ruy -- My last contact with the Sys was ~25 years ago. Their attitude was very common at that time. I didn't fault them for it then, and I sure wouldn't judge them by the standards of today.

Horrido!

Don