Every branch of the German armed forces, with the possible exception of the Navy, had its rabid nazis. I never said it didnt. The worst however, other then then the SS, was the Army. Who had boots on the ground and assisted in mass genocide in many ways. In many places. Even if it was just logistical. "Im wondering how this got into a who was a Nazi thread"? And what do "Doctors performing experiments" have to do with kill counts?
Everyone knows Rudel was a Nazi, and a dedicated one. No doubt his kills were inflated for propaganda purposes. But in general this was frowned upon in the Luftwaffe, as it was in WW1 and to say there was no German air force before Hitler is simply silly. The traditions, Leaders, pilots,industrial infrastructure, of The Imperial German air force of WW1 was still in place. All that was needed was modern airframes. Gliders sufficed in the early '30s, as did Spain. LOL The USAAC wasnt much bigger then the Luftwaffe between wars. After the Treaty of Versailles the German army was limited to 100,000 men and no tanks. The Navy to 6 ships and no submarines. Were the seeds to their later expansion still in place for Hitler?
A small number of evil nazis taking over an otherwise respectable & honorable society, particularly with an 'innocent' Army/Navy/Air Force is a myth, which seems to be very resilient especially within former western allied countries.
Ive actually said the opposite many times. Ive called The Holocaust the worst kept secret of the war with millions of Germans either participating or profiting, and most certainly "knowing". Its nice to see a modern German shamed of his forefathers cause you should be. Even still, at its height, The Nazi Party only had 8,000,000 members in a nation of almost 70,000,000 people with 37% of members being female. I bet the Luftwaffe members, and they were probably 10% or less of the force, were mostly the leadership and opportunists. Not all that different then current Generals, and General wannabes, affiliating with a Political party. Some things never change.
This is so much incorrect, I don't even know where to start. Just a detail .There wasn't even an German Air Force when the Nazis took over. They created it. Göring created it, making it the most "national socialistic" arm of them all. The Luftwaffe was as much Nazi as the whole society. Luftwaffe medical doctors and personnel conducted gruesome experiments on POW's. Rudel himself is a prime example for a fervent Nazi, fully embracing all of the ideology and being connected with the Neo Nazi movement until his death. He lived that ideology. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could kick A t-34..
A small number of evil nazis taking over an otherwise respectable & honorable society, particularly with an 'innocent' Army/Navy/Air Force is a myth, which seems to be very resilient especially within former western allied countries. No, we should trust "the Soviets", becasue they were all commies, but the Germans were no nazis at all except for a small number of henchmen.
In both cases, reality was far from that.
So yes, I do doubt the numbers as much as I doubt all the siimilar numbers presented by any faction. Typhoon driver claims on destroyed tanks, 8th AF bomber gunner claims, German Tankbuster claims, or German bomber pilots claims of sunk CV's (remember Royal Oak?).
When the first 1000 bomber raid had hit cologne, the Luftwaffe officially reported much less enemy planes that actually took part, even to Hitler himself (It was in fact the local party administration who set the facts straight).
Lusche what they reported to Hitler, and what they actually recorded, are of course going to be two different things. Most of all late in the war. Im assuming nobody wanted to be the one carrying bad news to Stalin either. The Luftwaffe had a very simple, and stringent, rule on kill confirmation. There had to be two independent witnesses and/or gun cam footage. What happened during the BOB is pretty simple to figure out. Theres a reason they call it The Battle Of Britain ; It happened over Britain! Of course British confirmation would be more accurate cause the crash air frames are in Ole Bessies farm pasture. And the Brits had their issues with confirmations early too. And we Yanks were often FUBAR with ours. Most of all with the Heavies. One of the reasons I believe the Germans more is cause most of that air war happened over German occupied territory.
The problem with the Soviets is they can say how many of what they built, and how many of what they lost, but not how they lost to what. The first year of the way was a Logistical clusterfrack for them. Their CnC constantly changing from head shots, distances so vast, comms so bad, their armed forces shaken up from top to bottom. Well? If anyone can find me a legit statistical sight on Soviet tank losses to what aircraft I'd like to see it.
Lastly please list the names of the Actual LUFTWAFFE Doctors who performed the tests you mentioned, and yes I am familiar with them. The altitude and cold weather tests.
Not the SS Doctors who performed them FOR the Luftwaffe but the actual Luftwaffe Doctors.
