Some comments on the above, just for the factuality's sake.
Holtzeuge offered me a copy of these papers back in 2006 on his own initiative; although given to what lenghts he has gone into praising my humble person it was quite clear that he was only interested in getting his hand on some primary material from my collection.
In email in August 2006 in an email, he wrote:
'Thanks for the info you posted on your site. Some new good info there. Later in August or in September I will return to the archives and continue documenting what's there. For your info: last time I was there before summer I happened across some German docs with graphs on Me 109 turn radiuses and turn times which should interest you
A week later he wrote:
About the 109 turn data: I did send you one part but there is more in another teilbericht which contains graphs with turn performance for different flap settings amonst other things which I think, knowing your special interest in the 109, will interst you
Not very reluctant, was he? As an extra, he added a couple of nasty and rather transparently motivated comments
'concerning the spitfireperformance.com crowd, wannabees and hang-arounds' to win my favours and perhaps receive some more material this way.
Anyway, in exchange of a couple digital camera copies of these papers, Holtzeuge received a number of documentation he requested and was interested in. It would seem a fair deal to me, tit for tat, and everybody is happy.
Regarding Holtzeuge's actual motives: parts of this report was up on site for a long time, he had regularly visited the site which is documented by records of his IP address. He has made no complaints at all.
His attitude suddenly took a 180 degree turn shortly after he got into a debate with me and Crumpp on another forum about half a year ago. Ever since he seems to hold a blood feud against Crumpp, whom he attacks at every possible opportunity, and all the sudden he became concerned about 'his' report, that he merely
copied without consent of the said archive, and
traded with me
in exchange of other reports.
It should be noted that everybody so far who has donated material or helped in other way (such as translation etc.) to the site has been properly credited for it; Holtzeuge was also offered recognition for his help, but since this is obviously just a personal issue for him, he declined that recognition, and demanded the removal of his 'copyrighted' material.
Now unfortunately a legal position is quite clear about these copies (and uniform in EU countries via international agreements), the copyright may go to the archives from where Holtzeuge copied (presumably w/o consent given the content of his emails) these papers. Most of these archives expressively forbid copying their collection without their consent, but enable their 'fair use', ie. for non-profit, educational purposes.
I also contacted several researchers to ask for their opinion of the issue. Their position was uniform and clear as well, that Holtzauge can claim no from of copyright for these papers, one even suggested that I should brand these papers as 'via mr. a$$hole' - an idea definitely worthy of consideration!
Obviously, you won't gain copyright of copyrighted material by simply reproducing it by various means, just the same you won't gain copyright of say, a Harry Potter book if you take a couple of digishots at one in a library when the librarian is not around.. In particular in case of WW2 (or more precisly: 1933-1945) German state docs, all rights of the original copyright owners (ie. Messerschmitt AG itself etc.) were declared void in post-war trials.
Now, to make my position of regarding the document is that it was offered by Holtzeuge himself, and he was fairly compensated for his troubles by exchanging documentation; he was also offered recognition of his efforts on the site, which he declined and demanded to remove 'his copyrighted material' - when he was asked for evidence of his copyright, he did not/could not provide any.
There is nothing more to the issue as far as I go, as Mr.
Holtzeuge is not the holder of the copyright, nor is a representative of the copyright holder (who would probably be very interested to hear of Mr. Holtzeuge's claims of copyright and his covert copy ops in his achieves without consent), therefore he has no position to make demands about it; granting those demands would violate the rights of the actual copyright holder, the sole entity who's entitled to do so; naturally this won't happen, especially given his deplorable motives and tactics.
That Holtzeuge is a copyrighy fraud who poses as a 'researcher' is his own business that he need to be resolve with the actual copyright holder, and perhaps, Swedish criminal code.