Erich Hartmann - Top Ace of All Time

In class the other day we were watching the video for the aerial battles in the Pacific where they interviewed a veteran who had 8 kills in 6 minutes, if I remember correctly. Right afterward, Mr. Stewart brought up the highest scoring ace from the German forces, Erich Hartmann.

Erich Hartmann fought in WWII with the German Luftwaffe. He had the highest score for aces ever at 352 aerial kills. Over three years, Hartmann got his unrivaled score on the Russian front. At age 19 in the year 1941, he joined the Luftwaffe and was posted to their Eastern front in October of 1942. He got his first kill the next month, and he got his second three months later. Even with this "slow" start, Hartmann was able to revamp his tactics that proved to be extremely effective.

When he was attacked from behind, he would send out his wingman lower and in front. He would then get behind the enemy and fire accurately until the enemy filled "the widescreen." He was known to be content with one kill in a day, waiting until the next day for another attack.

Even with all of this success and all of his kills, he was said to have thought that his best accomplishment was that he never lost a wingman.

In 1945, the German troops were all turned over to the Red Army. From there, Hartmann was sent to Siberia and was sentenced to 50 years of hard labor. The Soviets had wanted Hartmann to build the East German air force and had then wanted to make him an undercover agent against the west. When he refused to do this, the Soviets had threatened to capture and murder his family that lived in Western Germany. Hartmann came home to Germany in 1955 (when the Soviets were releasing the POW's) when he joined the new West German Luftwaffe and helped build up the new fighter unit. He passed in the year 1993, unparalleled with his aerial kills.