Hartmann: claims vs. victories

[Nick Hector]

Cheers Bronc,
Sorry if my wording was unclear earlier.
I think you make a good point with Lipfert's photos too

[Broncazonk]

I just posted that photo. ** Look at that... **

I've had Helmut Lipfert's book for maybe 10-years. I open it often and I always end up staring at that photograph. Every time I do my stomach feels sick.

Bronc

[Faenor]

Originally Posted by BenFolk

Hello!
1) Unfortunately after the emergency landing Gv.Ml.Lt. Vladimir Vasilevich Dushanin returned on foot. His plane was not serviced.

2) Gv ml. Lieutenant Buzdin Ivan Pavlovich
104 GvIAP 9 GvIAD was missing.

So two P-39. Exactly. The Sovjets wrote the truth.

Greeting

Hi BenFolk and HGabor - you have more info about these losses (time, place or how or link them to another pilot claims?

rof120 - seriously? I used a quote from a previous post from Gabor - and yes, I know P-39, I know the name and I know the Soviets used the name AEROCOBRA. So I don't understand your post (3x) - as before, please don't respond to me and don't send me private messages, don't let another topic close due to your annoyance, especially if you have nothing to say - the question was for Gabor, whom I respect (and I mean not only me) as an erudite historian in the area of air battles and losses Hungary 44/45.

Thank you for respecting

Faenor

[Stig1207]

Originally Posted by Nick Hector

Meaning that people seem to be finding excuses for a guy who actually looks like a liar.

He seems to be among the bottom 10 percent of guys whose victory tallies stand up to comparison with enemy losses. How many theories can we come up with to excuse that?

I agree that it looks suspicious, but it also potentially makes a lot of other eksperten and aces look like liars, even though perhaps they were just not very accurate in their claiming.

Btw, fellow forum member Urusut covers this period from the VVS side here https://proza.ru/2019/08/23/427 for claims for Me 109's vs Jg 52 losses.

[Nick Hector]

Originally Posted by Stig1207

I agree that it looks suspicious, but it also potentially makes a lot of other eksperten and aces look like liars, even though perhaps they were just not very accurate in their claiming.

Who else claimed as badly as this? The majority of Luftwaffe aces achieved far better than 50% accuracy in their claiming. The other big exception is the II./JG 27 Schwarm of Experten: Stigler, Voegl, Bendert and Sawallisch. Known liars.

And the point Gabor makes is that either an aircraft was lost or significantly damaged... ...or it wasn't. By that standard, Lipfert looks good, Hartmann looks bad and guys like Ewald and Duettmann were somewhere in between

[Nick Beale]

either an aircraft was lost or significantly damaged … or it wasn't

[Stig1207]

I make it about 19 claims for Airacobras in the same area on 4 June 1944, most by Jg 52, a couple by SG 2. Birkner, Wolfrum, Ewald, Lipfert are among the claimants; I don't have the times for those claims.

[Johannes]

Hi Nick

You ask "who claimed worse than that", well there were certain Geschwader where it was endemic JG2 and JG 5 spring to mind, though in reality not everybody within this situation would do such things i.e they had the opportunity, but were basically honest guys.

Other Geschwader had maybe just a Gruppe where it was endemic, sometimes just a staffel. Therefore a pilot might make fake claims for long periods, until a change in company, or transfer elsewhere. Usually the fake claims would be over a short period where a group of guys were working a fiddle, or a Kommandeur with a personal wingman, if fact a huge number of claims in a short period in my opinion is very suspicious i.e Rudorffer, Nowotny, Lang, Stotz, Hans Hahn e.t.c.

I don't have the Russian losses, just Luftwaffe claims, but we a assured by Russian losses experts of the facts, usually the worst offenders were those in the hunt for the Brillianten.....those who were the leaders with totals. Nowotny we are informed was probably the worst offender, he used his schwarm of Anton Dobele, Gerhard Loos and Karl Schnorrer. Rudorffer used his personal wingman Kurt Tangermann, Hans Hahn used Max Stotz, Emil Lang used Reinhold Hoffmann, most of these "helpers" were rewarded with a Ritterkreuz, most did not live to tell any tales.

But we are informed of others who made fake claims that I just cannot link with any helpers Wilhelm Batz springs to mind, and for the greater period Hartmann himself.

So do we actually believe the Russian losses people who accuse these guys. Well we know that Stalin covered-up Russian losses, so perhaps these Russian losses experts don't have the full picture, but that aside, these same guys give many other top luftwaffe aces the thumbs up, like Helmut Lipfert, which would suggest that yes there was something going on.

My good friend Bernd Barbas believes that because the claims system was so stringent that it was impossible to "over-claim", but in my opinion it doesn't take into account human nature.......we are not all honest, and a did-honest group of guys could do it, and once the paperwork is done, well the stringent system must make it fact. It's a bit like the totals of pilots, we believed it because is was repeatedly told to be so i.e Woidich's 110, still don't know where this total came from, even Woidich himself had a abschüßelist with just eighty-two, and may not even known about the 110, other less honest guys could have self proclaimed a higher figure than the truth.

