All yellow FW190 A6

[LukeFF]

On 7/24/2020 at 4:57 PM, Retnek said:

Steinhoff's presentation of his role in WW2 is much different. Both biographical books show an educated distance, realism and contain regret. Written in 1969 and 1974 he positions himself clearly against the flood of "we fought knightly and knew nothing"-memoirs in Germany, especially in his epilogues. So those memoirs were political books, too, written to show his flag in Germany of 1969.
Doing so he broke some unwritten rules among veterans. Who ever wanted to understand could find a clear message: do not believe the exculpation-writing of some veterans. He criticized the higher command (not excluding Galland and other Luftwaffe-leaders) for a continued blindness until 1945. Showed sympathy for the "20 July plot" - a serious no-go for the vast majority of German veteran officer at that time. He took party against the traditional Wehrmacht-officers for a more modern lay-out of the Federal Army Bundeswehr. He really did a lot to upset the (extremely) conservative community of professional soldiers in Germany of the late 60s. Maybe because he felt a need to show his version of history. Maybe to present himself as a soldier much more compatible to the Zeitgeist of the 68-revolution, too? Opportunistic and or honest, finally?

Steinhoff's two books badly need a critical review and a detailed fact-check, too. But both never have been nearly as influential as Gallands book still is. Since there's an unusual open antipathy by some veterans against Steinhoff I'm cautious with my opinion about that man. One has to do at least some things quite right to earn such a disrespect by the wrong.

 

I've recently heard some excerpts from Straits of Messina on the We Have Ways podcast, and overall, the two hosts (Al Murray and James Holland) have very positive views of the book. That said, with both of them being from the UK, I wonder how much depth and research they've done into Steinhoff's writings. 

 

https://play.acast.com/s/wehaveways/johannessteinhoff-thestraitsofmessina

Edited July 27, 2020 by LukeFF

[Diggun]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

Al Murray and James Holland

James Holland is a proper historian and will have done his research. The BBC are grooming him to the historians answer to Dr Brian (Foxy) Cox(y).

 

Al Murray is an Oxford educated 'comedian' who'se main schtik is pretending to be an ill informed, bigoted pub landlord. Hilarious.

[Retnek]

5 hours ago, Diggun said:

... James Holland is a proper historian and will have done his research. ...

Steinhoff remains a person of history and difficult to capture. As a high-ranking officer he made it into the highest ranks of Bundeswehr and NATO. A man with a lot of talents, ambition, good relationships to politics and press - compared to many German officers of his generation he was open-minded and progressive.

 

Some impressions here (sorry, in German, the usual web-translators will help):
http://portal-militaergeschichte.de/Moellers_Steinhoff

 

So according to that report journalists from important German newspapers spread Steinhoff's opinions. That kind of notes about a former General are quite rare. Anyhow, a high-ranking person in politics always will earn critics and enemies. But in the biography about the prominent fighter-pilot Walter Krupinski f.e. (sorry again, no english version) there's given some interesting insight into the beginnings of the Federal-Luftwaffe 1955

https://neunundzwanzigsechs.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/krupinski_steinhoff.pdf
 

Accusations, imputations against Steinhoff - very difficult to rate such a source. Legitimate hints on suspicious cases or just slander? A lot of WW2-officers in the early 1950s tried to get a job in the new federal army. The selection-process was though business with all kind of dirty linen washed in muddy waters. So from 1955 on the Luftwaffe started with a lot of trouble the veterans brought in from before 1945. Krupinski (well written biography by Braatz https://neunundzwanzigsechs.de/walter-krupinski/) himself later became an high-ranking officer. Not that much a diplomat as Steinhoff his career ended with a lot of political trouble (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudel_Scandal).

 

Reading some hints here and there I (maybe educated) guess there has been a serious quarrel between Steinhoff and other prominent WW2-fighter pilots. Was it Steinhoffs character, events in WW2, the exponation and performance as a modern, progressive officier, and his political contacts with (very mildly) left-wing parties?

[Diggun]

39 minutes ago, Retnek said:

Steinhoff remains a person of history and difficult to capture.

This whole post is freaking great and exemplifies all that is best about this forum and this community. Thank you. 

[LukeFF]

9 hours ago, Diggun said:

James Holland is a proper historian and will have done his research. The BBC are grooming him to the historians answer to Dr Brian (Foxy) Cox(y).

 

Al Murray is an Oxford educated 'comedian' who'se main schtik is pretending to be an ill informed, bigoted pub landlord. Hilarious.

