Erich Hartmann - how did his comrades regard him?

Some of the near daily fights by hartmann have him allegedly shooting down 9 or 10 aircraft in a single sortie. It would be easy to count the same aircraft twice in those circumstances, or even to lose count. Such actions could only be described as hectic.


I am not trying to take anything away from the man. in my opinion he is probably the greatest fighter pilots of all time. Silly to argue otherwise really. And whilst i am not a great student of his career, the bits and pieces I do know suggest it would be very easy to get the tally wrong....

parsifal said:

Some of the near daily fights by hartmann have him allegedly shooting down 9 or 10 aircraft in a single sortie. It would be easy to count the same aircraft twice in those circumstances, or even to lose count. Such actions could only be described as hectic.

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thats not a stretch to believe. Bartels shot down 4 P-38's in less then two minutes just outside of Kalamki Greece. those weren't counted twice, three times whatever. Plus confirmed by both sides.

So Hartmann's 10 P-39 claims in a day isn't that unbelievable. those were fairly spaced apart too.

be careful with what you state. we are now talking the perfect bounce with P-39's nearly lined up how obvious would that be. are we talking one mission or multiple sorties, out of fuel, refueling and back in the air ................ some of the German high ranked aces claims are most unbelievable. could it be error on the administration's point of JG 52 writing down the claims base for the JG KTB ? anything is possible.

I'm always careful... anyways this was on 26.2.1944, three sorties, between 09:08 14:50. and yep.. anything is possible I suspose.

speaking of Bartels, why is it that I cannot find a pic of his Bf109G-10 'Yellow 13'?!?!?

because there aren't any pics of yellow 10. and very few pics of 15th staffel anyway.

I would like to ask a simple question. All these modern reserchers,with acces to the german pilots ,, who accept Stalin archives, why did not asked directly the pilots thems selfs about their claimings?
Barckhorn was killed in 1980, Hartmann deid 1993, Rall 2010 and was very very accesible to reserchers, Walter Scuck as far as i kknow is still alive and also very accesible.Galland in 1997 and very popular among anglosaxons. Even Rudorrfer i think is alive and a main suspect of overclaiming (but not wiiling to talk about the war)
Why did not ask directly? Since you consider them wildly overclaiming and insult their name you should at least ask their point of view. And there is insult. If a person claims 352 and someone says that in reallity was 50-70 then we dont have a case of human mistake but clear deception.
And in Hartmanns question we would talk for massive deception. His most succesful day 25/08/1944, victories 290-301 in 2 missions.He flew in staffel strength and the entire unit was monitoring throuh radio the missions and prepering the celebrations. All these people were co responsible of deception ?
Hartmann was fan of hit and run tactics and carafully choosing its attacks.. But by the summer 1944 his skills included deflection shooting that made multiple kills possible.
About Mareseille. In books i poses there is a statement of Galland that calls Marseille " the uniqe virtuoso of the fighter pilots" . Is that statement acceptet today that took place? Anyone who met Galland has spoken about that?
About soviet historians. These people do not accept that rudel sunk Marat . Because eventually the soviets manage to raise the stern and make the rear turret operational . But it is true with Rudels tank claims that nobody was close to him from his comrades ,unlike Hartmann who many were close and at least Graf,Nowotny,Rall, and Barckhorn could have finished with higher scores if not retired or injured. But it is also very true that he flew 2517 missions, his unit was very effective and the army units were requiring its presence everywere . The man flew Ju87G1 in 1945!!! In the presence of superfighters LA7 and P51 .And lost a leg in one. And he flew again. ( Can not be leis, i have photos him climbing out of cocpit with his cut leg) Why would he do that if he was not getting results?

Jim

they have been interviewed, in part too much has been lost in 1945 with destruction of vital records LW and otherwise near Berlin. you believe in everything you read without asking yourself now wait a minute what about the other sides records ? to be quite truthful it is only the last 15 years we have such info available to us, much was hidden or like I said lost. Rüdel was the TR propaganda child and obviously held still in huge esteem by all that look at his record even if it has been tainted, like the sinking of the Murat of which it wasn't, it was heavily damaged. don;t you think there could be possible errors to give a man claiming over 500 Soviet tanks to his credit and the next Soviet tank killer barely reaches 200 kills ? face it I took pride back in the 1960's meeting some of these pilots and thought they were the greatest guys on earth.

you have to cross check all archiv's not stick to just one side of the story in which 99% of the LW histories are based upon.
As I said this is based on facts now. It can no longer be denied. you can get all the supposed mythical facts about ground to air radio intercepts and hurrahs by staffeln members who were not even close to Hartmann or other contenders of LW pilots in the air on the Ost front and West front.

so we agree to disagree. on another hand the Western front Nachtjagd claims are some of the worst recorded.

there will be more de-bunking of claims as more info's come out of hidding of private sources and that is where all of this materials(s) are coming from as of late. not just LW but Soviet, and all the Allies, can I say JG 301 and the US forces intercepting their fighters . . . .

lets forget the record whatever it is, Bills posting # 15 says it probably best ............

