A look at German fighter Ace kill claims

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Dimlee said:
I do not consider this article to be a serious research—too many assumptions.
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There are no assumptions made by the author here. He simply looked at Hartmann's claims and compared them to Soviet losses and saw that Hartmann was far from accurate. The Soviet losses are usually attributed to other pilots. The author found that Otto Fönnekold and Walter Wolfrum were much more accurate than Hartmann since the Soviet losses match their claims most of the time.

"For example, from 12 victories claimed by the CO of 5./JG 52, Otto Fonnekold during the Battle of Yasi, at least 7-8 can be confirmed in Soviet documents, and in other cases the claims could have been achieved by him or other pilots. Walter Wolfrum, CO of 1./JG 52, fought no less effectively on this stretch of the front. Out of 24 claims he made during the week, at least 13-14 can be confirmed."

The author isn't just saying Hartmann is inaccurate for no reason. He gives evidence to prove Hartmann was inaccurate:

Hartmann

A brief summary (Moscow time)

227. 30.05.1944 12:25 P-39 - possible - P-39 of 438 IAP, lt. K. V. Myaskov, baled out

228. 30.05.1944 15:38 P-39 - possible - P-39 of 508 IAP

229. 31.05.1944 19:05 P-39 - overclaim

230. 31.05.1944 19:08 P-39 - overclaim

231. 31.05.1944 19:13 P-39 - overclaim

232. 01.06.1944 12:31 LaGG - overclaim

233. 01.06.1944 12:38 LaGG - overclaim

234. 01.06.1944 15:20 LaGG - possible but unlikely - P-39 of 438 IAP, m. lt. N. T. Motuzko, MIA

235. 01.06.1944 15:30 LaGG - overclaim

236. 01.06.1944 15:32 P-39 - overclaim

237. 01.06.1944 15:35 P-39 - overclaim

238. 02.06.1944 18:10 P-39 - overclaim

239. 02.06.1944 18:15 P-39 - overclaim

240. 03.06.1944 14:30 P-39 - overclaim

241. 03.06.1944 14:33 P-39 - overclaim

242. 03.06.1944 15:00 LaGG - overclaim

243. 03.06.1944 17:17 LaGG - overclaim

244. 04.06.1944 16:10 P-39 - overclaim

245. 04.06.1944 16:25 LaGG - overclaim

246. 04.06.1944 18:13 P-39 - overclaim

247. 04.06.1944 18:23 P-39 - overclaim

248. 04.06.1944 18:53 P-39 - possible, damaged - P-39 of 16 GIAP, m. lt. G. G. Statsenko, slightly injured

249. 04.06.1944 19:15 P-39 - overclaim

250. 04.06.1944 19:18 P-39 - overclaim

251. 05.06.1944 14:12 P-39 - P-39 of 100 GIAP, m. lt. N. I. Zaytsev, survived (?)

252. 05.06.1944 14:19 P-39 - overclaim

253. 05.06.1944 16:15 LaGG - possible - La-5 of 240 IAP

254. 05.06.1944 19:07 LaGG - possible - La-5 of 240 IAP, m. lt. E. A. Karpov, survived

255. 05.06.1944 19:35 P-39 - overclaim

256. 05.06.1944 19:40 P-39 - overclaim

257. 06.06.1944 16:25 LaGG - overclaim

258. 06.06.1944 16:30 LaGG - overclaim

259. 06.06.1944 20:15 P-39 - possible but unlikely - P-39 of 438 IAP, m. lt. A. I. Sopin, survived

260. 06.06.1944 20:25 P-39 - overclaim

261. 06.06.1944 20:35 P-39 - overclaim

In total: 1 confirmed, 7 possible, 27 overclaims

The article also explains why there is an overclaim and so he doesn't just call a kill an overclaim for no reason.
 

And for context: This is how the author of this article, Mr Ivan Lavrinenko, chooses to end said article:

"As for Erich Hartmann, for his supposed successes he received the Swords to the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves on July 2, 1944. It seems that the active battles over Iasi would have continued for another week or two, and the 300th victory of the "ace of all times and nations" would have already taken place here. However, the lull at the front forced Hartmann to wait until the second half of August 1944 and give free rein to his imagination over Eastern Poland - however, this is a topic for a separate conversation."

