German docs in TSAMO

[Bruce Dennis]

Originally Posted by Steve Coates

Researchers will be hard pressed to find a more accommodating and helpful archivist than Stephen Walton. I can't speak too highly of him.

I'm with Larry: he is a credit to researchers.

Bruce

[Andrei Demjanko]

Hello all

I have a feeling that f.500 collection have received somewhat unjust treatment in the commentaries above. Judging by what is already on their website this collection contains true gems. For example, lets look at the report which I've attached to this post. According to this document Major Barkhorn claimed 274 victory on 1 November 1944 (contrary to all claim lists known for me) and that Ltn. Peter Düttmann made five claims on this date, reaching the total of 123, (contrary to four victories mentioned in Tony Wood lists). Also please not that the daily total of victories mentioned in document is higher then the number of victories which could be found in Tony Wood's list. So yes, previously unknown claims. Beside that, it provides a date for some of Obstlt. Rudel's claims.

Also some folders which are already online contain unique information regarding Lfl. 1 activity in Courland

Anyway, it would take me several hundred years of lifetime to study all LW documents that are already available or known to exist. So I've already accepted, that I could not learn all by default, whether all LW documents will eventually be found or not. Of course, unless Idun would give me golden apple!

[Larry deZeng]

Andrei wrote:

Hello all

I have a feeling that f.500 collection have received somewhat unjust treatment in the commentaries above. Judging by what is already on their website this collection contains true gems. For example, lets look at the report which I've attached to this post. According to this document Major Barkhorn claimed 274 victory on 1 November 1944 (contrary to all claim lists known for me) and that Ltn. Peter Düttmann made five claims on this date, reaching the total of 123, (contrary to four victories mentioned in Tony Wood lists). Also please not that the daily total of victories mentioned in document is higher then the number of victories which could be found in Tony Wood's list. So yes, previously unknown claims. Beside that, it provides a date for some of Obstlt. Rudel's claims.

Also some folders which are already online contain unique information regarding Lfl. 1 activity in Courland

Anyway, it would take me several hundred years of lifetime to study all LW documents that are already available or known to exist. So I've already accepted, that I could not learn all by default, whether all LW documents will eventually be found or not. Of course, unless Idun would give me golden apple!

- Do you mean all surviving Lw. documents worldwide or just those in Russia?

- I tried the website wwiigermandocsinrussia.org but I could not access in. You described this as "their website" and "true gems" can be found listed there. How can we access this website and these listings? I normally use:
http://wwii.germandocsinrussia.org/d.../1-bestand-500
to get to the f.500 material but there is no way to go from there to the listings you spoke of. What am I doing wrong? I suspect the Lw. "gems" you referred to are in a Fond different from the now familiar f.500?


Any help with these questions would be most appreciated, Andrei.


L.

[Andrei Demjanko]

Larry

Originally Posted by Larry deZeng

- Do you mean all surviving Lw. documents worldwide or just those in Russia?

Yes, I mean all surviving LW documents worldwide

Originally Posted by Larry deZeng

- I tried the website wwiigermandocsinrussia.org but I could not access in. ... there is no way to go from there to the listings you spoke of. What am I doing wrong?

The path to the document in attachment is watermarked at the bottom of it:
CAMO_500_12472_345_0178 which means:
f.500 Findbuch 12472 Akte 345 Blatt 178. The number of scanned frames is not necessarily the same as the number of pages, so the actual page number had been watermarked to allow one to make correct reference.

As you can see this document is in the folder containing Heer documents. Exactly like LW documents which could be found in T311 - T315 document series at NARA.

You have previously wrote in post #64 that "They were so generalized and redacted by the Luftwaffe before being distributed to the Army that they are today of little value or interest to air war researchers and historians."

I've attached this document to show that these:
1) could be not so generalised
2) contain unique information previously unknown to LW researches
3) provide useful insights into day-to-day activity of the German air force

I would like to say a few words about the latter point. The document in the attachment shows, that in the autumn of 1944 despite shortages of fuel, tactical Luftwaffe formations could still make a high number of sorties per day (243 by I. Flg.Korps at given date) by substituting twin-engined machines with single-engined ground attack aircraft. Fw 190's acting as ground-attack aircraft did not required fighter escort, hence relatively low daily total of sorties by fighters. It shows supposed effectivenes of specialised anti-tank aircraft (six claims for eight sorties). High number of reconnaissance sorties suggests that in late 1944 Luftwaffe was still trying to monitor battlefield situation virtually in real time just as in its glory days in 1941. A few lines could tell so much!

In my opinion such information is not only of great value or interest, but it also significantly alters the popular view that by that stage of the war Luftwaffe was finished and was unable to provide effective air support of ground forces

[Luc Vervoort]

Hi,

How it is possible to have access to the other Luftwaffe related files ?