Hello Ratsel
for Bartels' Yellow 13 see: FalkeEins - the Luftwaffe blog: Bf109G-6 Heinrich Bartels IV./JG 27 (2) sorry you asked his G-10, no photos on that and the wreck was so smashed when found in was that 1968 near Bonn, that not much could deduce from it on camo and on markings. More exact info here : http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=3318

On Hartmann
my view is close to that of Nikita Egorov, see his message #70 at the bottom of the page here: Erich Hartmann - several questions - Page 7 - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

Juha

Juha that is red 13 on Neils fine blog not yellow 10 that he is looking for ...............the crate in which he was in combat with P-47's KIA with them in December of 44.

I said directly to Jim and for that matter others on the forum cross-checking is vital for truth

Bartels' Bf 109G-10 WNr.13 0359 "Yellow 13" is what I was looking for.. but thanks.

the problem with Hartmann's debunkers is that they can never show the proof. and when they do, its weak. I remember all the stories of "yah.. he shot down 352 a/c, but they were all cargo planes and/or obsolete a/c". then they found out that only a tiny % were obsolete, and most were fairly good/modernfighters.. then the debunking begins.

I alluded to this in another thread. There were pilots with JG 27 who we know for sure made fraudulent,not optimistic or mistaken claims. Fraudulent claims in a dishonest effort to up their tally.They were busted at the time but more or less got away with it,though they were not allowed to fly together again. I believe these men to be the exception rather than the rule though they surely weren't the only ones. Some of these men survived the war. Post war researchers never seem to have really challenged them about this,at least not in anything I've seen or read. There was a tendency to defer to these old warriors and not ask the really tough questions. Of course they could just have chosen not to answer honestly,just as they did at the time.

Neither Hartmann's detractors nor his supporters can prove how many aircraft he shot down. I don't know how many and don't pretend that I do. It was a lot by any tally.
I'll wager that no post war interviewer ever asked him tough and searching questions about his claims.

Cheers
Steve

stand corrected I said 10 it should be 13 + ~. no pics just mythical profiles

I go back to say this : which 15th AF Mustang grp did JG 52 engage and shot down ? this is not de-bunking this is trying to find the truth of the matter. the aces have been interviewed but as Steve said hardly a one questions the validity of their claims. Sheeeeeesh they are nearly all dead isn't it time to set the records straight if it is at all possible, but it may be no-one really cares anymore.

Erich said:

stand corrected I said 10 it should be 13 + ~. no pics just mythical profiles
.

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' mythical '... too funny lol. can't be as bad as the one I've seen of Mendl's... yikes!

stona said:

Neither Hartmann's detractors nor his supporters can prove how many aircraft he shot down. Cheers
Steve

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very true. But in the few interviews I've read, Erich seems to remember his very first kill, his last kill, and everything in between. He says 352 as we all know. safe to say anywhere between 176 352.

Hello Ratsel
on the contrary, several Russians have looked on the matter plus some others, all seem to agree that while Barkhorn's, Rall's, Lipfert's etc claims usually seem to be verifiable when checked against Soviet docus, there are problems with many of Hartmann's claims, also of Nowotny's 10 first claims was that that only one can be verified from Soviet docus.

Now IIRC Pokryshkin claimed in one interview that he shot down almost 100 planes, but because he made many lonely patrols, for ex over Black Sea hunting supply planes for Sevastopol in 44, he had not withnesses of many of his kills, so he would not got them accepted, so he didn't even bother report them. Do you believe him?

