Top Fw 190 aces

[Johannes]

Hi Michael

The Mustang appears on the KBT papers. These papers give the number of claim, if high 30+ and this Mustang is numbered 103. Don't know where 116 comes from, but probably Ernst Obermaier, he is likely to have got it from Hans Ring. Hans Ring liked to play games, games in which by giving false information he could tell in publications that the source was himself. I have also seen 127 mentioned for Lambert. Lambert was not liked by his superior for some reason, could be a number of things, French surname, over-claiming, being dark haired, who can say. Perhaps Lambert had enough unconfirmed claims to make 116 or 127?

Lambert usually flew with a very high scoring schwarm(like the Nowotny schwarm or Emil Lang schwarm of over-claimers), who stayed behind the rest of the unit to cover their retreat/flight home. This would give them the opportunity to over-claim, but this has not been proven one way or another. His superior I believe stopped him being awarded the eichenlaub. Hopefully the Russian losses experts can calculate the truth from the known claims, which are incomplete.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[knusel]

Good evening Leo,

thanks for the dates. Now I know that some high scorers have fewer Fw190 kills than I thought.

Good evening Johannes,

to prove that something has NOT happened is always difficult. It's interesting that you know not only the airwar history but also the airwar historians' history. That might be the key for the rectification of false scores. Galland and Marseille had dark hair and French names, too. The former was well liked by Hitler, the latter was well liked by Rommel.

I wish you a good weekend, sincerely,

Michael

[knusel]

According to John Weal (2001) Heinrich Sterr reportedly achieved his 100. kill in October 1943. When exactly ?

[Johannes]

Hi Michael

Sterr scored his first eighty-seven confirmed claims with 6./JG 54 from 6th April 1942 until 28th January 1944. Then 88-96 with 4./JG 54 from 19th March 1944 until 2nd April 1944. He then returns to 6./JG 54 where 97-105 were 8th April 1944 until 21st July 1944(nr.100 on 1st May 1944. Then he transfers to 16./Jg54 where he claims his 106-108 from 12th August 1944 until 25th September 1944, the last two being U.S aircraft.

So his total is 108, of which two were in the West

Don't know why a total of 129 or 130 is attributed to him, but I found one unconfirmed for 7th March 1943, between confirmed numbers 24-25. So there are likely to have been other unconfirmed.

Kind Regards

Johannes

P.S

The actual highest honest claimer with the Fw190 is Otto Kittel, with the Bf109 Barkhorn and Rall. With Barkhorn at least 228 of his claims actually crashed, but the last eighteen claims attributed to him would in my opinion be false information, in fact four claims must be wrong(proven by documentation). Actually a Russian losses expert stated that Barkhorn overclaimed as he neared "300", this makes perfect sense as the claims closing to 300 are false information..
Have helped Daniel & Gabor Horvath with Barkhorn's abschüßelist with there new publication "Verified VICTORIES Top JG52 aces over Hungary 1944-45" Basically it compares the claims of Hartmann, Barkhorn, Batz, Düttmann, Ewald, Lipfert, Sturm and Haas against Russian losses. These are all Bf109 only pilots. Book is unbiased, drawing on the facts, which led to conclusions about these Great aces honesty

[knusel]

Good morning Johannes,

John Weal's books are a suitable platform to present Luftwaffe knowledge to non-professionals like me because the are graphically appealing and written in a pleasing narrative style. But often I wish I could ask him where a specific info comes from. He is known to speak German fluently and has a enormous collection of books. Do you happen to know him personally ?

