Hi Junkers,
>and even our 88 that has been in a timecapsule for 64 years are "wrong" acording to some "experts"..
A recovered aircraft wreck is hard evidence and can be used to revise concepts stemming from other sources for hard evidence (and if it were only "some 'experts'", their evidence might not have been that hard to begin with).
Oral tradition 60 years after the fact is not hard evidence, and that Hesekiel claims "all" Luftwaffe people called the P-38 "Gabelschwanzteufel" name while Erich claims "all" of them called them "Lightning" shows the problem with oral tradition (even considering that both "all" sets are not identical).
The "Gabelschwanzteufel" story is fishy for a lot of reasons: It first appears in print in English publications, it never comes up in contemporary German publications, it appears completely unknown to a large number of Luftwaffe people, it fits exactly the scheme of "let's make up awesome names for our equipment and ascribe them to the enemy to show everyone how terrifying our weapons are", and it fits very badly in the human psychology scheme of using harmless terms to describe unpleasant things.
Online Etymology Dictionary
>>Languages usually don't borrow words from abroad for central life experiences, but "die" words are an exception, since they are often hidden or changed euphemistically out of superstitious dread<<
Just look at the Il-2 that certainly threatened the lives of a lot more Germans than the P-38 - it was not called "Landser's Cruel Death", but "concrete bomber". That's the way human minds work. "Gabelschwanzteufel" is clearly the product of an Allied propaganda worker - even if it had been invented in Germany, it did not have the qualities to establish itself as a popular nickname. And if it ever had established itself, the same principle of substitution - along with verbal economy - would quickly have caused the awe-inspiring "Gabelschwanzteufel" to mutate into the harmless "Gabi" in everyday use. That there is no record of this happening even in those sources that propagate the "Gabelschwanzteufel" is another hint that the story is not just a little fishy.
Not to mention that the bloody tail doesn't actually fork - "Gabelschwanz" is in fact well-established terminology for the tails of swallows and the red kite ("Rotmilan" in German, but commonly called "Gabelweihe" = 'fork harrier'). This is further evidence that this name was made up by someone not entirely familiar with the German language who had heard the term "Gabelschwanz", but lacked the context and mis-applied it.
All the hints I see point towards "Gabelschwanzteufel" being a Allied-invented myth, and "my uncle said so" has no merit at all because retro-projection of something one has read or heard second-hand after the fact into something genuinely perceived as authentic memory is a well-known effect in oral tradition.
If someone would want to prove the "Gabelschwanzteufel" myth to be fact, the way to do it would be to read the Third Reich "Sicherheitsdienst" (SD) reports from informers among the populace. They carefully kept track of whatever they heard, and have for example preserved many anti-Nazi jokes for posterity. Reporting a "defeatist" appelation like "Gabelschwanzteufel" would have been right in their line of work! Howver, given all the above, it's probably not worth the effort as the odds that it's an Allied invention are pretty close to certainty.
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)