Overclaiming

Where did I ever say that the German army had higher moral standards than any other army? You're making stuff up m kenny.

You posted part of a report shown in one of Hahn's books, which shows reported losses for both sides contra actual losses. It is from 43 not 44, I mistyped, but it doesn't matter, the reason are the same. And it is not the only one of such reports.

 

A late war example of massive overclaiming:


.Leutnant Friederich Anding-18 kills
Friederich received his KC for the destruction of 6 tanks and 5 armored vehicles (so says his Verleihungsvorschlag zum Ritterkreuz), as adjutant of the Pz.Jg.Abt. Großdeutschland (commander of the battalion was Maj. Walle) on 8 May 1945. This action took place in northern Germany (more specifically in Stadensen) on 14-15 April. The battalion was attacked by a large number of enemy tanks and armored vehicles. Major Walle (9 destroyed tanks), Leutnant Anding and Obergefreiter Stützle (7 destroyed tanks) received KCs for their actions"



Now here's what Andreas Düfel (the webmaster of das-ritterkreuz website, he also lives near the town Stadensen, where this action took place and talked to several witnesses) says about this particular incident:

'The town was almost completly destroyed by the tank battle. A documentiation about this fightings still exist. It's interested that the town residents doubt whether there were really18-22 British tanks destroyed. The wrecks were predominantly armored vehicles (not tanks) and quite a few of them were also German. War confusions of the last days of the war could have quite led to a false evaluation of the actually destroyed tanks..'

The British version:

This is the story from the history of 6th Guards Tank Brigade from 1948:

"the tank crews...soon discovered that the village was already swarming with German SPs and half-tracks manned by Panzer Grenadiers... the Germans had managed to hoodwink the men of the outpost company into thinking that they were British armour and had completely overrun them." It appears that the Coldstream tanks, guns, transport etc were crammed nose to tail in the village. After the fierce battle, 12 out of 13 German SPs were knocked out and 7 half-tracks were deserted. At least 150 German dead and 150 prisoners taken. The Coldstreams lost 2 tanks, one petrol three tonner, 2 M10s; the Glasgow highlanders lost most of their carriers, their command vehicle and practically all their transport with 30 dead and 30 missing. The platoon of sappers suffered heavily and their transport was wiped out."


The tank losses were 2 Churchills and 2 M10 SP's but claims were made and accepted for 22 tanks and KC's awarded!

 

Kruska and other distinguished Rouges....

Actually, when you boil it down, I suppose it depend, really, on who you believe.

The incident with the "Ark Royal" was a clear cut case of confusion. An attack that missed, a repositioning for another look, the "Ark" dissappearing from view into a rain-squall, relative to the pilot she was just "not there". Goebbels certainly believed what he wanted to, an declared her "sunk"....confusion, not really anyone's fault.

As to Hartmann and co, again I make the call that there are people who obviously believe most of these claims to be utter lies. Considering the fact that all these people did was tied up in ww2, thats a fairly large claim, that EVERY pilot was an out-and-out lier in the mold of Goebbels.

My truoble with belief of Russian accounts is the very fact that a significant number of Russians really are pulling the wool over the eyes of the world. In true Orwellian style, they simply ignore the pieces of the puzzle that don't fit into the straightjacket of the "Heroic Motherland". The thought that Soviet pilots might have been markedly inferior as a general group is embarrassing to them. They have enough explaining to do about their own conduct, and have lied about the truth of their own conduct so often before that even 'new' evidence should, and is, treated by the historical fraternity as 'suspect'.

Germany lost their tussle with the Soviets, and the fact that so many Soviet lives were expended is deeply shameful to the present regime. I mean, it's the same set of leaders in a differing guise, as witnessed by their recent attempt to put posters up of Josef Stalin, to lionize that bastard as a "War Hero". It all smacks of the same politically correct bull we've been hearing from them ever since the guns ceased to speak and the war of words took over in the GPW.

You claim not to trust the likes of German fighter pilots as a group. Fine.

I don't trust the likes of modern day Russians seeking to glorify a regime that is still in existence today, perpetrating the same Orwellian 'tweaking' of the story. It's the same ol' same ol' from a regime that would have us believe that their conduct was all right and proper, perfectly legal and moral etc, etc, etc.

