Erik Schmidt

This is a book that will quite probably divide the air-warfare enthusiast fraternity but possibly interest a more general readership. According to the blurb 'Black Tulip' is the dramatic story of history's top fighter ace..
" over 1,404 wartime missions, Hartmann claimed a staggering 352 airborne kills, and his career contains all the dramas you would expect. There were the frostbitten fighter sweeps over the Eastern Front, drunken forays to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, a decade of imprisonment in the wretched Soviet POW camps, and further military service during the Cold War that ended with conflict and angst.."

Of course everyone knows that Hartmann achieved '352' victories even today. Only ONE writer has come out and said 'no he didn't' - and he's been dismissed because he's Russian. Guys like Hartmann are 'heroes' - or had to become so during the Cold War because by then they were on our side..of course Schmidt's book is subtitled 'the Myth...' The 'myth' is the story of how his service on the Eastern Front with JG 52 (and briefly with JG 53, although not even mentioned by the author) was simplified and elevated to a particular sort of Western mythology during the Cold War, driven by a network of writers and commentators personally invested in his welfare and reputation. " These men, mostly Americans, published elaborate, celebratory stories about Hartmann and his elite fraternity of Luftwaffe pilots. With each dogfight tale put into print, Hartmann’s legacy became loftier and more secure, and his complicated service in support of Nazism faded away. A simplified, one-dimensional account of his life - devoid of the harder questions about allegiance and service under Hitler - has gone unchallenged for almost a generation..."

So the author's discussion of how Hartmann's wartime career has been portrayed is regularly punctuated with 'reminders' that Hitler fought a terrible war of conquest and that the guys flying the planes with the red stars were NOT the 'enemy'. (..which is a little tricky since post-war for a very long period and to the average American they most certainly were..) " Here was a tough-as-nails freedom-seeker who had been swallowed into the Soviet camps and then soared out of them, a man whose fighting values would have put him at home in the U.S. Army Air Corps or the Royal Air Force at any time...". Schmidt's point here is that the " Luftwaffe aces are basically caricatures of themselves" and that this serves no-one, not history nor the 'aces' themselves.

The author's portrayal of Hartmann's wartime career ends on page 117 of 'Black Tulip'. The second half of the book was probably the most interesting part of the book for me as Schmidt discusses the ace's return from captivity and his 'reinsertion' into 'professional' life. This of course coincided with the 'rebirth' of the German nation (or at least the Western half..). However as a 'Diamonds' winner Hartmann very quickly found himself being passed over for promotions ' by pilots who had never flown a combat sortie or fired a shot in anger..'

Re-evaluating Hartmann's career Schmidt uses all the secondary sources that are to hand. Many airwar enthusiasts will be familiar with them. " Chronicles of the Luftwaffe pilots have become best-sellers ..but the most ardently pro-Wehrmacht ones often masquerade as deep research" As Schmidt puts it, if you want to know what polish a German officer put on his boots you can find that out but whether he was a Nazi or not, that is another matter. He sets out to counter the narrative of 'chivalrous knight' of the sky that 'filtered' into the market-place post-war. Colin Heaton's 'The Aces speak' (rightly in my view) comes in for some sharp criticsm for his 'default' attitude towards his interviewees. Schmidt argues that post-war writers - Toliver, Constable, Heaton and their ilk - have created a 'comfortably clean view' of the Luftwaffe aces as happened with other branches of the Wehrmacht. Black Tulip' looks a little harder at Hartmann and so much of the German Wehrmacht in general. Author Schmidt concludes that while many of Hartmann's fellow aces were not full-blown Nazis they were hardly 'Blond Knights' either..… (plus d'informations)