Leistungsbucher generation

[Johannes]

Please excuse my ignorance on Leistungsbucher but I suspect that they were self generated !

Whereas they seem to be written on an official printed document I suspect that the pilot filled them in themselves !

Firstly there are often periods where information is missing, very often at the end. I suspect this is because the pilot has ended the war, destroyed or had his flugbuch stolen. What I am saying is that I think a pilot used his flugbuch to fill in this official form. They often refer to later claims as just an Il-2 and two fighters or something like that.

I know that certain units were ordered to destroy their flugbucher at the end of the war. I should think that any pilot no longer flying due to injury e.t.c. may well have kept their flugbucher at home.

Another question is about flugbucher.........I know that Heinz Marquardt lost his when he was shot down on 1st May 1945, but assume that generally flugbucher did not accompany pilots unless on transfer flights, and that they were filled in after landing?

What do you all think?

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Tim O.]

Hi Johannes

Regarding Flugbucher, I can only comment based on my own collection but it seems to me that how they were maintained was largely up to the individual. Flugbucher were required as evidence for award of the Frontflugspange from early 1941 and for bombers crews for example, also for allocation of points to receive the EK II and EK I.

From my collection it seems some men had separate books: one perhaps for the aircraft and rough notes, often a hardback version written up later at the base and sometimes one just for Feindfluge.

The Flugbucher of guys shot down are completed by other people with 1-3 days of information added after the loss, so from this it seems 'master copies' were written up later.

For security reasons one would have thought that carrying Flugbucher on aircraft was banned but evidence from RAF Intelligence Reports on downed aircraft suggest that Flugbucher were indeed carried by some.

[Johannes]

Hi Tim

Many thanks for your comments. We have come to the same conclusions......Great minds think alike.

Kind regards

Johannes