The Air War over Germany: Claims and Counter-claims

To the Editor:

I would like to commend Klaus Schmider for his excellent review essay on Luftwaffe memoirs. He has not only provided a valuable service for those of us unfamiliar with the German literature but also several interesting and important asides. His balanced, critical, and even handed treatment of the material was very welcome.

I expect Schmider's discussion of American pilots shooting at German aircrew in parachutes will provoke some reaction from readers. On this subject I will add my experience in studying the American side of the air war over Germany during World War II over the past three and half decades. First, having scoured the USAF/AAF records, I found one interview with an American pilot who admitted to such action. He implied he did this on his own. I have found no other "evidence" in the archives or secondary sources of such action. Second, I have run across claims by some American aircrew that Germans fired at parachuting Americans. Third, I have also read accounts of U.S. pilots flying toward parachuting German aircrew and firing their guns to one side in order to activate their gun cameras and thus record their victories. This may explain some of these reports. Fourth, I would add that there are Russian claims that American Sabre pilots in the Korean War shot at parachuting Russian pilots.

I fear the chances of finding substantial evidence, certainly from the American side, upon which to base a credible answer on this intriguing subject is most unlikely. If true, it is extremely doubtful that the Americans would record such actions that were probably war crimes (certainly in retrospect) and were at the very least (at the time) considered unsporting. Further, while all records are vulnerable to destruction, I would expect these records, if any existed, would be the least likely to survive. Second, the number and age of surviving U.S. fighter pilots makes an oral interview approach problematical. As to Dr. Schmider's German sources, I would like to learn more about his approach. Is it based on first hand evidence of survivors' testimony or on dead bodies and parachutes riddled with .50-caliber bullets? I find the one document reprinted on senior level knowledge and involvement to be suggestive but nowhere near conclusive. Because of these difficulties, I fear this is a dead end topic that is provocative but impossible to move beyond the reach of speculation and suggestion.

I would add two other issues on the air war over Germany that remain controversial that were not dealt with in the same detail. The first concerns the question of how pro-Nazi was the Luftwaffe and what impact did this have on the German airmen and their service. While this topic is mentioned by the author in "an Agenda for Further Research," it is touched upon in only one of the five books reviewed. Who neglected the topic, the author of the article or the authors of the books? The second topic regards German victory claims. While the author insists that the GAF's awards process was rigorous and "ensured that most of these claims would stand the test of time remarkably well," (p. 232) he does not deal with this in detail. Clearly the Allied victory claims were overstated. And so were German claims in the Battle of Britain where the GAF claimed some 3,100 victories while post action analysis puts the number at 900. Later in the war when the Germans were fighting over their own lines and thus had access to the wrecked Allied aircraft as well as to Allied aircrew, both dead and alive, the German claims should have been closer to reality. Was this issue discussed in these books? In any case, these two topics deserve fuller treatment than they have thus far received. As the American sources have been fairly well researched, we look to historians fluent in German to tap German materials.

Again, kudos for Klaus Schmider. I hope to see more of his work in the future and I look to the...