A look at German fighter Ace kill claims

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 subscribe 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.

Hi CHen10,

You are free to so assume. Really.

You will be in the extreme minority of self-professed wartime scholars.

Most people realize there was some overclaiming, but with very few actually submitted with the intent to be fraudulent. Whoever is at the top of ANY "sport" or endeavor done by more than a few people has their performances scrutinized to an above-average degree, to be sure.

But you and your friends are the only people I have ever heard claiming to be able to state flatly that Erich Hartmann fraudulently submitted claims in search of personal glory. I have spoken about this subject with Ralph Parr, Gunther Rall, and perhaps 15 other in USAF / USAAF/ RAF / Soviet VVS / Luftwaffe service pilots, about 1/2 of which served in WWII; some also in Korea. All largely believe the claims of the top aces, including one of the top aces himself, and are sure the vast majority were submitted in good faith ... including claims by Erich Hartmann. I heard a few doubts about the 352 number, but none about his skills as a fighter pilot and not from anyone who flew in the Luftwaffe. All the "doubters" never flew against Russian Front Luftwaffe pilots. Being 73 years old, I grew up at exactly the right time to talk with these guys.

Taken together, they represent the most-qualified group of men to speak with about WWII aerial combat, and I accept their opinions much more so than from someone who thinks combat reports were all correct. That would be you. I am much more troubled that you tell me all the reports YOU read match in their details. That, in and of itself, tells me something is very wrong. Combat reports written independently rarely match in many details or wording.

I'll stick with the victory totals as-awarded in WWII by the various Air Forces, except for Japan. The Japanese list has been pieced together after the war from individual combat diaries of the pilots involved and the current Japanese list, while likely largely as correct as it can be, is also likely incomplete and may never be finished.

Modern scholars seem to think books and reports are correct. In fact, all books were written by someone, and there is no way to know if the authors of the books had an agenda or not. I can tell you that if you and I each wrote a summary aerial operations of WWII, we'd both likely tell the story as best we could, and we both might produce interesting works, but the end result would likely not seem like the same conflict or result in the same reporting for victory totals, claims, or other combat-related subjects.

So, let's just say you and I see things through wildly differing lenses, and let it go at that.

Myself, I never met an airplane I didn't like, and I'd love to talk airplanes with anyone, anytime.

Cheers, Chen10.

GregP said:

But you and your friends are the only people I have ever heard claiming to be able to state flatly that Erich Hartmann fraudulently submitted claims in search of personal glory.

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I do not think Hartmann submitted fraudulent claims. I believe that all his 352 claims were submitted genuinely. However, in the fog of war he thought he shot down a plane but in reality he didn't. It was an honest mistake. Some people do think he was a fraud who only wanted personal glory. I am not one of those people. I have never claimed to be.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Not sure why I'm included on your mailing list.

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Is it ok if you could clarify this? I don't know what this means or what I did.

Thumpalumpacus said:

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.

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Just to be clear again, I do not think Hartmann was a liar. I made up an example that included him being a liar, but it was just a made up example and not true.

GregP said:

I heard a few doubts about the 352 number, but none about his skills as a fighter pilot and not from anyone who flew in the Luftwaffe.

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Hartmann was a skilled pilot.

Some of his real victories are against experienced Soviet aces, and pilots who were awarded Hero Of The Soviet Union.

The fact that Hartmann shot down these pilots shows that he was definitely a dangerous opponent.

Dimlee said:

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.

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Thanks for the kudos.

I guess we just have different views about the records and that's fine.

CHen10 said:

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

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Theodore Roosevelt was a combat veteran and had been indeed shot at while leading a charge.

CHen10 said:

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

Click to expand...

The quote is actually relevant. You speak from the grandstands not from the floor of the arena. The two are literally 50 yards apart in distance but a continent apart in perspective and experience.

From reading your previous comments I took it that you insinuated Hartmann was a liar. If my interpretation is wrong I apologize. It's easy to throw spears at a dead guy, he can't defend himself or return fire.

Cheers,
Biff

CHen10 said:

Is it ok if you could clarify this? I don't know what this means or what I did.

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You quoted me prefacing your reply where you laid out a didactic scenario of "records lied, or Hartmann et al lied" when in fact I'm already on the record in this thread pointing out that both records and pilots could often be wrong. It felt like my point was being straw-manned.

So my pointing out "pencil-whipping" happens is actually congruent with your view that records can in fact be wrong, and I don't know why I'm included in that listing of quotes which were making points I don't necessarily agree with.

BiffF15 said:

The quote is actually relevant. You speak from the grandstands not from the floor of the arena. The two are literally 50 yards apart in distance but a continent apart in perspective and experience.

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Just because I didn't fight in a war doesn't mean I can't investigate things to do with the war, and if I find evidence of something it's not invalid because I haven't fought in a war.

BiffF15 said:

From reading your previous comments I took it that you insinuated Hartmann was a liar. If my interpretation is wrong I apologize. It's easy to throw spears at a dead guy, he can't defend himself or return fire.

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Yeah I misread things sometimes too.

I don't think Hartmann was a liar.

Here's what I said earlier

CHen10 said:

I do not think Hartmann was a liar. I made up an example that included him being a liar, but it was just a made up example and not true.

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Thumpalumpacus said:

You quoted me prefacing your reply where you laid out a didactic scenario of "records lied, or Hartmann et al lied" when in fact I'm already on the record in this thread pointing out that both records and pilots could often be wrong. It felt like my point was being straw-manned.

So my pointing out "pencil-whipping" happens is actually congruent with your view that records can in fact be wrong, and I don't know why I'm included in that listing of quotes which were making points I don't necessarily agree with.