There is the other-side to argue that "they thought the enemy had crashed", now Marseille was a huge egoist, yet he was honest, the fact that he was honest is actually a surprise, his pattern of claiming I find suspicious, but he was honest, the "thought they had crashed" probably well answers this, his wingmen stated "it was a full-time job keeping-up with him, and marking the crash-sites", I suspect that these wingman didn't follow protocol and didn't see some of the actual crashes, not by laziness, but it was just beyond their abilities to keep-up flying with Marseille, and record his claims.

Nowotny was in competition with Günther Rall, no matter what Rall would claim in a legitimate way, Nowotny would claim more.....because he just could, and because of his company Nowotny "just could" for the period covering the majority of his claims.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Nick Hector]

Johannes,

Yes, JG 2 and JG 5. You're quite right. Their high-scorers were regularly very bad claimers and it is probably fair to mention them alongside the Stigler Schwarm.

QUOTE: "Well we know that Stalin covered-up Russian losses, so perhaps these Russian losses experts don't have the full picture, but that aside, these same guys give many other top luftwaffe aces the thumbs up, like Helmut Lipfert, which would suggest that yes there was something going on."

He certainly covered up losses to the public, but it seems not within the archives themselves. From there, guys like Gabor, Christer Bergstroem and others get a pretty decent picture of what actually happened. Just as Caldwell, Shores and others give us a very balanced picture of the Western Front.
If anyone has real evidence that TsAMO records have been genuinely "doctored" to hide actual losses by Soviet Regiments and Divisions as inflicted by German aces with a view to discrediting their tallies...

...well then, let's hear it.


QUOTE: My good friend Bernd Barbas believes that because the claims system was so stringent that it was impossible to "over-claim"

Let's be honest. That one flies out the window the moment you compare claims to losses. It's ridiculous that anyone still quotes it anymore. All due respect to Herr Barbas mind you, but it's not the pre-archive age anymore.

[rof120]

In the matter discussed in this long thread I am just like a new-borne baby: actually I know virtually nothing...

...but I am able to imagine a few things. When Hartmann became a very famous ace the general situation was very bad for Germany, especially on the Eastern front: Stalingrad end of 1942-February '43, the disastrous, giant battle of Kursk July 1943 etc. (Hartmann started scoring in November, 1942, it seems...). Nazi Germany was a terrible dictatorship but at the same time its leaders were very concerned about the people and its reactions and opinions, which they influenced with all possible means like broadcasting, daily and weekly papers, "Signal" and "Der Adler", the weekly reports in cinemas etc. No TV at the time so everybody went to cinemas, in many cases they went there often. The Nazi leaders liked great, popular heroes and they needed them for propaganda purposes to "prove" how immensely superior the "German race" and the German nation were as compared to Russians and other "subhumans".

So I can imagine that Nazi leaders, in particular Göring, who was Luftwaffe's supreme commander and also the regime's N° 2, decided to create some radiant, wonderful heroes or to enhance their reputation if it was there already.

Göring was perfectly able to speak privately to some of these men without any witness and to tell them about this: "You are a very good fighter pilot. I was one myself during WW I and I admire you very much. (Flattering coming from a very famous, very powerful man is often effective with very young persons.) The fatherland needs great men like you so please help me to raise our dear people's morale. Right now we need this. Keep shooting down enemy planes but from now on you should not take any risks for yourself, never ever, for you must stay alive and of course not become a POW. Every victory claim filed by you will be approved (possibly with some exceptions to remain credible) so what you have to do is attacking E/A only when it is perfectly safe for you: hit and run, boom and zoom out of harm's way again. In this way you'll certainly score many hits, and some genuine victories too, but it doesn't matter whether your victims crash or not. I am asking you to do this for the Fatherland's sake. Just stay out of trouble. Of course you should always file victory claims which look credible at first sight."

This trick could have been used with several very good aces, for example Nowotny, Rudorffer, Walter Dahl, Hartmann and a few more. At the end of 1942 Mölders had been dead for over a year, Galland was flying mainly a desk (much to his chagrin) as "General of the Fighter Pilots" and they absolutely wanted him to stay alive because of the public opinion but there were a few others.

Just a theory but knowing the Nazis it could have been true so Hartmann, a very young fellow, would not be the main culprit, the bad guy. No matter how many actual victories he scored, clearly he was a great fighter pilot, "which nobody can deny". As a side-note I can mention that a long time after the war Galland received him, together with other friends including British ones, in his own house at... Oberwinter, now Remagen-Oberwinter, most probably several times. There are some photographs of such meetings. I doubt that Galland would have been so friendly to a phoney.