I don't trust Russian 'historians' as far as I can kick them. To busy glorifying their precious Soviet past, than trying to tell the truth.

And really, thats all we want from them...the truth, not just some politically correct garbage. I'll continue to believe German veterans over those liars any day of the week.

Theres a new tension arising in East/West relations, and it's mostly due to the fact that Russia still wants to be the superpower. They can stick their new socialism firmly up their arse.....it's not going to work on this poster here.

 

Problems with inflated Luftwaffe claims for ground kills at Kursk

Tank Busting Aircraft at Kursk - The Dupuy Institute Forum


Other problems:
Walter Krupinski's 11 Kills of 5 July - The Dupuy Institute Forum

 

I will just address a couple of your points that's widely off mark.

This ignorance about the differences of the military penal codes and practices of the belligerents is quite frankly stupefying.

Are you quite sure you read what I wrote?

I am not doubting some German pilots accounts by their degree of removal from the events. I am questing the validity of German official reports when Kruska's subjects reported widespread fraud in the process. And I don't see why I need Kruska to authenticate his interviews and conversations by printing them on a page of paper... of course, if you are inclined to challenge the authenticity of his unprinted materials, then you should take it up to him.

One cannot expect people not to perjure when their testimony is potentially self-incriminating. Asking ace pilots to authenticate the claims attributed to them is like asking one's gf if she's been cheating--what's the point?

People put their careers before their organization's true interest all the time. And when one can be sacked (or worse!) by telling the truth, I doubt any officer with a reasonable doze of self-preservation instinct would be keen to break the bad news to the chain of command which leads to der Führer...

It didn't happen?

No level of sophistication is needed. All that is required is for an officer to come up with a number and everyone else to sign it. This is particularly easy when Germany was losing ground to the extend that intelligence officers couldn't count the enemy dead, tanks knocked out or aircrafts shot down. And when there was no incentive to do so. Go read the war diaries of German Security Divisions on how many "partisans" and "bandits" were killed in their sweeps and how much casualties they took and you would understand what I mean.

 

I won't call them liars, not really. Imagine one SS Panzermann, after a day of close calls, knocked out some tanks and the enemy finally retreated. In his debriefing, his commander give him a solid pat in the back and say: "Good work Captain! So, I have this piece of paper which says you destroyed a company of enemy tanks... would you sign it?" What do you think he'd do, say no?

Hartmann, Barkmann and Witmann were probably all supremely skilled warriors. I just don't think their achievements were what the propaganda machine perpetuated.

That argument cut both ways. The situation you described was not very different from Nazi Germany in its final agonies. If you read the accounts of German civilians and soldiers, especially the young people, many thought they would win. Even some of those who wish Hitler would be gone and the War would end was astounded that it really did happen. On the other hand, Russian veterans, at least in their post war interviews, often expressed a profound professional respect for their adversaries even if they hated the Germans.

 

No, I'm fully aware of those differences.
It's just the fact that people bring this up as a killer argument and convenient excuse to discredit all official reports and only accept things supporting their POV, that is objectionable. It's basically a worthless argument, because, on its own, it proves or disproves nothing. Imagine that, even the worst Nazi could have actually spoken the truth.

I'm quite sure, thank you. If you use scientific terminology you have to use it correctly. Period.
The reliability or trustworthiness of a source has normally no impact upon its classification. Maybe you just should have read the links and shouldn't have included this in your list of points that are "widely off mark".
If an official compilation of kills can be already a tertiary source (because it was obviously written by a lying officer), what are the books/documents using such sources then?

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with questioning official reports. Therefor we use cross-referencing and comparisons. It becomes problematic if you generalize too much on such a little base. Nothing else did I question in my reply, where you saw serious "methodological flaws" in using official documents, simply because they were written by Germans under a totalitarian regime and Kruska's statement. Let's go ahead and dismiss all official documents written by the Soviets and Germans during the relevant time-frame. How much do you think is left then?

