Bf 109 in Polish Campaign 1939

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

I have no problem with Michulec and his Armagedon. He published 2013 my(our) last book "First Kill pchor. Gnysia" and he did it very well. We started a new era of German-Polish cooperation on the Poland 1939 topic. We will continue with the Pursuit Brigade in the near future.

Ypu may have no problem with him, this is not a point, this is different matter. "Lonly knight" is most probably lost on the market in the future versus network of "Empik".

So for what a cooperation between two Polish historians, who (both!) like fantastic memories of Polish pilots more than original documents?

They had began very early, Now both are well over 80, have strong war memories, strongly influenced by own predujudities, and they do not like themselves too. No cooperation at all - enemy attitiude for all this period.

Sure, but "patriotic" people looking tv and believing the fairy tales presented there are later furiously attacking autors on forums like this, because they are writing about other, well documented things. The question of falsifying in documents was suddenly seen as more likely than in veterans memories...

Meny people love myth and funny or airy tales/stories, the true is not so nice and sweet they want to belive or "know". TV (mass media) no matter in Poland, France, Germany is adresing to sell advertisment (Coca-Cocla) to not educated people (weak, less educated ect.), more less educated people it is better selling results. It means that the all media progams should be for so kind "idiot", who do not think only to more consume.
No reflction only comsumption.

[GuerraCivil]

Going back to the problem of language regarding Polish-German airwar 1939 books. Thinking the whole picture "Lufwaffe nad Polska" (with all controversiality aroused) is probably the Book of most recent study. But currently there is not enough market for German/English publication. Jerzy Cynk has couple of books published (The Polish Air Force at war), but again there has been some controversy on methodology.

When I think Murawski´s book Bf 109 C/D in Polish Campaign, I must say that it is a little wonder that such book exists. Taking in account the rarity of early Bf 109 models and their use in a campaign that lasted roughly two weeks. It was interesting read, but I was not completely satisfied with its content. I think too much "propaganda prose" was included - this is a problem also with some Condor Legion books, which use as their source a 1939 published Das Buch der Spanienflieger and repeat its content without any criticism. Those "first-hand accounts" should not be taken as 100 % authentic descriptions of air combats. It is noteworthy that Werner Mölders did not want to participate in the project of Das Buch der Spanienflieger. He considered it to be dubious propaganda, in which he did not want to be a part.

The "propaganda prose" has its place as a testimony/document of its own time, but reader should be advised to read it critically. What I missed in Murawski´s book was an analysis and some overall view of German-Polish airwar. As is it was, the book is mostly filled with "propaganda prose" of German pilots. However Murawski and his publisher deserve credit for risking to publish a book about a rare subject.

By the way, are there some good web articles about this subject (Bf 109 in German-Polish airwar or the German-Polish airwar 1939 in general) - something better than wiki?

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

There is a massive study of the Polish Campaign air war that will be published in English next year that covers both sides in definitive detail. We probably will have to break it down into several parts. Our Polish AF historical research for the project is now finished and currently runs over 1250 typewritten pages. The volume(s) will cover the entire action almost hour by hour from every known source. Polish and German records have been very carefully matched against each other to avoid previously published exaggerations and errors. We are well aware of the propaganda and myths created by both sides around this air campaign and we have made every effort to avoid these. It glorifies the exploits of neither side, but tries to present the story in interesting, but carefully researched and unbiased history. As one of our sources on the German side, we've done a full translation into English of the excellent books and articles in Polish by Marius Emmerling. However, besides his works, we've used as sources every known KTB, FB, contemporary publication, memoir, etc. all translated into English and carefully matched against other records of both sides to eliminate errors, misinformation or propaganda. This also includes the results of all known postwar aircraft crash archaeology. This will cover all elements of the air war, which, besides bombers, fighter and ground attack units, includes information from all known sources on recon, transports and seaplanes, which have not been previously covered in the literature in any detail.

I don't know if there will be a market for a detailed history of this kind, but it will cover the Polish Campaign air war in definitive detail, illustrated by many, many maps, hundreds of aircraft color profiles, many hundreds of photos, etc. This will be the template publication (s) for following books on the Phoney War/Sitzkrieg/Scandinavian Campaign, several volumes on the WC/FC, and three volumes planned to cover the Battle of Britain/early Blitz to the end of 1940. I may go broke doing this if nobody buys the resulting publications, but at least the Polish Campaign will be done and in-print in a language that is accessible to almost every educated person anywhere in the world.