Juha

Erich said:

Jim

they have been interviewed, in part too much has been lost in 1945 with destruction of vital records LW and otherwise near Berlin. you believe in everything you read without asking yourself now wait a minute what about the other sides records ? to be quite truthful it is only the last 15 years we have such info available to us, much was hidden or like I said lost. Rüdel was the TR propaganda child and obviously held still in huge esteem by all that look at his record even if it has been tainted, like the sinking of the Murat of which it wasn't, it was heavily damaged. don;t you think there could be possible errors to give a man claiming over 500 Soviet tanks to his credit and the next Soviet tank killer barely reaches 200 kills ? face it I took pride back in the 1960's meeting some of these pilots and thought they were the greatest guys on earth.

you have to cross check all archiv's not stick to just one side of the story in which 99% of the LW histories are based upon.
As I said this is based on facts now. It can no longer be denied. you can get all the supposed mythical facts about ground to air radio intercepts and hurrahs by staffeln members who were not even close to Hartmann or other contenders of LW pilots in the air on the Ost front and West front.

so we agree to disagree. on another hand the Western front Nachtjagd claims are some of the worst recorded.

there will be more de-bunking of claims as more info's come out of hidding of private sources and that is where all of this materials(s) are coming from as of late. not just LW but Soviet, and all the Allies, can I say JG 301 and the US forces intercepting their fighters . . . .

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Mr Erich
I mean directly ask them about overclaiming.In no interviews have ever read such question. Now only Schuck is available for such a question.and also accused of overclaiming.
I would like to tell me clearly the opinion that you have today about Erich Hartmann considering his claims and the results of recent reserch.
Because we cant call someone decent and speak highly if he has overclaimed by 50%or 100% . I understand the human mistake but cannot consider such differencies as such. If he was a bad person must be known to everyone. Please speak openly. I know its not always black or white but in this case either he was decent or leier
Finaly , i have asked you again, could you report your books? I am interested in them consindering your knowledge.
PS Yes i believe that Rudel was somewhat optimistic in his tank kills but i SEE him in photos 2 monthes after loosing his leg again in cocpit! In our days we dont fly if we have cattarh!

Juha said:

Hello Ratsel
on the contrary, several Russians have looked on the matter plus some others, all seem to agree that while Barkhorn's, Rall's, Lipfert's etc claims usually seem to be verifiable when checked against Soviet docus, there are problems with many of Hartmann's claims, also of Nowotny's 10 first claims was that that only one can be verified from Soviet docus.

Now IIRC Pokryshkin claimed in one interview that he shot down almost 100 planes, but because he made many lonely patrols, for ex over Black Sea hunting supply planes for Sevastopol in 44, he had not withnesses of many of his kills, so he would not got them accepted, so he didn't even bother report them. Do you believe him?

Juha

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well if a 100 planes disappeared over the black sea, then something happened to them. and should be on record somewhere.

as spoke by Erich Hartmann about kills:

"When a pilot shot down a plane he would call out over the radio, "Horrido." At this point pilots or ground crew in the area would look about and see if they saw the event. Most often on the eastern front, there were many on hand to see the victim smash into the ground, and thereby make the kill "official."
A few other things deserve to be mentioned here too...
Shared kills were not individually counted by the pilots involved, but they did count toward the squadron's score as a whole. You won't see a score of 50.5, for example, for a German Ace.
And, points were awarded depending on the number of engines a plane had that was destroyed. 1 point for a single engine, 2 for a twin, 4 for a four-engined bomber and so on. These points were added up and when a pilot achieved a certain number of points he was awarded a medal (the points required for a given medal was much higher on the eastern front than it was on the western front).
These points are in no way related to a pilot's total score of victories. Bringing down a 4-engined bomber may have gotten a pilot 4 points, but it only got him 1 victory.
So make no mistake, my (Erich Hartmann's) score of 352 does not refer to engines but 352 individual planes I shot down."


heres another little tibit spoken by Erich Hartmann:

" No room for Nazi's "

"Hrabak made it a point to explain to the new young pilots that if they thought they were fighting for National Socialism and the Fuhrer they needed to transfer to the Waffen SS or something"

Hello Ratsel
I made a simple question, if Pokryshkin said that he shot down over 100 enemy a/c, I checked the number, do you believe him because he said so? You and a few others have wrote that you believe that Hartmann shot down 352 a/c because he said so, so how about Pokryshkin? On the man see for ex Alexander Pokryshkin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and notice, Russians have tried to check what was his real score, so the complains that people tried to check only / doubt only, LW aces' scores is simply untrue.

Juha

I wouldn't believe Pokryshkin.

Why wouldnt you believe Pokryshkin, but beleive hartmann. This might be interesting......