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I must have misunderstood. That's my fault sorry about that.

Chen10, you state pretty clearly that since Hartmann's victories fall into your set of doubtful claims, that he was a chronic overclaimer. That means liar when the overclaims are frequent. You didn't use those words, but that's what you said.

You also think that way largely because there is no reported loss on the other side, despite being told of numerous ways such a thing can happen without a reported loss.

You rather obviously think that wartime records were exceedingly accurate and complete.

So, you apparently want to say Hartmann is a liar, that he isn't a liar and, now, that it is all a misunderstanding.

It isn't a misunderstanding. You are calling Hartmann a liar, plain and simple, because his victories don't all fit your pet theory, so SOMETHING must be wrong. You are basing this on reports that you believe tell the complete story of the entire air war in the area and a book that trashes Hartmann.

Some believe you. A lot of us disagree.

I think the book that started all this has an agenda, and that agenda includes discrediting Hartmann. I think that largely from reading this thread. If it doesn't have that agenda, then this thread is NOT a good advertisement for the book. The agenda may or may not be accurate but, if not, it sure seems that way to me.

So, just to be clear:

I very strongly disagree that a victory means a corresponding loss report must have been generated.
I very strongly disagree that all such reports are available today.
I do NOT believe all reports from the original claiming unit survived the war.
I do not believe Hartmann was a liar or that a significantly larger portion of his victories were overclaims than for other top pilots.

And, once again, I am outta' this thread, this time for good except to check the thread development.

None of this reflects personally on YOU. You are entitled to your opinion, for sure.

GregP said:

Chen10, you state pretty clearly that since Hartmann's victories fall into your set of doubtful claims, that he was a chronic overclaimer. That means liar when the overclaims are frequent. You didn't use those words, but that's what you said.

You also think that way largely because there is no reported loss on the other side, despite being told of numerous ways such a thing can happen without a reported loss.

You rather obviously think that wartime records were exceedingly accurate and complete.

So, you apparently want to say Hartmann is a liar, that he isn't a liar and, now, that it is all a misunderstanding.

It isn't a misunderstanding. You are calling Hartmann a liar, plain and simple, because his victories don't all fit your pet theory, so SOMETHING must be wrong. You are basing this on reports that you believe tell the complete story of the entire air war in the area and a book that trashes Hartmann.

Some believe you. A lot of us disagree.

I think the book that started all this has an agenda, and that agenda includes discrediting Hartmann. I think that largely from reading this thread. If it doesn't have that agenda, then this thread is NOT a good advertisement for the book. The agenda may or may not be accurate but, if not, it sure seems that way to me.

So, just to be clear:

I very strongly disagree that a victory means a corresponding loss report must have been generated.
I very strongly disagree that all such reports are available today.
I do NOT believe all reports from the original claiming unit survived the war.
I do not believe Hartmann was a liar or that a significantly larger portion of his victories were overclaims than for other top pilots.

And, once again, I am outta' this thread, this time for good except to check the thread development.

None of this reflects personally on YOU. You are entitled to your opinion, for sure.

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I didn't trash Hartmann, I simply said he had overclaims.

Overclaiming isn't lying.

Loads of overclaims isn't lying.

You're putting words in my mouth.

I already explained how you can tell if Soviet reports are missing. They will list a number of actions or tasks carried out and sure enough there will always be a detailed description of the task that was carried out. If a task report was missing you would see it missing from the list since there would be less reports than what there should be. If there are 5 tasks but only 4 task reports, then obviously 1 is missing. I have never had a task report go missing personally, and I look at a lot.

And I also acknowledge that reports aren't 100% perfect just that they are close enough.

Oh and loads of people agree with me. In fact many ww2 aviation historians do. Well I agree with them since they did it before me.

Here are some skilled Soviet pilots Hartmann shot down with the victims being Hero of The Soviet Union, Aces, or both

Hartmann's 112th victory

No. 112, P-39 on 29.9.43/0855 over Zaporozhe (PQ 58682) @ 4000m: Probably Maj. Vladimir Grigorievich Semenishin HSU, 2 x OL, ORB and OPW 1st Class of 104 GIAP KIA

Hartmann's 172nd victory

No.172:
17.1.44/1406
La-5 ("LaGG")
15km NW of Kirovograd (PQ 29341) @ 4000m
No.3676 of 240 IAP. Lt. Boris Zhigulenkov forcelanded slightly WIA

Boris Zhigulenkov was a famous Soviet ace with 20 victories and while he survived being shot down by Hartmann, he was eventually killed on 16 November 1944 when he was shot down by Heinz Ewald

Hartmann's 195, 196, 197, 198, 199

No. 195-199, P-39s on 26.2.44: 438 IAP. Three P-39s lost from a formation of four: Starshiy Leytenant Rybakov baled out safely, Starshiy Leytenant Nikolay Arsenovich Zinchenko (HSU) KIA and Leytenant Mamin also baled out. Ml.Lt. Demchenko's P-39 was slightly damaged and Ml.Lt. Motuzko's was sent to PARM for major repairs after bellylanding 12km S of Kirovograd)

GregP said:

I very strongly disagree that a victory means a corresponding loss report must have been generated.

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This is wrong. A loss would have been documented.

GregP said:

I very strongly disagree that all such reports are available today.
I do NOT believe all reports from the original claiming unit survived the war.

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Not every single one survived but there is always a trace of the loss somewhere

GregP said:

I do not believe Hartmann was a liar or that a significantly larger portion of his victories were overclaims than for other top pilots.

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I don't think Hartmann was a liar either. And yes he did overclaim more than average. Overclaiming more than average isn't lying.