Read. Understand. Write. I never questioned the authenticity (Sentences like "I fully believe him." tend to imply that, I thought.). But his statements are of little scientific worth in their current form, because they can't be verified in any way or form. And any semi-historian who would bring something like that in a scientific publication as an argument, wouldn't be worth a penny. You on the other hand put it above all other things presented here.

So all interviews are worthless? Interesting. Or only German ones? Fact is that interviews are rarely presented as truth or proof but almost always just presenting the POV and experiences of the people involved. For facts, we almost always use documents. The human brain isn't "constructed" for objectively saving information. There is always context of previous and later experiences, sometimes more sometimes less.
Additionally, Kruska's father isn't offering something self-incriminating either but he incriminates others.

While this may be true, it still doesn't free you from the burden of proof in certain instances. Blanket dismissal is false in any way.
As a little side-note. Hitler was a rather soft dictator in respect of his control and knowledge over his minions and subordinates. He was nowhere near the same level as someone like Stalin in this regard. We have many instances where high ranking individuals from the economy, the military and the SS were simply ignoring or disobeying his orders.

Context. No, not every second pilot of the Luftwaffe or VVS got one kill for free.

No a certain level of sophistication would have been required for the time from 39 - early 44. That's way the conformation system was so rigid. The more people you have to involve to cheat, the higher the risk. You circumvent the issue by thinking that the higher echelons had interest in artificially boosting their claims and falsifying numbers, whereas I think that they were really interested in numbers as accurate as possible.
And nobody should take claims, especially from the time after the confirmation system largely collapsed, at face value anyway.

We know how badly off the mark claim figures can be for all the participants for so many reasons. We don't have to assume fraud anytime the numbers don't match.

 

You're mingling the troops. Early USARVN forces were largely "lifers" and those who enlisted voluntarily. In your term, 'professional'. From '68 on, many units were draftee heavy. There you found poor discipline, drug use, fraggings, faked patrols, refusal to go on patrol and even refusal to fight. The body count BS went on in all units for various reasons. One problem that caused the skewing was VC removal of their dead and wounded. The lifers and 'professionals' would see to it every blood trail was followed until a body was found. The 'professional' would ease up on that after losing x troops to booby traps, ambushes, or Comedian & Dr. Manhattan friendly fire.

Commanders in the field soon came up with a way to minimize casualties yet make their bosses in Saigon happy. Blood trails would be a KIA if it was "solid" and WIA if droplets; X body parts= KIA; Y body parts= WIA. I could get really morbid and list the body part ratios and how "chunks" were factored, but it's Sunday.

I had the pleasure to serve with several SF Vietnam vets before they retired. I got to compare and contrast their reasons for why they inflated body counts with those of a few draftees. Amazingly, they opted for a career in the National Guard or Reserves after serving in 'Nam. One piece of merde [pardon my French] unit clerk had been a supply clerk. He got into the black market and sold/traded over $100,000.00 worth of his unit's materiale. He was discovered when medics reported problems with the morphine efficacy. The SOB replaced it with normal saline and a dash of ethanol [IIRC]. Maybe it was wood alcohol. He was allowed into the Reserves to work off his debt because no weapons were involved. He'd brag occasionally about his misdeeds and wouldn't shy away from discussing them. He felt, as a draftee, he had a right to rebel. I told him I had a right to laugh at a 43 year-old PFC.

 

Hello Volga Boatman,

Both the Soviet and Nazis were a totalitarian system - so I would tend to believe none of them on all accounts.

The point I was trying to make was towards the "professional method of confirming kills". Please keep in mind that it wasn't Goebbels who initially claimed the Ark Royal as being sunk, but AFAIK the Captain of the U-boot.

If as you say the AR dissapeared from view in a rain-squall - or an aircraft-or a tank, then the method of reporting or confirming a kill wouldn't be really professional but based more on an assumtion.

If utter lies or due to confusion, I will leave that up to you or others to decide for their own part. My part was on accounts that I received from my father and some of his pilot comrades. - I certainly am not pointing fingers at every single killer/scorer be it an allied or axis person. However I am critisising the version which was initially forwarded as the German scoring system being professionaly solid, and unthinkable to be faked.

