Luftwaffe Myths

[FalkeEins]

..and talking of Hartmann, there is a thread on the board somewhere that deals with his (fanciful) victory total.....certainly his 'reputation' is undergoing some revision ..at least on the Russian side...the point being most of the hagiographic idolatry that has formed 'opinion' on the leading Luftwaffe ace(s) (in this instance Toliver's 'Blond Knight' ) was published at the height of the Cold War - or earlier. (the Schiffer/Kurowski bio of Marseille is mostly based on a 1944 text entitled 'Mein Freund Marseille' written by a PK reporter)

Russian author Dimitri Khazanov wrote recently in 'Le Fana' a propos Hartmann ;

".. For several years now Russian aviation historians have disputed Erich Hartmann's 'record' of 352 aerial combat victories, claimed over the course of 825 sorties. Nobody looking at these figures, extracted from Toliver's biography, and having some knowledge of air combat operations (….) can fail to wonder just how much truth there is in these claims (….) German archives are themselves contradictory. Only 289 of Hartmann's 'victories' were in fact 'officially confirmed' before the German claims sytem broke down in early 1945, while only 307 of his supposed claims had been officially filed before the end of the war..(..) As everyone knows, the initial months of combat on the Russian front were significant for huge losses of men and matériel on the Russian side. For each German aircraft lost the VVS (Red Air Force) lost ten, for reasons that are well known; superior training, combat experience gained in the West, and significantly superior combat aircraft performance. However none of these factors explain the phenomenal results apparently achieved by Erich Hartmann. His war began as the tide was already turning in the East, with Soviet industry turning out ever more modern aircraft and the German armies on the defensive in every sector.. (..)"

"...the majority of his victories are not supported by any corresponding evidence in the Soviet archives. Hartmann would often claim three or even five Soviet a/c shot down on a sortie. (..) This has much to do with Hartmann's tactic of catching lone Soviet aircraft unawares far behind the front lines, with only a wing man's statement to support his claim and goes some way to explaining the disparity with Soviet records (...) the evidence for his victory claims is much more unreliable than that for other pilots such as Barkhorn and Rall .."