"The examples given suggest that Hartmann's combat score - with the exception of some isolated periods - should not be divided by 2-3, as is most often the case, but by completely different figures, and the "king of fighters" himself appears more like a reward hunter. Too much at the front depended on the personality of each ace - some really did inflict heavy losses on the enemy, while others lied without a twinge of conscience."

So in summary, Mr Lavrinenko paints the story of Hartmann as a "bounty hunter" with a "free reign of imagination" who "lies without a twinge of conscience" and who's accredited score of 352 needs to be be divide by a factor larger than 2-3 to arrive at the true number?

Interesting. I seem to have heard this story somewhere before in this forum........
 
I personally don't agree with that, but that's the only time his opinion is stated and it's not important to the article. The important part is the data.

And to be fair when you look at the data, it isn't that surprising that Lavrinenko would come to such a conclusion.
 
Logic.
Examples of typical assumptions and flaws of the author's logic (by categories, not the incidents described):
1. Pilot A (in this case Hartmann) claimed a victory at a certain date/place, but pilots B and C also claimed victories at about the same time/place, therefore by the author's opinion, pilot A's claim was false.
2. Pilot A claimed a victory at altitude N meters but the loss of the only potential victim was filed in the records of the opposite side at altitude M meters, therefore pilot A's claim was false.
3. Pilot A claimed a victory over an aircraft type X, but the opposite side filed losses only of the aircraft type Y, therefore by the author's opinion, pilot A's claim was false.
4. Pilot A claimed a victory but the opposite side filed losses only from AAA, therefore by the author's opinion, pilot A's claim was false.
5. Pilot A claimed a victory in the area NNN, but the opposite side filed losses only in the area MMM, therefore pilot A's claim was false.
6. Red herring: references to other pilots, who (by the author's opinion) were more or less accurate in claims, compared to Hartmann.

Content and logic.
The author offers a detailed description of the incidents and the summary table - kudos to him. Yet in other parts of the article, he makes claims as "in the author's opinion,...inflating his real score 7-8 times". The author's claim doesn't match his own table - even if we accept all his assumptions.

Sources.
Not mentioned, except the vague "reported by". Credits are given to two other persons for the "materials" provided. The materials are not identified.

Language.
The article is peppered with cliches such as "blonde knight", "turbulent fantasy", and "lied without a twinge of conscience".
The language is very important. This is not the first Russian media article about Hartmann - who was idolised and demonised since the 1990s (mostly demonised after the propaganda tide turned in the 2000s). After reading hundreds of texts one can notice certain patterns: the more colourful the language, the more biased is the author.
(And by the way, I'm a native Russian speaker).

Saying all that...
The author might be right in his conclusions. But he didn't prove them professionally and impartially. In my humble opinion.
 
No, there are other sections in the same article which are in the same vein. In addition, Mr Lavrinenko smears other German aces as well: Here is a quote from another article:

«Шейная чесотка» — профессиональная болезнь асов люфтваффе?

"When the combat score of Luftwaffe aces approached nice "round" numbers, German pilots suddenly began to declare aerial victories, behind which in reality there was nothing. How this affliction, nicknamed "neck itch", manifested itself - using the example of air battles during the liberation of Crimea in the fall of 1943 - spring of 1944."

And there is more of the same type of defamation in the same article as well. I remain very skeptical to the idea that because German aces victory counts cannot be found in Soviet era archives, that this is some kind of proof that aces like Hartmann overclaimed. After all, if people can "disappear" from Soviet records, so can losses of aircraft: Just to take two examples: When Lavrentiy Beria fell from grace, subscribers to the Soviet Encyclopedia got a "correction" sent out with instructions to tear out the pages about him and replace them with an article about the Bering sea. Another nice example involves the picture below where Nikolai Yezhov was made to disappear. The Soviets spent 10 years trying to turn Hartmann before finally releasing him in 1955. And with this endeavor having failed, they had every incentive to make his historical record disappear as well. So no, a claim that Hartmann overclaimed victories based on these being missing from Soviet records falls apart like a house of cards in the gentlest of breezes.