As for Hartmann, I would say that the most difficult person to track down on his scores would be him. One being his lost flightbook, missing data from the official Luftwaffe records. No painstaking counterchecking by using Russian records.
Then there would be the controversal? amazing speed or action towards confirming his kills. On the other hand it took an average of 6-12 month to get an official reconformation of claims by the Luftwaffe. Imagine the total chaos in Germany in the last 6 month.
However the last 6-12 month of his claims were allready all confirmed by the day of his capture/surrender. This again is certainly due to his popularity or rather propaganda value to the Nazis.

And once the party was involved, being it the Nazis or Soviets - I would automatically place my doubts.

Probably you are right on this one - and for my part it would apply just as well to anything that is under the umbrella or signature of the Nazis.

As for Western publishers or authors - writing a book about a killer/scorer and highlighting his accounts on behalf of action/satisfaction is certainly a far better sales pusher than to publish a book in regards to dissmanteling killer/scorers.

A book titeled "Tiger the ultimate killer machine" certainly sells better then "Tiger an unreliable, costly and fuel eating machine" - right?

Regards
Kruska

 

Both are Press accounts, they have nothing to do with the number of kills listed in actual German military records which undoubtedly will give an accurate picture if available. The Press often heavily inflated the totals of several panzer aces for propoganda purposes, listing them as heros back home. Wittmanns total at the battle of Villers Bocage was heavily inflated by the press for example. The military had nothing to do with this however, their figures were accurate and also had to be for intelligence reasons. And it was the exact same with the Allies.

 

Allow me to refresh your memory. This is what you said one post earlier:

Now answer the following questions:

Did Wehrmacht apply the capital punishment to soldiers for desertion, self-mutilation, and cowardice? How often were those penalties enforced?
Were Wehrmacht officers empowered to shoot soldiers on the spot without trial for disobedience and other offenses?
Did the Nazi government hold the German soldier's family responsible for his actions?

How many American or British soldiers in total were documented to have been executed for cowardice during WWII?
Was Allied officers similarly empowered?
Was collective punishment applied to the family members of disgraced soldiers?

How many German soldiers did Ferdinand Schörner executed for cowardice and pessimism?

 

Would the reason they perhaps give a more accurate total be that they discounted the claim totals by 50%?
Does that not give you a clue as to how good the claim confirmation system was?
Note that though a claim for 1,000 kills from Tiger Abteilung X would be reduced to 500 individual 'Aces' never reduced their totals.

Wrong. The totals (that you admit to be inflated) are taken from the award citations.
Are you now saying the KC awards citations contain deliberate overclaiming and thus have no merit?

 

So, you completely ignore the post (#67), where I explained myself a little better and instead quote the same post twice?

As I said I'm fully aware of those differences. But the history of the Third Reich is a history of continuous escalation. What holds true for 33-39 doesn't for 44/45 and vice versa. It is completely ridiculous to take a situation out of March 45 and simply project it to earlier times. Once again, you show blanket generalization and obvious ignorance of this aspect.

Apart from that, you brought this matter up and now cling to it, presumably in lack of a better argument.

And this is relevant how? Oh right, you are aiming for some cheap points by populisticly pointing out the obvious (in rhetoric questions, awesome) and simultaneously implying I'm ignorant of these facts. I'm not in the slightest.
You can play the morally outraged all day long, it won't distract me (indeed your whole post seems to be a distraction).

If you choose to reply to me please reply to this post and preferably #67, otherwise I think I made my point and we should leave it at that.

How did the confirmation system of the Heer compare to that of the Luftwaffe?

Another aspect is the different nature of the battlefields. The chart you posted explained why the reduction was made. Because of double claims and repairable tanks. Perfectly understandable. You shot, you hit, you claim (I don't know how someone like Rudel should have been able to verify if the tank was completely destroyed.). Even if many guns were firing at the same target. And when Germany went on the defense everywhere in the latter half of the war it became increasingly difficult to verify if the tank was repairable or not, regardless of the level of sophistication of the confirmation system.

