Erich Hartmann: 352 victories or... 80?

[Graham Boak]

Denes suggests a ratio of 2:1 for claims to kills: I believe that Chris Shores, with all his experience, has said the same. I would point out however, that this ratio is not an overall factor. In times of intense fighting this can rise dramatically, and 3:1 is certainly not unreasonable, having been seen in many occaisons. Using this might suggest a total of some 120 for Hartmann, but even if we assume that 80 is a "correct" figure, so what? Similar factors would apply to almost everyone on the Eastern front, and indeed elsewhere.

Only 80. Wow, what a poor result. No?

From what has been seen elsewhere when both sides records have been compared, I fully expect many of these Luftwaffe totals to reduce significantly. As will Soviet totals. As will Japanese and USN Pacific totals. As have RAF, USAAF and Luftwaffe totals where comparisons have been possible. I don't believe that it diminishes the individuals concerned.

[Mazila]

DefiniteLY Khazanov article doesn't have enough strong points to prove that most Hartmann's victories are overclaims. Obviously it would be a subject for a big book not a small article.

It's also clear that some sentenses of Khazanov critics look naive and obsessively.

Seems that cold war propaganda still keeps some minds. The remark about russian archives -"a) the disparate & incomplete nature of the Soviet archives precludes any objective analysis - who shot down who, a "dangerously romanticised" version of the air war " doesn't look just "strange at least" - as Andrei Dikov mentioned - in reality it looks ignorant, arrogant and represents the remark's author as an absolute neophyte.

[FalkeEins]

John,

thanks for your kind comments..the Khazanov article struck me as being fairly sobre, if somewhat lacking in detail..it's also quite a long piece, so I shall keep adding to that page..

Graham,

Khazanov states that Hartmann's victory total is "..somewhere between 70 to 80 Soviet aircraft shot down" He continues... "It is therefore not incorrect to state that the scores of other famous JG 52 aces are likely to have been largely superior to Hartmann's, given that the evidence for his victory claims is much more unreliable than that for other pilots such as Barkhorn and Rall (..) This has much to do with Hartmann's tactic of catching lone Soviet aircraft unawares far behind the front lines, with only a wing man's statement to support his claim and goes someway to explaining the disparity with Soviet records since aircraft lost in this way were recorded as missing in action and not as shot down in combat..."

Mazila,

'cold war propaganda'. Researchers in the West have no idea what may have 'happened' to the Soviet archives during the cold war period....Was it not the case for example that Hartmann was put on trial in 1949 by the KGB charged with the destruction of 345 Soviet aircraft..as Khazanov states .." Hartmann's defenders will always argue that the KGB's researchers are unlikely to have been in error given the seriousness of the charges.."




Neil

[Jens]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

http://www.members.aol.com/falkeeins/Sturmgruppen

C) "On 29 May 1944 Hartmann claimed three La-5s shot down in the vicinity of the airfield of Roman (Rumania) during a large scale attack by aircraft of the 5th Air Army. All the La-5s of the 302nd Fighter Division returned safely" . False. Hartmann claimed a single Airacobra near Jassy. In addition Hartmann's victories 248-250 claimed on 4 June 1944 were P-39s and not Il-2s

??? According to Tolliver/Constable:
29.5.44 - 3 LaGG-7! (1 Aircobra is stated at the Claimlists...)
4.6.44 - 4 Jak-9 and 3 Il-2; Kill 244 - 250! ( 6 Aircobras and 1 LaGG at the Claimlists)

So for me it's clear that searching claims by type isn't valid enough. There is no reason why germans everytime identified right type of a/c.

Most authors forgot, that Hartmann didn't need eyewitnesses, since it wasn't necessary since July 43 for getting a kill! And so it comes that Rall fights a claim of Hartmann, is described in Tolliver/Constable. Rall states indirectly, that Hartmann is not telling the truth.
Questionable is also, that Hartmanns get his 200th and 300th kills at day where he made over ten kills a day. These days are his best, seems there wishes had to come true. Also there is no long checking procedure for these kills, since Göring sends congratulations for KC and kills same day.

I wonder about Seidel statements of 25.000 fighters shot down, since USSR lost only 20.700 for all reasons in combat. Also I am wondering about the german claims, that climbs in 1943 up to 11-13k, although there are much less fighters at the eastern front, pilots were getting worser and technical supremacy was lost.

[Mazila]

Originally Posted by FalkeEins

Was it not the case for example that Hartmann was put on trial in 1949 by the KGB charged with the destruction of 345 Soviet aircraft..as Khazanov states .." Hartmann's defenders will always argue that the KGB's researchers are unlikely to have been in error given the seriousness of the charges.."


Neil

Do you really think that KGB did care about seriousness of the charges? It's funny to imagine NKVD people trying to prove these 345 victories

The only way to find out the real picture is making a good research in Tsamo(Podolsk Archive Of Ministry Of Defence) where all VVS documents are stored.

the problem is that Hartmann's claims data is not comprehensive in terms of dates, plane types etc.

Probably it could be check statistically (with claims which are able to be checked) that would give us an overall impression

[Jens]

Originally Posted by Mazila

Probably it could be check statistically (with claims which are able to be checked) that would give us an overall impression

good idea!

[Laurent Rizzotti]

My two cents. I read the article last month and write of memory.

I think both number of 352 and 80 are ridiculous. Most of the times overclaiming is 25-40% so Hartmann probably shot down 200-250 aircraft.
The original article uses all the revisionist tricks. Basically pick some precise cases to show that the "usual story" is wrong, and then using these as a proof that all cases are wrong. In the article, the author gives some examples, uses them to justify the fact that Hartmann only shot down less than 1/4 of his claims and in another "generalization" (don't remember if it is implicit or openly written) doubts the veracity of the German fighters in general.
In this case, the author seems to have choosen the wrong examples or to have quoten bad sources (another usual aspect of revisionism, that usually shows outdated wrong sources, so proving them wrong is easier.... and obviously not saying that every serious historian knows these sources are wrong).

While reading the article, I was thinking (as I always did with "revisionism"): what is the goal of this ? You will notice that putting the score of Hartmann at 80 is telling the best German ace "really" scored less victories than the best Soviet ace, who scored more than 80 victories. This is absolutely not written in the article and only my personnal interpretation.
The "who shot down who" question is most often a very difficult one and often misleading... A part of the "solved" cases compared partial list of losses with partial list of claims. A more interesting question is to try to compare global victories to global losses, when possible for each battle (a battle that may last hours and expand on hundred of kilometers in the case of the big Allied raids over Germany).

[marsyao]

Laurent,the top Sovie ace's score were 62 kills

[MB]

You know, friends, Khazanov's work is undoubtedly weak... But the 'reply' of his opponents Jean-Yves Lorant and Hans Ring - is more, more weaker! That place: "the disparate & incomplete nature of the Soviet archives precludes any objective analysis - who shot down who" - is so stupid that after them all other words are in vain... Had worked those men in "Soviet atchives" just one day?..

[marsyao]

MB, MB is an excellent researcher, although a little old school, so please show a little respect to him. The thing really concern me is that we have not read the full text of Mr Khazanov's article, only thing we read are piece of text from here and there, and Mr Ring's comment, not the whole picture, so how could we make a judgement by ourself only base on those ?