Cheers,

Michael

[Johannes]

Hi Michael

I do not know John. You say he has a vast library of books, but books can be wrong, yet must be correct as published.
A lot of earlier works were based on information by Hans Ring, but as stated before he deliberately handed out false information. Somebody independent from myself said he did this so he knew the source was himself, possibly he'd asked that it not be used in publications. He would just as false information to correct information i.e Woidich and his "110" , which had been accepted as his true total for more than fifty years, but eighty-two is what Woidich himself listed, eighty-one(not the one for 1945) is what is listed on the mikrofilms, Hans Ring merely added another twenty-eight for July 1944, which were actually suspicious as they were completely not in the usual pattern of his claiming i.e they were all multiple claims per day, Woidich was never one for that.
I think that Ernst Obermaier's two Ritterkreuz publications may well have been influenced by Ring, the first from the sixties often had little more than a total, often in the eighties publication there is more information, and often significant corrections. This is all pre-mikrofilm days, but I suspect Obermaier contacted the pilots, and collected flugbücher/abschüßelist.

I think also that Ring had much original documentation, so nobody could really question it.

I'll ask my friend the JG52 meister Bernd Barbas if he was ever in contact with Obermaier, or John Weal.

I found the Franz Kurowski books had material that just isn't true, and it's hard to see where anybody would find such information. Also the Toliver/Constable Hartmann book, in this instance I should think they were probably mislead by Hartmann himself, not just the actual claim dates, Hartmann's flugbuch being stolen, so they can be forgiven for that, but the stories like shooting down four Il-2's with one burst, and oh the Mustangs.......or lack of them !

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Nokose]

Walter Nowotny did achieve “Ace or Expert” status on paper. He probably did get enough kills to actually make that distinguish but no were near the score that he claimed. He lied about many of his claims in Russia from the ones that I could check against Soviet documents. I was actually stunned that one of his claims in the Kursk air battle was actually verified by the recovery of the Soviet fighter (in the past years), it was in the actual location and time that he claimed. Nick Hector and myself looked at his claims flying the Me 262 that he was confirmed and no actual losses were found.

Otto Kittel would probably be the true top Fw 190 ace.

[knusel]

Originally Posted by Johannes

Hi Michael

I do not know John. You say he has a vast library of books, but books can be wrong, yet must be correct as published. ...

You're right. Unlike you he seems to have relied mostly on secondary sources. I wonder why he did not contact you after Luftwaffe Aces — Biographies and Victory Claims. Maybe he doesn't want to face the task of revising his OSPREY volumes ?

Sometimes the definition of an official total in dispute is as simple as the Helmut Lent total 110 vs 111 kills. His contemporary newspaper orbituary reveals the official number. I hope for something similar in the Heinrich Sterr case.

Have a good start into the weekend,

Michael

[Johannes]

Hi

With Nowotny yes, no doubt he did shoot down a large number of Russian aircraft. Usually even a devoted "over-claimer" began honest, or should we say was unable to "over-claim", then suddenly they make huge numbers of claims over a short period, then as I guess because circumstances have changed, they revert to not "over-claiming", but the Russian losses experts investigations suggest in this case that Nowotny was bad from the start.
Am surprised that his Me262 claim cannot be verified, as a change in circumstances had happened, but I suspect also that Kommandeur might have somehow self signed-off claims.

He could naturally have returned multiple claims without actually being in combat with his Austrian schwarm, or get one claim five, but there must have been times when he flew with strangers and made honest claims. Berhaps in this case it was a way for the Austrians to get back at their "unifiers" ?

I can explain Nowotny's "over-claiming" as mutual, until he become kommandeur of I./JG54, he like I say it's as if he gets them verified some other way !

Keep Well

Johannes

[Nokose]

Johannes, I looked at Nowotny’s claims from the very beginning and his first 10 claims could not even come close to verified. I sent Robinoc a lot of my research for his site jg54greenhearts.com. I had compiled some work on JG 54 for Operation Barbarossa from 22 June - 31 December 1941 but just not enough to fully complete it. The Russian aviation historian Mikhail Timin has compiled far more then I could get ahold of but I don’t know if that will come to light now. What I sent to Robinoc is about 69 pages, which will probably be a while to put up. I found out from Mikhail Timin that there are some German pilot reports that did survive and are in TsAMO. But Nowotny definitely learned to play the conman in the Nazi system for his advancement. Tegtmeier and Kittel were very decent pilots.