In the air, the situation is somewhat reversed. First, being on the defense means that the contested air space is most likely above your ground (over the Reich for example), making it easier to count downed planes.
Second, the situation that several different planes shot at one and the same target when it goes down, is in the case of Germany not as likely as for some other participants (take the B-17 crews again).
Third, we can almost completely discount the possibility of repairable planes when the fight takes place over friendly territory.
I think the numbers reflect these aspects pretty well. Whenever the fight took largely place above enemy territory (for Germany: BoB, Russia etc.), the numbers run a little wild. This goes for all participants.

That the aces' kills (and probably almost every individual accounted kill) were never reduced, seems only natural to me. It would be a huge blow to the propaganda. And to be entirely honest, this whole individual score thing is only relevant to propaganda (and history forums 65 years later) and not for the commanders at the time. It seems a bit silly to expect them to give out an order to publicly reduce the confirmed kills of any servicemen. Did this happen in other armies on any scale?

 

the confirmation system for the LW changed as needed over time. pro stated the obvious at first by a witness-s and then through the paper work system through the staffle-gruppe and finally jaggeschwader admin, wirtten by subject account in the pilots flugbuch with wintess and possibly the usual wingman present in accordance with protocol before the higher ranking CO, obviously the questions were all asked about tactics, angle of the shots and into what part of the enemy A/C. also how many rounds of mg and cannon though this was taken right after landing by the "black men" on the ground.
later of course as the witness-s were shot down or wingman or just evasion from the hordes of US escorts, one if lucky could get confirmation through ones own gun camera film if it was not jammed, a sorry state for those pilots having 1-3 kills in the air in 44-45 and being shot down in return where the gun camera film could not be retrieved.
As to the reduction of aces scores it did not happen, what we do know is that claims versus reality changed post war as more and more till this very day in our own history that matching adversarial kills do not add up, and this is for all nations not just the statement that the LW was the overclaimer. NO it happened to all countries flying for their side.
Because of what we have textural wise we can count and rehash and rethink and compare known losses to actual kills and in some regards and not many or not all the LW hierarchy in aces do have claimed more than their share. As I staed earlier in other posts K. Welter for one was the garden baby of the night fighters during late 44-45, as he came up through the ranks quickly, there is no doubt his achievements were great and well known through the propaganda ministry and in fact beside Dr. G using him he was also a fav of the "Fat Man". Kurt was given full kills for flight he never made in the spring of 1945 and as I mentioned he literally took away other pilots victories and were added to his own. Can also think of another 1/2 dozen pilots flying day sorties though I will not mention them by name as they are still living.

present documentation from Russian air historians are indeed discounting E. Hartmann's overall kill claims and the reduction is quite significant.

again I point out the mention of October -November 1944 and the OkL not having the wits or the means to credit LW crews with claims/victories due to the dissolvement of the regime at hand, the firm had to much other business to take care of. Several LW night fighter crews/pilots finally had confirmation to their score(s) sometimes as much as a year later. Too bad for them if they did not make it till war's end...........

E ~

 

the same can be said for the 8th AF in the ETO, have close ties with several fg members and yes no kill no credit accordance with the gun came or surviving wingman if one was in the vicinity covering the leading pilots tail. we know for fact that many jets were claimed but did make it back to base shot up and patched and then flew again on the next day or two ops ...................a large part of problem with German A/C prop jobs was the cheaper mixed fuels which cause the engine to smoke badly in odd-ball maneuvers this was something when the single engine pilots would attack bomber formations and then roll through the formation from front to back or back to front, many a gunner of a bomber thought they had shot down a Lw fighter

 

Alright, let's look at what you said.

No such blanket dismissal existed in the first place. My claim is simply that deliberate overclaiming is an endemic problem in the Wehrmacht and therefore should be taken with more suspicion than Allied reports... which I think is eminently obvious in all of my posts except to someone who chose to interpret the argument of others in the worst light possible.

Hitler, as noted elsewhere, sacked a large number of officers for failing to obey or satisfy is demands. Some were forced into early retirement for just suggesting errors in the Fuhrer's judgement. Of course some got away with it; however, not only those individuals were superb generals, but also men of high stature who were more protected from the reduction of rank or the penal system that was present in the lower ranks.


