8./JG 2 Staffelkapitän

[Frank Olynyk]

Thanks Larry. The British and the Americans assigned unique numbers to enlisted men at least by the time of World War 1. And after WW1 both countries assigned unique numbers to all officers. One's number only changed if one moved from enlisted to officer. Interesting that the Germans didn't do this.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[Kapper]

Larry,

I understand. When I first started researching the Luftwaffe as a youngster, I made a lot of notes without referencing the source (It’s a hobby to me – I’m not a professional researcher). Being on the other side of the world, accessing primary sources is not easy, so I tend to rely on secondary sources (books / internet etc). However, using such sources has created many questions (and conflict in data) so I began taking notes of the source, but this has slowed me down considerably. Also, it’s all became on big mess with referenced and unreferenced data (which I’m trying to correct as I go) therefore I’m currently trying to put it all into some logical order. A very time consuming task, so I imagine that the task you and Doug have set yourself would not be easy.

Anyway, thanks for your efforts. I find Doug and your work a very useful source, so keep up the good work.

Regards,

Craig…

[Larry deZeng]

Originally Posted by Kapper

Larry,

I understand. When I first started researching the Luftwaffe as a youngster, I made a lot of notes without referencing the source (It’s a hobby to me – I’m not a professional researcher). Being on the other side of the world, accessing primary sources is not easy, so I tend to rely on secondary sources (books / internet etc). However, using such sources has created many questions (and conflict in data) so I began taking notes of the source, but this has slowed me down considerably. Also, it’s all became on big mess with referenced and unreferenced data (which I’m trying to correct as I go) therefore I’m currently trying to put it all into some logical order. A very time consuming task, so I imagine that the task you and Doug have set yourself would not be easy.

Anyway, thanks for your efforts. I find Doug and your work a very useful source, so keep up the good work.

Regards,

Craig…

Right on, Craig. It's like a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a 4 square mile section of open ocean. As you know, some 95% of the Luftwaffe's records were destroyed between August 1944 (the Potsdam raid that destroyed much of the archives there) and the first week of May 1945 when most of what was left was intentionally burned in compliance with Hermann Goering's long-standing orders. Only bits and pieces survived. That means we researchers are forced out of necessity to use the postwar published material and therein comes the rub. Veteran A says so-and-so was Staka while Veteran B says no, it was so-and-so. The only recourse seems to be the Karteikarten and/or the copied WASt resources in the French military archive. So unscrambling these Staka/Stafü conundrums for the fighter units where the positions changed with such frequency can be a tedious challenge but, with persistence, a rewarding one.

Larry

P.S. if BA-MA Freiburg ever relented, all 700,000 of those cards front and back would cost an estimated $700,000 U.S. for BA-MA's jobber, Selke, to copy. Definitely out of my reach!

[John Manrho]

I did quite some research into Maj. Günther Vowinckel, geb. 07.089.1912 Krefeld, as he was killed on 1.1.1945 during Bodenplatte. I have quite a number of documents and also a copy of his FB. Anyway, I can confirm he had EM 55564/1. From his Personalakte he was with I./ZG 2 from 31.3.1940 until 7.8.1940 and he flew 50 Feindflüge during this period. Not sure if he was Staffelkapitän but it seems highly likely.

Regards,

John.

[Adam]

For what it's worth, have you seen http://www.ww2.dk/misc/wastjg2.pdf

Doesn't really help with the formation but may be of interest anyway.

[Larry deZeng]

Interesting, Adam, interesting. This list looks very much like the sort of lists the French occupation people copied at WASt and are now in the French military museum in Paris. It's a good example of it.

L.