 

Thanks! Yeah, Murray does come across as bit of a goofball at times. Still, I find the podcast worth listening to. Yeah, it's a bit British-slanted at times (understandably), but it's a rare thing to find a podcast about WWII that isn't dry and boring.

[ZachariasX]

3 hours ago, Retnek said:

Reading some hints here and there I (maybe educated) guess there has been a serious quarrel between Steinhoff and other prominent WW2-fighter pilots. Was it Steinhoffs character, events in WW2, the exponation and performance as a modern, progressive officier, and his political contacts with (very mildly) left-wing parties?

It appears to me that Steinhoff was was more formal in his character than many, more so than he would even admit himself. I feel he makes himself a bit more jovial in his writings than he essentially was. Being more distant emotionally, I think he was less drawn to the „alten Kameraden“.

 

After the war, one had to realize that in many places of the military, the police and the government, the Nazis were left in place. Sometimes deliberately so, as they were known to be good in chasing down communists (like Krupinski), sometimes they were left due to no alternatives available atm.

 

There were also other conveniences in keeing the former/still/whatever Nazis in these positions, as for instance Konrad Adenauer had great leverage on them. After all, it would have been a shame if it ever came out what they did, right?

 

It is remarkable how Steinhoff distanced himself from this circle. How the old boys still had their network intact is not only demonstrated by the Rudel affair, but it is also nicely demonstrated when Eric Brown during him training the German Navy pilots was visited by Döniz (by then a private ex-convict), making himself stand attention to the former leader of the third Reich along with the rest of the squadron!

 

 

[Retnek]

5 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Thanks! Yeah, Murray does come across as bit of a goofball at times. Still, I find the podcast worth listening to. Yeah, it's a bit British-slanted at times (understandably), but it's a rare thing to find a podcast about WWII that isn't dry and boring.

The reading is good, both books by Steinhoff are well worth the time. As an author I prefer Steinhoff much over Galland. He's asking relevant questions and tries to explain. His books are adapted to act in a much more open society of the Western Germany in the early 1970s. Looking at the Germany Army there was a great need for a change and Steinhoff went for it - for whatever reasons. Steinhoff left the Luftwaffe 1974. 1982 a strong fall-back with re-injecting Wehrmacht-traditions came over the German Army. Check the recent news for the results.

Galland 1953 tried to paint a well prepared picture with his book. Composed to inject the important first "fact-building" set into the so-to-say  "empty" public opinion of the young Federal Republic of Western Germany. A lot of German veterans did this during the early 50s - out of more or (imho often) less respectable reasons.

 

So other veterans and authors point on some fuzziness. I bet some of them know a lot more details. But the veterans did not talk clearly, except some insinuations here and there. And the few authors and journalists interested in this topic seem to respect an unspoken deal. A warm welcome and first-hand insight into most fascinating stories - for the price not to publish the dirty details.

Let's wait for a military historian earning a PhD while digging into this topic. I don't expect much sensations or fundamentally new aspects about the WW2 air war in Europe. Galland's career started 1932, Steinhoff's 1935 and Hartmann's f.e. 1940 . 1945 they all have been though a hell, but still were young officers with a limited horizon.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Retnek

[Retnek]

3 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

... It is remarkable how Steinhoff distanced himself from this circle. How the old boys still had their network intact is not only demonstrated by the Rudel affair, but it is also nicely demonstrated when Eric Brown during him training the German Navy pilots was visited by Döniz (by then a private ex-convict), making himself stand attention to the former leader of the third Reich along with the rest of the squadron! ...

That's interesting, indeed. I stumbled over it while checking some night-fighter-details in the "Jägerblatt" ("Fliegerblatt" today https://fliegergemeinschaft.de/startseite/index.php)

"Jägerblatt" was the  journal published by the "Gemeinschaft der Jagdflieger" (fighter's society). Founded 1950/51 they elected Steinhoff as the first speaker. During that time and at least until the early 1960's Steinhoff must have been an well accepted member of the community.

 

By chance I stumbled over the epitaph for Rudel in a Jägerblatt from 1984 or 1985. It was a veterans fare-well. Pointing on his unacceptable political positions they remained at distance. But being through the same sh.. together the author(s) did not refuse him a last fare-well. An act of balance, respectfully done imho. At that point I asked myself "Hm, what about Steinhoff's epitaph in 1994?" I must have seen it already - but did not. That's sloppy reading, buck up! Started again with the journals from 1995 on - nothing. Maybe one journal was missing, maybe I over-looked it for a second and a third time. Strange, no epitaph for Steinhoff at all? This detail wasn't the focus of my research so I went on after a while.