As an aside, the most egregious overclaiming of SS Tiger Battalions and Panzer Divisions happened after the July bomb plot which massively augmented Hitler's power. After this attempt Hitler's control over the military was almost fully the equal to that of Stalin's. The fates of von Kluge and Rommel no doubt was in the minds of many senior commanders... Numerous cases of lop-sided German kills cited by various "historians" took place in Normandy. The 2nd SS Panzer claimed 250 tank kills during the Battle of the Bulge--it is likely that this number was close to or even greatly exceeded the total number of Allied tanks they encountered. Other incidents often used to illustrate the superiority of German armor over than that of their adversaries included several encounters after April 1945 and one that action fought in Berlin itself. However, overclaiming occured in the German military prior to the events in 1944. Ever wondered why the German Army claimed 200,000 more Russian prisoners captured than the total number of Red Army troops in the pocket? Do you think it is a coincidence that Kiev happened to be Herr Fuhrer's battle?

Given those facts, the state of Nazi control over the military is highly relevant.

It has been your contention that the German military was too professional for deliberate overclaiming to be a endemic problem. I am pointing out to you that the German Army, though possessing extraordinary martial skill, had been highly politicized from 41 to the end of the war by draconian and arbitrary discipline. The presence of commissars instated by Hitler and the fortunes of numerous officers who did not dance to Hitler's tune (dismissal without committing any errors professionally), suggests an immense pressure to conform to political expectations. Furthermore, due to high attrition rates, the presence of Nazi officers and NCOs exponentially increased throughout the campaign in the East as the "professional" officers most likely to oppose Nazi ideology were replaced by younger men from the middle class that overwhelmingly supported the Nazi party. Herr Goring is an example of another type of officers who successfully climbed the ladder by curring favors with Hitler through overclaiming.

A pattern of evasion and denial of basic facts that one claims one knows but in fact does not, is very relevant to the creditability of the said person's logical consistency if not intellectual honesty. I'm done here.

 

Again, Press not military at blame.

All I said was that the press totals are inflated, not the military ones.

Fact is KC awards were highly publicized in by the press, and the propoganda minister, Goebbels, knew how valuable that was. So yes, KC's were often given on grounds meant just to give the Press something amazing to write about. In the late war period it was at no point based exactly on the actual statistical records made by the military.

 

You were done already one post ago, as this one doesn't really offer anything new, apart from some nasty little accusations that is...

It's funny that you say that. That should be my line. Your whole argumentation was based on ONE sentence from me, which was not even part of my original argumentation (+you simply got to love it when the accusation of DENIAL starts on internet forums).
But I happily acknowledge that you obviously accepted the rest of my post as valid.

So much for evasion.

True. Now compare this to many of Stalin's minions, who allegedly or really failed their master. I don't think we are in any disagreement here, it was just a side-note to demonstrate the rather chaotic nature of the NAZI regime.

Of course it is. And overclaiming occurred before 1944 on a large scale also. That is something I also never disputed. And together with this...

...I really do think you are trying to pigeonhole me. I dare you to quote me on all those accusations.

So much for intellectual honesty.

Göring was already on top of the ladder when the war started, but I get what you mean. The Luftwaffe came into existence after the Machtergreifung, a purebred "Nazi child", and as such subject to political indoctrination right from the start, like the SS and contrary to the Heer. That the highest ranking Nazi after Hitler became its commander is only consequent.

But the process you depict here could be perfectly well described as "continuous escalation", no? Now were have I heard that before... You are arguing for arguing's sake.

So much for logical consistency.
-------------------------------
Overall I would say that our positions are not really that far apart. But a German would probably say "Der Ton macht die Musik.", the tone makes the music, and I think we both fell victim that the written word (especially on the internet) sounds more harsh than it was originally meant.
I also think that any further quibble would be even less interesting to read for any other person. So I'm equally done here.

 

Proeliator:

You are actually saying that the “Press” decided on additionally inflating kill claims forwarded by the military, and who was to be awarded a KC?
So the Luftwaffe forwards 7 kill claims by Marseille, the press adds another 3, which makes it 10, so that now Marseille has a total of 50 instead of 47, and therefore can be awarded the KC – Marseille reads in the newspaper that he has a total of 50 kills and has received a KC – which is okay to him, since the press decided to do so?

– Sorry but this is getting ridiculous.

Kruska