I could only find this one :
http://wwii.germandocsinrussia.org/d...inspect/zoom/4
which is part of Findbuch 12452

But when I tried to go to Findbuch 12452 :
http://wwii.germandocsinrussia.org/d...-luftwaffe-okl
I received a blank page.

Many thanks in advance and best regards

Luc

[Larry deZeng]

The path to the document in attachment is watermarked at the bottom of it:
CAMO_500_12472_345_0178 which means:
f.500 Findbuch 12472 Akte 345 Blatt 178. The number of scanned frames is not necessarily the same as the number of pages, so the actual page number had been watermarked to allow one to make correct reference.

As you can see this document is in the folder containing Heer documents. Exactly like LW documents which could be found in T311 - T315 document series at NARA.

You have previously wrote in post #64 that "They were so generalized and redacted by the Luftwaffe before being distributed to the Army that they are today of little value or interest to air war researchers and historians."

I've attached this document to show that these:
1) could be not so generalised
2) contain unique information previously unknown to LW researches
3) provide useful insights into day-to-day activity of the German air force

I would like to say a few words about the latter point. The document in the attachment shows, that in the autumn of 1944 despite shortages of fuel, tactical Luftwaffe formations could still make a high number of sorties per day (243 by I. Flg.Korps at given date) by substituting twin-engined machines with single-engined ground attack aircraft. Fw 190's acting as ground-attack aircraft did not required fighter escort, hence relatively low daily total of sorties by fighters. It shows supposed effectivenes of specialised anti-tank aircraft (six claims for eight sorties). High number of reconnaissance sorties suggests that in late 1944 Luftwaffe was still trying to monitor battlefield situation virtually in real time just as in its glory days in 1941. A few lines could tell so much!

In my opinion such information is not only of great value or interest, but it also significantly alters the popular view that by that stage of the war Luftwaffe was finished and was unable to provide effective air support of ground forces
__________________
Regards,
Andrei

Thank you very much for the comprehensive reply, Andrei. It looks like we had a bit of a misunderstanding because I failed to make myself as clear as I should have.

You indirectly answered my first question, I think. Your 2 samples pages came from the records that are already available in f.500. There are no separate Fonds of Luftwaffes. There are no inventory lists of all Luftwaffe documents captured by Soviet forces during and right after the war. One of the earlier contributors to this thread, possibly Jörn Junker, seemed to list a large number of Luftwaffe documents in Russian hands that have not yet been digitized. Naturally, I assumed he got these from some sort of an inventory list produced by the German Documents in Russia Project people.

To be clear, the samples you provided are just exactly what I and many others are looking for: the daily reports of the Luftflotten, Fliegerkorps and Fliegerdivisionen that detail combat operations would be of great interest, to most of us. As inted out, there are only a few of these that survived the war and these are scattered about in various files that would take years to examine. I have examined most of the T-311, T-312 and T-13 microfilms
beginning in 1982 so I know that there isn't much for the 1941-45 period in the East. There were a few exceptions of course, such as the IV. Fliegerkorps daily reports from September 1941 through February 1942, Fliegerführer Süd reports for the first half of 1942, and a few scattered daily reports from 1. and 4. Fliegerdivisionen from May/June 1942 to spring 1943. However, those daily reports specifically produced by the Luftflotten for distribnution to the Heeresgruppen and Armeeoberkommandos were generalized and void of details. See the Anlagen Bände of AOK 18 in T-312 for examples.

Thanks again, Andrei.

L.

[ju55dk]

All those files that I listed have been scanned, but not made public yet.
There will be a lot of specific LW material in these and other files. Eastern front LF 5 is present through Luftwaffe Verbindungsoffizier zum Finnischen Luftwaffe 1941-42-44 with victories and losses and operations,

Junker

[edNorth]

Well, not seen any useful page so far.

[Larry deZeng]

Originally Posted by ju55dk

All those files that I listed have been scanned, but not made public yet.
There will be a lot of specific LW material in these and other files. Eastern front LF 5 is present through Luftwaffe Verbindungsoffizier zum Finnischen Luftwaffe 1941-42-44 with victories and losses and operations,

Junker

Thanks, Jörn. If you run into anything else in this category - Lw. files in the Russian archives - please give us a head's up!

L.

[Russell]

Hello

Many thanks to Andrei for pointing out the document relating to Barkhorn and Hartmann..

For those who wish to gain an entirely new and different view on Hartmanns claims from 1 Nov 44 to the end of 1944, then I suggest reading Case 382. This is further down the page from Andrei's. Among other earlier dates in Dec 1944, it has Luftflotte reports on claims made on 23rd, 24th and 25th December. Hartmann feature's on all three days. I do not think any claims on these dates have been listed for Hartmann anywhere, certainly not 5 on 25th December. Highly interesting.

Cheers

Russell