When I'm old and wise I'll search for the epitaph again - still can't believe it. From that day on I had an antenna for this detail. And every year or so somewhere in literature or forums there were some disadvantageous remarks about Steinhoff, pin-pricks.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Retnek

[ZachariasX]

7 hours ago, Retnek said:

Strange, no epitaph for Steinhoff at all?

That would be rather telling. On one side, by the mid 90ˋs many of the old boys had died. The others were at an age, where they would not give much active input into the scripture anymore. But on the other hand, as you said... it is outragoeus.

 

Steinhoff was a leader of aces. He couldn‘t handle Marseille (and probably had a much harder time with him than he admitted himself), but he found ways with the others. It is probably them that took his organized way for the mindset of a „guter Kamerade“ where in fact that mindset could have been the ressorcefullness of a very thoughtful person, a rarity among that flamoyant group.

 

It may well be that only over time, Steinhoff slid out of the circle of the old boys network, probably without even realizing much himself. Unlike the others, he not only really got an idea of what he truly did, he also fould a new place in a new world eventually. But the unspoken protocol of not defending your brothers in crime could not go unpunished. Graf, probably the antithesis of Steinhoff in terms of character, was dropped like a hot potato when he just accepted the Russians being better as they won and the rather simple character he was, then just following them. Almost none of the aces really grew into a new life, they mostly brought over what they have become in war. Some in a better way, like Rall, but I guess for Krupinski but most certainly for Rudel, the war never really ended.

 

Still, I remember learning about Steinhoffs passing in his obituary in TIME magazine. After the start he had in life, getting such an article *there* impressed me more than had he shot 500 aircraft „during his time“.

[Bremspropeller]

9 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

but I guess for Krupinski but most certainly for Rudel, the war never really ended.

 

Not sure about Krupinski* - he was fundamental in getting Kai-Uwe von Hassel (then West-German Sectretary of Defense) fired during the Starfighter crisis, which is remarkable for a field-grade officer and took quite some cojones on his part. He was of a different breed than Steinhoff - true - but he was successful nonetheless.

 

There's a passage in Falkenjahre (BTW: thanks for mentioning the Krupinski-book: I'm currently packing for a move and I had forgotten to add that one to my inventary-list I'm just preparing...), which I have in my shelve (*cough* some box *cough*), but which I haven't read yet. There supposedly were a couple of instances during the early days of the early Luftwaffe, where Steinhoff's decisions weren't quite transparent. One of those was the selection of the Piaggio (built by Focke-Wulf) P.149D as screening trainer and later on the selection of the Alpha Jet as a follow-up to the Fiat G.91, which was seen as a tactical dead-end ("Mein Flugbuch"** touches this episode very briefly)

 

BTW: There's only one surviving Traditionsname for a fighter-wing in the Luftwaffe, which is TaktLwG 73 "Steinhoff" in Rostock/Laage.

 

___

* Who, lacking a test-pilot education, was instrumental in selecting the F-104 as the one-size-fits-all superfighter of the 60s for the Luftwaffe and Marineflieger.

** Günther Rall's memoirs - there's an english version of this one, too.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Bremspropeller

[MiloMorai]

JG26, http://don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/schlageter.htm

[FTC_Karaya]

Not sure what to think of Steinhoff to be honest. He was a career soldier, eager for promotion and his fellow Kameraden had ambivalent feelings towards him from what I can tell. Had an interesting discussion with a fellow ATAG forum member who seems to have delved into the topic more than I have. Here's what he had to say on Steinhoff:

 

Quote

He always had been extremely ambitious. The (without doubt unfair) way Göring treated the fighter pilots in the Med was basically the end to his career ambitions during the war. This nagged at him even when he was high ranking NATO commander and the book (Die Straße von Messina) is an attempt to clear his name.

In his other (earlier) book 'Die Verschwörung der Jagdflieger' he clearly exaggerated the whole affair and especially his own role in it, at the same time diminuishing the part his 'friend' Lützow played, who was dead and no longer able to object.

So basically he was all his life working on the myth that he had been an outstanding figher commander as well as (almost) a resistance fighter.
Ilse Krupinski's first impression when she met him during the war was: 'Was für ein Lackaffe' (What a showboat).

Kurt Braatz, a very knowledgable historian specialised on aviation history accuses him of 'fabulieren' (telling untrue stories) in his book.

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by JG4_Karaya