 
Holtzauge said:
remain very skeptical to the idea that because German aces victory counts cannot be found in Soviet era archives, that this is some kind of proof that aces like Hartmann overclaimed.
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This is a very important topic which deserves a separate discussion.
Avoiding the thread hijacking, just briefly:
- the Soviet archives were cleaned and cleansed, manipulated, declassified and classified again.
- the "history was unpredictable" in the USSR exactly in the same manner as described in "1984" by Orwell
- the accuracy of the Soviet military documentation could be good in some periods/situations (as in late WWII) or horrible (as in summer 1941)
- the infamous "Party line" was of paramount importance until the very end of the USSR. Again and again, the Party Line won over professionalism and logic, even during the war.
 
Dimlee said:
1. Pilot A (in this case Hartmann) claimed a victory at a certain date/place, but pilots B and C also claimed victories at about the same time/place, therefore by the author's opinion, pilot A's claim was false.
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Author doesn't say Hartmann's claim is false in this situation. He lists it as possible victory.


Dimlee said:
2. Pilot A claimed a victory at altitude N meters but the loss of the only potential victim was filed in the records of the opposite side at altitude M meters, therefore pilot A's claim was false.
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Yeah this makes sense. If the aircraft was lost at 100m but someone files a claim at 5000m for example, how can that loss be attributed to the pilot who claimed at 5000m?

Dimlee said:
3. Pilot A claimed a victory over an aircraft type X, but the opposite side filed losses only of the aircraft type Y, therefore by the author's opinion, pilot A's claim was false.
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Author acknowledges that this is a possible victory and not an overclaim. He says "it's possible if another type was actually lost."

Dimlee said:
4. Pilot A claimed a victory but the opposite side filed losses only from AAA, therefore by the author's opinion, pilot A's claim was false.
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Author acknowledges that this is a possible victory and not an overclaim. He says "it's possible if it wasn't brought down by other means."

Dimlee said:
5. Pilot A claimed a victory in the area NNN, but the opposite side filed losses only in the area MMM, therefore pilot A's claim was false.
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If the location is too far off then it is an overclaim. How can it be a match if the location is completely different?

Dimlee said:
6. Red herring: references to other pilots, who (by the author's opinion) were more or less accurate in claims, compared to Hartmann.
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Otto Fönnekold was definitely more accurate than Hartmann. By comparing losses to his claims, Fönnekold had 8/12 confirmed kills over Iasi and the remaining 4 were shared with other pilots or possible kills.

Dimlee said:
Sources.
Not mentioned, except the vague "reported by". Credits are given to two other persons for the "materials" provided. The materials are not identified.
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The two persons are respected historians who get data from TsAMO. Nikita Egorov has access to Soviet loss reports for example, and he was someone who helped out.

He does have strong opinions about Hartmann but they are opinions which come from the data he has. He is also right to dismiss The Blonde Knight of Germany. It's a fictional book with myths everywhere and should not be considered historically accurate.
 
Dimlee said:
- the accuracy of the Soviet military documentation could be good in some periods/situations (as in late WWII) or horrible (as in summer 1941)
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It is, shockingly so actually for ~1943-1945. Some is not published online, rather one needs to head to Podolsk to get to the really detailed materials. This is hard to do but very worth it. Those which work with these documents (both published online and not) know and can attests to their historical value. That is why over the past decade so many top historians are using them from around the world.
If one has reservations with using a Russian article for whatever reason, they can try a German book: Drei ""Falken"" der II./JG52 auf der Krim im Luftkampf um die Kertsch-Halbinsel (1943-1944). Looking at 13 II./JG 52 pilots the authors found the average victory-to-claim rate was 54%. If wishes to have another German historians opinion, Dr. Jens Wehner found the rate to be only ~56%. Our english book Verified Victories found the rate to be 58% on confirmed claims (listed in the OKL microfilms). This number drops when 1945 claims are examined as found in the pilot's logbooks/unit docuements (no OKL microfilms for 1945, unsure of OKL approved them). When small sample sizes are put to the side and the entire Luftwaffe is looked at for the whole of 1944 over the Eastern front, I found that the real victory rate was ~2/3rds. The overclaiming is squewed to certian units and certian individuals. Why that is the case will still take some time to uncover, certianly not because of dishonest intent as I found that less than 1% of claims could fall within this category. There is an ever increasing number of research over the past decade showing that certian individual's overclaimed at certian rates, this comes from multiple researchers/historians from different countries. Nearly all overclaiming is a result of failing to observe the enemy aircraft after making an attack, be that due to enemy pressure, weather, other factors.
It should come as no surprise that there is over claiming.
P.s. if one is skeptical of matching German claims to Soviet losses (most likely due to their personal unfamiliarity with these documents), they are welcome to review Allied documentation as well over the Eastern front. They will find a similar pattern, ex. the infamous May-8, 1945 claim, Duttmann's P-51 claim, etc. From renound French Historian Jean-Yves Lorant (author of the amazing JG 300 volumnes: over the west there could be a disparety of allied records and German claims of 1:8 when looking at fighter-to-fighter combats. Over claiming occured on all fronts.
 
