Hans-Ulrich Rudel on 8th (not 9th) February 1945 - what is known about the mission in which he lost his leg?

[Dan History]

On 8 February 1945, the very famous ground-attack pilot, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, was shot down by Soviet anti-aircraft fire on the Oder river front, near a town called Lebus. Rudel was gravely wounded, and had a leg amputated.

In his memoirs, Rudel mis-stated the date, as 9 February. Writing soon after the end of the war, he clearly did not have access to surviving archival material, and his account is not necessarily reliable. What I am interested in here is whether information is available from German primary sources about Rudel's mission. Memoirs tend to be flawed sources, so it would be good if some primary source information is available. Sadly, the surviving documents of Luftflotte 6, at least those which I have read, contain essentially no detail, as follows:

"Oberst Rudel S.G. 2 schwerverwundet, (Beinamputation)"

On the same day, 8 Feburary, the following milestones are noted:

"10.(Pz.)/S.G. 9 4000. Feindflug seit Aufstellung

Fw. Matthes 1.(Pz.)/S.G. 9 60. Panzerabschuß"

Everyone is welcome to either reply here, or contact me by private message.

Regards,

Dan

P.S. On 21 November 2018, almost six years ago, forum member Andrey Kuznetsov published an article about this incident, with the polemical title, "Thirteen tanks for one leg?". See the text at https://web.archive.org/web/20240814...v-za-odnu-nogu The majority of forum members do not read Russian, of course, so please use Google Translate, at https://translate.google.co.uk/ , in case of interest.

The article is far from wholly credible, its main purpose is clearly to question the credibility of Rudel's memoirs. The author suggests that Rudel's Ju 87 was most probably hit by Soviet 12.7 mm DShK machine guns, not 37 mm cannon, and that Rudel destroyed at most one Soviet tank and damaged another two, instead of the 13 he claimed to have destroyed that day. Kuznetsov's claims make it all the more interesting to see what German sources might have to say, if they have survived.

[Steve Coates]

Dan

I can't add any of the detail you're after but Rudel's Luftwaffenpersonalamt file has been digitised - PERS 6/182483.

Steve

[Nick Beale]

the surviving documents of Luftflotte 6

Although I have downloaded reams of these and I've definitely seen the report you mention, I'm failing to locate it at the moment (and I thought I was organised!). Which file is it on, please?

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by Steve Coates

I can't add any of the detail you're after but Rudel's Luftwaffenpersonalamt file has been digitised - PERS 6/182483.

Steve

Steve, thank you very much for pointing that out! You really are ever helpful. I wonder whether there are other personnel documents relating to Rudel at the Bundesarchiv. He did not serve post-war, but he was involved in the so-called Rudel-Affäre of 1976, when his presence at a West German air base for a unit veteran commemoration meeting, combined with his extreme-right opinions, caused a scandal. A book was published about this in 2020, which I do not have. You can hear a 17-minute presentation of the book at the following link, zms.bundeswehr.de/de/mediathek/zmsbw-angelesen-66-schilling-rudel-affaere-1976-5671500

Dan

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Although I have downloaded reams of these and I've definitely seen the report you mention, I'm failing to locate it at the moment (and I thought I was organised!). Which file is it on, please?

Nick, it is the final page of the "Beitrag zum Kriegstagebuch für den 8.2.1945."

Precise file reference, including digitised image identifier, is in your private message inbox. Hard experience has taught me not to publish file references freely on the forums, since 'enterprising' readers will then use the information found, without ever acknowledging the person who did the hard work of finding it in the first place.

Regards,

Dan

[VtwinVince]

Yup, the Bundesregierung did their best to distance themselves from Rudel. And don't forget his association with the Deutsches Reichs Partei.

[edwest2]

Which means what? Fill us in.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by edwest2

Which means what? Fill us in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Reichspartei

You can get a pretty good idea of where the guy stood politically from his memoirs, too.

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by VtwinVince

Yup, the Bundesregierung did their best to distance themselves from Rudel. And don't forget his association with the Deutsches Reichs Partei.

Vince, to be more precise, Rudel was a famous retired pilot, and nothing else, from the Bundesregierung point of view, until 1976. The Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP), and other Nazi-friendly and neo-Nazi forces, failed to obtain any national influence in West Germany, where society had had its full of that hatred. The Rudel scandal in 1976 was, in part, a consequence of the growing political disputes between left and right in West German politics, even if Rudel himself was a repulsive character who had no qualms about serving Hitler. He was a very brave and capable pilot, but also a vile political extremist - people are complicated.

As a non-aviation history aside, note that political extremism finds much more room for manoeuvre in modern, united, Germany. A central example of this, usually given scant attention in the English-language press, is the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht – Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit (BSW). An extreme-left party which has already had far more electoral success than the defunct extreme-right Deutsche Reichspartei.

Dan

[VtwinVince]

Thanks for the enlightenment Dan, but I have read several books on this individual, including his memoirs.