[Marius]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

Going back to the problem of language regarding Polish-German airwar 1939 books. Thinking the whole picture "Lufwaffe nad Polska" (with all controversiality aroused) is probably the Book of most recent study. But currently there is not enough market for German/English publication. Jerzy Cynk has couple of books published (The Polish Air Force at war), but again there has been some controversy on methodology.

Part 1 of “Luftwaffe nad Polska” in 2002 was partially a relatively fast “reaction” to Jerzy B. Cynk`s patriotic book published in 2000 via AJ-Press. So “Jagdflieger” is not done “perfectly” and therefore I wrote about an updated version I could make in German (German/English?) language. But there is nobody in the WEST who will publish books about this topic. Nevertheless the series “Luftwaffe nad Polska” is very important, because Cynk`s basic work was 20-30 years old at that time (2000) and the author did not use any detailed German documents (apart from GQM-losses list, which is not qualified for).

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

When I think Murawski´s book Bf 109 C/D in Polish Campaign, I must say that it is a little wonder that such book exists.

Murawski used for his book as basic “Luftwaffe nad Polska”, so nothing new.

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

By the way, are there some good web articles about this subject (Bf 109 in German-Polish airwar or the German-Polish airwar 1939 in general) - something better than wiki?

You should read JET & PROP, where I published several articles about Poland 1939.

Regards,

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

I have forgotten to add, that Larry is doing a monumantal work about this total not marketing value topic for years with support of his Polish friends.

Part 1 of “Luftwaffe nad Polska” in 2002 was partially a relatively fast “reaction” to Jerzy B. Cynk`s patriotic book published in 2000 via AJ-Press.

Saying that Jerzy B. Cynk had made a "patriotic's book" has the same value as to say that Marisu Emmerling is post-fashist/ultra-nazist author (pogrobowiec i niedobitek nazsistowsko-faszystowskiej kliki or post ultro-faszata in Polish).

Marius Emmerling does not know what does it mean this word? He does not know a lot of Polish books, which are in fact more then more pariotics and far way of being obiective (speking dirctly - chłopie "gadasz/ pi...sz" bez sensu, sam nie wiesz co piszesz).
For example texts/books done by Tomoteusz Pawłowski (PhD. like "Armia Rydza-Śmigłego", ect.). I can add more such patriotic books edited in the last 10 years in Poland and this is strictly patriotic books, written exactly by young Polish historians. Next such a person is Edward Malak (Ph.D./dr hab., done a lot of such patriotic texts and books too) - total glory of PAF ect. This is kind of stricte patritoic authors.

I do not say the same about J.B. Cynk. Jerzy Pawlak - yes agree, he is, why not?

As a old man J.B. Cynk has own way to present the history about PAF, which is far away of being some kind of "patriotic" books, but his book was written on Polish position and from the point of view person, who had survived the war under German's occupation (the same case is Jerzy Pawlak).


Marius Emmerling does not accept this way as presnet history of PAF and as a person living just in Germany or as a German should keep your own way of presenting history, which for some poeple in Poland is out of discution too.

regards,
mw

[mars]

Originally Posted by Larry Hickey

Hello,

There is a massive study of the Polish Campaign air war that will be published in English next year that covers both sides in definitive detail. We probably will have to break it down into several parts. Our Polish AF historical research for the project is now finished and currently runs over 1250 typewritten pages. The volume(s) will cover the entire action almost hour by hour from every known source. Polish and German records have been very carefully matched against each other to avoid previously published exaggerations and errors. We are well aware of the propaganda and myths created by both sides around this air campaign and we have made every effort to avoid these. It glorifies the exploits of neither side, but tries to present the story in interesting, but carefully researched and unbiased history. As one of our sources on the German side, we've done a full translation into English of the excellent books and articles in Polish by Marius Emmerling. However, besides his works, we've used as sources every known KTB, FB, contemporary publication, memoir, etc. all translated into English and carefully matched against other records of both sides to eliminate errors, misinformation or propaganda. This also includes the results of all known postwar aircraft crash archaeology. This will cover all elements of the air war, which, besides bombers, fighter and ground attack units, includes information from all known sources on recon, transports and seaplanes, which have not been previously covered in the literature in any detail.