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He praises Otto Fönnekold, Walter Wolfrum and Helmut Lipfert for being very accurate. This is because their claims match Soviet losses. So if he does criticise other pilots, it's because their claims don't match losses. He doesn't criticise them for no reason. He criticises based on evidence.

Firstly Soviet records were always accurate when they were made at the time. It would be almost impossible to lie about what happened in mission reports because everything from aircraft, pilots, ammunition used, fuel used etc. would be accounted for. This means if the Soviets lost a bunch of aircraft they couldn't just lie and say they weren't lost, because Soviet high command would question why those aircraft are missing. They wanted to keep track of everything.

Secondly if you are talking about erasing the documents after the war so that they aren't found, then you are assuming that the Soviets looked at every single Hartmann claim in detail and erased the losses that were specifically confirmed to him. How would the Soviets get the details of every Hartmann claim?

Holtzauge said:
So no, a claim that Hartmann overclaimed victories based on these being missing from Soviet records falls apart like a house of cards in the gentlest of breezes.
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Nope. Soviet records are very accurate especially in the late war period, and the Soviets censoring the records to discredit Hartmann is an impossible outcome.
 


Well this all boils down to if we should trust Soviet records or not. And here we just have to agree to disagree.

I just gave you two vivid examples in my post above of why trusting Soviet records is ludicrous. But I'm sure you two will continue to hammer out the same message about how while that may apply to some of the Soviet records, conveniently the records you are citing defaming Hartmann are absolutely 100% reliable. In addition, it does not matter how many other authors you cite that have come to the same conclusions since if it's based on the same unreliable Soviet era data it's not worth the paper it's written on.

This sort of thing is rampant now: The Finns started the Winter war with the Soviets by shelling Russian territory. The Katyn massacres were perpetrated by the Germans, not the Soviets etc, etc. And the problem with all this is aptly captured in Brandolini's law which is why I'm done with this: It's simply not worth the effort to keep on refuting this nonsense. So again: Soviet era records, which may have been manipulated then or later, are simply unreliable because you have no idea about what is true or not.

Over and out.
 
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Holtzauge said:
It's simply not worth the effort to keep on refuting this nonsense. So again: Soviet era records, which may have been manipulated then or later, are simply unreliable because you have no idea about what is true or not.
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How do you explain how some pilots were really accurate based on Soviet records?

Lipfert for example was accurate and his claims have matching losses.

And the Soviets couldn't have censored the losses which were linked to Hartmann because there is no way for them to know which losses are related to Hartmann.

So when Lavrinenko says:

In total: 1 confirmed, 7 possible, 27 overclaims

He is correct.
 
Over claiming happened all the time, everywhere. This is not news. If one is looking at studying the eastern front, they best use archival documents pertaining to the eastern front. This includes researching Soviet documents. To not do so makes one's research biased towards the non-Soviet sides.
Are the Soviet documents for late war periods accurate? We have yet to find evidence for the contrary over Hungary.
I would encourage everyone to get their hands onto some archival material and begin researching their areas of interest first hand rather than solely relying on 1970s notions of certain state's documentation, a frankly lousy position for a researcher to be in when so much is available for free online.
Those that actually write top-level history books do use these same Soviet documents, as but one example JaPo in their JG 6 book just started to use TsAMO RF materials in a serious way.
On German over claiming, Erik Mombeeck has stated that JG 2 was notorious for over claiming, and probably the most knowledgeable JG historian alive Jochen Prien has also stated: "Notorious over-claimers were for instance JGs 2 and 5 as well as all Sturmgruppen."
 
Just to reiterate what I've posted elsewhere, and what Dan has written above, the original Soviet wartime records are comprehensive, thorough, and many of them are available for free online at Память народа::Документы частей.

