A look at German fighter Ace kill claims (5 Viewers)

You can't dismiss Soviet records but accept German records

CHen10 said:

Well if we assume that records are incorrect why not assume Hartmann is a liar? If we go down the path of military records are wrong then maybe Hartmann was lying all the time and as a result the German records were wrong. He says "I shot this and this down" and then the Germans document those claims meaning they document the claims that are fraudulent.

I don't believe Hartmann was a liar

But you could argue he was if you say records are wrong

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If you assume Bubi was a liar, then you have to assume all the rest were.

I wouldn't assume he was a liar. He had a witness for his confirmed kills correct? So his wingman was a liar then too?

It's easy to call a dead guy a liar, you face no ramifications or blowback from your target. The thing I look at is he day after day, sometimes multiple times a day, flew combat missions where your visual lookout skills, your skill & cunning, and sometimes luck kept him alive. I give the guy in the arena much more latitude. I've posted this before but it's still valid here.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Teddy Roosevelt

BiffF15 said:

If you assume Bubi was a liar, then you have to assume all the rest were.

I wouldn't assume he was a liar. He had a witness for his confirmed kills correct? So his wingman was a liar then too?

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If you assume Soviet records are wrong then you might as well assume Hartmann and his wingmen were liars and that this caused German documents to be wrong.

They are both just as far fetched

It's unrealistic to say the German documents are all correct but the Soviet documents are wrong.

Soviet reports also give a list of activities carried out by the unit that day and so for example there could be 7 bullet points describing the 7 tasks. If you find all 7 actions then all the actions for the unit that day are accounted for.

So far I have never found a missing action.

If it says 4 actions that day were carried out by the unit then you will always find 4.

And of course mistakes will accidentally be made when documenting the actions. A pilot might report he was shot down but at the wrong time. So if the time is actually 1200 hours it could be written as 1210 hours for example. But the details are still close enough to the opposite claim.

BiffF15 said:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Teddy Roosevelt

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This quote is irrelevant.

If you have proof something happened differently than what someone who fought in a war said, your proof isn't invalid just because you haven't fought in a war.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the quote, I don't know

CHen10 said:

Well if we assume that records are incorrect why not assume Hartmann is a liar? If we go down the path of military records are wrong then maybe Hartmann was lying all the time and as a result the German records were wrong. He says "I shot this and this down" and then the Germans document those claims meaning they document the claims that are fraudulent.

I don't believe Hartmann was a liar

But you could argue he was if you say records are wrong

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Not sure why I'm included on your mailing list. I've written upthread that I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I don't believe records are infallible, nor do I believe fighter-pilots are infallible. The ineluctable conclusion, therefore, is that the truth is somewhere between the sources, and that some sources will be more reliable than others.

As for Hartmann being a liar, I ascribe to Hanlon's Razor -- "never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity"; not that Hartmann was stupid, but rather, that his tactical approach would imply that in many cases he might think he shot down an enemy when he couldn't confirm it. Ergo, overclaim, but no lie, in many cases.

CHen10 said:

It depends how different the details are.

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We have a full agreement here.

CHen10 said:

When the Soviets filed the reports, it would be impossible to lie.

Ammunition, pilots, planes, crew are all accounted for.

Soviet high command would question and say:
"Why is it loads of our aircraft are missing? You made no mention of their loss in your reports?"
Or
"Where have these pilots gone? You made no mention of their loss"

If anything, they were incentivised to tell the truth because they wouldn't want to get in trouble with the Soviet higher ups for lying!

They are also reliable because the Soviet losses always have a matching claim by the Axis.

If it was all fake, why do the losses all match up to Axis claims?

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About the perfect accuracy and reliability of the Soviet reporting and the impossibility of lying.

If you mean a certain sample of documents carefully researched by yourself or other researchers - I take your word for that. You did the job. Kudos to the researchers.

If you mean the reporting in all fields of the Soviet state or, even just in RKKA, the reality was more complicated.
It was possible to lie, to cheat, to massage the statistics, to falsify. Sometimes it was necessary to do so.
Here, you can take my word for that (or take a long and interesting road in Soviet history studies!). I was born in the USSR and lived there almost half of my life and I was a part of the system - and of the Soviet-style reporting until I quit in 1991. At least a third of my historical studies since the 1990s was devoted to the history of the Russian Empire and USSR.
The strict control and the fear of punishment are not enough to provide accuracy and quality. Ironically, in certain situations, they incentivise the opposite behaviour.