I don't know if there will be a market for a detailed history of this kind, but it will cover the Polish Campaign air war in definitive detail, illustrated by many, many maps, hundreds of aircraft color profiles, many hundreds of photos, etc. This will be the template publication (s) for following books on the Phoney War/Sitzkrieg/Scandinavian Campaign, several volumes on the WC/FC, and three volumes planned to cover the Battle of Britain/early Blitz to the end of 1940. I may go broke doing this if nobody buys the resulting publications, but at least the Polish Campaign will be done and in-print in a language that is accessible to almost every educated person anywhere in the world.

It is such a great news, I can not speak for others, but I will be sure buy this book, does this book has a title yet?

[Marius]

Originally Posted by Mirek Wawrzynski

Saying that Jerzy B. Cynk had made a "patriotic's book" has the same value as to say that Marisu Emmerling is post-fashist/ultra-nazist author (pogrobowiec i niedobitek nazsistowsko-faszystowskiej kliki or post ultro-faszata in Polish).
...
Marius Emmerling does not accept this way as presnet history of PAF and as a person living just in Germany or as a German should keep your own way of presenting history, which for some poeple in Poland is out of discution too.

regards,
mw

Mister Wawrzynski, I call it just pure nonsense!

Regards,

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

Marius, yes we've also fully used as source material your articles in German as well as Polish. I want to clearly state that sources for all of our material has been carefully documented and will be fully acknowledged and footnoted. Although translating and using the information published by Marius, we've gone far beyond that back to both the same original source documents that he used, plus many other sources as well, some of which he used and some of which he didn't. The real value of this historical material is that it will fully exploit the source material on both sides, which have been carefully matched against each other to arrive at the best objective truth possible. As an example, with the 3rd Volume in Polish that Marius wrote,the German Stuka operations, we have obtained and translated into English all of the KTBs known to exist for both the StG and the Schlacht Gruppe, all of which Marius used in his excellent work on the subject. We've tried to go back to original source material wherever that has been possible, not just rely on secondary sources published by other authors. All of this source material has then been translated into English to allow it to be used in our project.

Another aspect that we've put considerable effort into is correlating reports on the ground for both the Polish and German sides of air attacks from the other side. This has provided, in many cases, a much better understanding of the results of bombing and Stuka attacks against targets on the ground. To my knowledge, this has never been done before in any systematic way.

Mars, no formal title yet. Just for now EoE Project Polish Campaign.

If anyone thinks that they have information or photos to help us create this monumental project, please get in touch with me. Even after many years of intense research and work there are undoubtedly some sources that we have missed.

[Marius]

Originally Posted by Larry Hickey

Hello,

Marius, yes we've also fully used as source material your articles in German as well as Polish. I want to clearly state that sources for all of our material has been carefully documented and will be fully acknowledged and footnoted. Although translating and using the information published by Marius, we've gone far beyond that back to both the same original source documents that he used, plus many other sources as well, some of which he used and some of which he didn't. The real value of this historical material is that it will fully exploit the source material on both sides, which have been carefully matched against each other to arrive at the best objective truth possible. As an example, with the 3rd Volume in Polish that Marius wrote,the German Stuka operations, we have obtained and translated into English all of the KTBs known to exist for both the StG and the Schlacht Gruppe, all of which Marius used in his excellent work on the subject. We've tried to go back to original source material wherever that has been possible, not just rely on secondary sources published by other authors. All of this source material has then been translated into English to allow it to be used in our project.
If anyone thinks that they have information or photos to help us create this monumental project, please get in touch with me. Even after many years of intense research and work there are undoubtedly some sources that we have missed.

Hi Larry, I am happy my books and articles (so far) are of big help for the EOE project. More will follow soon!

Best regards,

[mars]

Originally Posted by Larry Hickey

Hello,

Mars, no formal title yet. Just for now EoE Project Polish Campaign.

.

Larry, please kind enough to give me updates, thanks!