Here's 17.VA for February 1944: Память народа::Подлинные документы о Второй Мировой войне

And 17.VA for June 1944: Память народа::Подлинные документы о Второй Мировой войне

No-one has manipulated these records - they are the wartime originals.

Download a page, use Google Keep and Google Translate, and you will have an English-language summary of daily operations, regular flying unit strength returns, bombs dropped, losses and victories, plus a summary of German air activity in the 17.VA sector.

I just grabbed the following from the June 1944 war diary: "Having conducted 1 air battle, 1 FW 189 was shot down. At 10.00-10.50 a pair of Yak-7s, led by Sr. Lieutenant MERENKOV, conducting free hunting and reconnaissance in the area of KAUSHANY, KAINARY, MANZYR, ERMO KLIYA at H=200 metres noticed 1 FW 189 flying at the same altitude west of KADNARI. Sr. Lieutenant MERENKOV attacked it from above from behind in a dive, with the second burst, from a distance of 200-100 meters. The aircraft fell burning south of OTM. 226."

You can find hundreds of similar entries for combats where the Soviets suffered lost or damaged aircraft.

Having studied the air war over Courland between July 1944 and May 1945, and quite a few other aerial campaigns on the Western Front and in the Mediterranean, you can easily determine which pilots were accurate claimers, and which pilots were a little more optimistic. Hartmann obviously fits into the more optimistic category. Some pilots were about 75 per cent accurate, and others around 50 per cent. Some were around 25 per cent, and a select few were quite obviously claiming victories without actually engaging enemy aircraft. That's just the reality of aerial combat: not every claim actually resulted in an enemy aircraft actually destroyed or damaged.

Cheers,
Andrew A.
 

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It's also interesting that Hartmann's accuracy was fairly bad and yet he's the highest scoring pilot.

A common pattern is that it's the lesser known and more modest pilots that are more accurate.

Barkhorn would be an exception to this since as the second highest ace he's really accurate.

Any ideas about why this pattern seems to come up?

Fönnekold over Iasi 1944
12 claims
8 victories
4 potential victories
0 overclaims!!

Wolfrum over Iasi 1944
24 claims
14 victories
(Unsure about remaining 10?)

Hartmann over Iasi 1944
35 claims
1 victory
7 potential victories
27 overclaims!!
 

OK, I'll take the bait just one more time since this (That Hartmann's score cannot be verified in Soviet records, while other lesser known German aces can):

From a Soviet/Russian propaganda standpoint, who is it important to bring down? The top scoring ace of aces of all time who everybody has heard of, or some obscure ace like Lipfert that only the buffs know about? Which aircraft losses in the Soviet archives would you give the same treatment as Lavrentiy Beria and Nikolai Yezhov? Lipfert's or Hartmann's? And regarding the timing, the "vetting" would of course have been done after claims lists became known and when it became important to discredit the West.


Yes, why do the top scoring Germans aces stand out? Because they were notorious overclaimers or because they were given "special" treatment in the Soviet era archives?
 
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Holtzauge said:
Yes, why do the top scoring Germans aces stand out? Because they were notorious overclaimers or because they were given "special" treatment in the Soviet era archives?
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Because some were overclaimers. Overclaiming happened a lot and it's completely normal.



Censoring the Soviet archives would be impossible.

Let's say we have one pilot who Hartmann shot down and so the Soviets removed the part in the archive where he was shot down and killed. Archives are also used by family members to find out more about their relatives in the war. So thousands of Soviet people would have relatives who were killed in the war and then the Soviets would say that nothing happened to them. This means that loads of people wouldn't be able to research their family members and what happened to them in the archives. People use the archives a lot to research family and so everyone would have given up using them by now because there would be too many contradictions. The relatives obviously know their family member was killed in the war, but the archive makes no mention of his death in action?

What if the Soviets just changed the circumstances of the loss? So they changed the date or time of the loss but still acknowledged that the person was lost. This would mean that there would be constant losses with no matching claim on the opposite side. If I changed the time to another another time then the new time would not match a Luftwaffe claim for example. They can't change it to the same time as another loss because that loss would already have a matching claim too.

Ultimately the process of censoring would not work, because there would be too many contradictions. I have only ever seen one contradiction in the Soviet archives. Ever.

When it comes to Yezhov and Beria, it probably worked because you are erasing one or two people. This is erasing thousands of people.
 
 
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