What real journalists used to be like.

@@jds6014 Journalism is a muddy job. Most people are biased. Even if some are not, they are forced into submission by politicians and other powerful people. Sadly journaliats cannot have their paramilitary orgs like SA to protect them from political opression.

@@SpaceTravel1776 thanks buzz kill

@@SpaceTravel1776 I do read a lot of books. Still I find Mark's videos well made and well researched. It's true that there are other channels too, but except some, I find them a bit biased towards the Allies. Mark never shrugs in telling about the warcrimes committed by the Allies, including British ones, when he himself is British. That is praiseworthy. The world always lectures Germans on 'accepting their faults' but never talk about Operation Paperclip and so on.

he is bias though, his deep seated resentment and hatred of anything the Nazis done is clearly evident.

I wonder what was said?

@@worldwar2historyandgear970 I have a signed airshow program from Colonel Bud Anderson. Met him when I was 13. I'll never forget it.

Wow thats a story! Love it.

About 1982,I also got Hartman's autograph. My son has the print.

@@worldwar2historyandgear970 I have a "Moon Shot" graphic novel signed by Charles Conrad while we were at the 1994 San Diego Comic-Con. He was a US Navy test pilot who retired as captain. His booth was not at all crowded. People there were more interested in getting pictures with girls dressed as "Sailor Moon" than meeting the third man to walk on the Moon! I wish I had questions for him then! I walked past Chuck Yeager at a Hawthorne California airshow way back when. The airport was originally for Northrop, but is now for SpaceX. (I was a little surprised how small he is.) With the WW2 German military theme, in the 80's I met a u-boat navigator named Rudy at the Hollywood Bowl who was invited by a neighbor since he lived in our neighborhood. I didn't have any questions for him. What kind of questions could a young man ask him on a touchy subject? I think his u-boat was destroyed while he was on leave.

Must have felt like teaching Tiger Woods how to play golf, even though your dad must have been a seasoned combat pilot at that point.

Time in type counts.

The 84 was obsolete. Should have put them in 86s, 102s, 106s or 104s if available.

@@rogersmith7396 the Luftwaffe wasn't going to get first-line aircraft, absent the HUGE push to justify and pay for the 104. Honestly, they'd have done better to transition to the F100; enough similarities to the 84 that transition would have been straightforward, but a major leap in capability.

@@rogersmith7396 You have to start somewhere. I don't think they all had jet time. Even if they did have 262 time, the 84 was a much different aircraft with different flight characteristics. So you start at the bottom and work up. Prevents a lot of needless deaths and destroyed aircraft.

this is gold XD

Greg's channel is awesome. His take on the accuracy of Luftwaffe victory claims was very informative! 👍

🤣😂🤣

Aplomb in the face of disaster... Those high-scoring aces had ice water in their veins.

I imagine that scene from the Simpsons where the Soviet Union came back instead it's the 3rd Reich. "That's 102 Allied Planes Destroyed!" American goes "i though the Reich broke up?" The German laughs evily "That's what we wanted you to think!" Then Panzers roll out of Volkswagen Factories and Nazi flags pop out of nowhere.

yes that was a detail dr felton left out not sure why. but I gather he "fell out" because he didn't want to take Lockheed's payoff like the others did.

Partially true but not the complete story. He was "retired" because he did not agree with his superiors about how the German air force should be run. Yes, he opposed the buying of the Startighter but there were many other notable German pilots that also disagreed with the purchase and never got retired. He made it public that the important decision makers of the Luftwaffe at the time was generals with very little real world experience in the Air and he insisted on black tulips markings on their wings. True that it was ultimately adopted by the Luftwaffe but at the time it was a no-no. He also went against his superiors so many times and disagreed on so many issues that his superiors regarded him as a "trouble-maker" and would have retired him early but his reputation actually kept him in the Luftwaffe. But they never promoted him beyond his rank and he ultimately quit the air force in rage. The Starfighter acquisition was just one in a long line of "troubles" he caused his superiors. Most Luftwaffe pilots opposed the Starfighter. They thought it was too advanced for a nation that had it's airforce disbanded for a decade and thought they needed more training (not just the Pilots who will be flying it but also the enlisted men who will maintain it) but other more politically astute officers (Gunther Rall being one of them) thought they needed to buy it because there was no other choice but to keep up with the new emerging technology, as well as buying American. You have to remember the Starfighter suffered alot of crashes and mishaps mostly due to the lack of training (which was Hartmann worry from the beginning). It was only later when Rall went to Japan to learn how they also acquired the Starfighter but suffered no losses that the accident rate went down drastically. Of course by then the Starfighter acquired the nickname "Widow maker" and there was nothing anyone or anything could do to change that.

@@Pantone2695 I'm sorry, but that not really true. Even Japan lost plenty of Starfighters without hostile interaction. The less than safe operating conditions let to the Starfighter quickly being retired by the US for peacetime service (it was reactivated during the Vietnam War). The reason it was such a successful export was because of all the bribes Lockheed paid to politician around the world. The whole affair is thought to have played a major role in president Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex. Anyway, here are some numbers, the percentages (attrition rates) of aircraft lost (out of all Starfighters operated) without hostile interaction by some of the primary operators (this does not only include crashes but other failures as well): Germany: 32% Belgium: 41% Italy: 37% Canada: 46% Denmark: 24% Japan: 15% Norway: 14% Spain: 0% (but they only operated 21 Starfighters) In the US the Starfighter was the aircraft with the highest failure rate per 100.000 flight hours in service, leading to its retirement to reserve aircraft. As you can see, it was not only a German problem. Case in point, Lockheed was responsible for the training regimes for the pilots, engineers and mechanics as well. Japan and Norway kept its failure rates down by increasing training, maintenance and reducing flight hours, massively reducing effectiveness, not something you want to really do with your defense investment.

@@ariantes221 Yeah, I thought it was well-known that he opposed buying the Starfighter. Being a jet ace, he was more than qualified to make that judgement, even barring the horrific safety record.

104 was a fast flying coffin !

Great suggestion. That would be great to see.

Admiral Otto Ciliax is one of the most interesting post war. In 1949 he was invited, together with Berhard von Lossberg (planning of Barbarossa ) and 3 other german officers, by Norway and Sweden to Oslo to develop an integrated defence plan for Scandinavia against a Soviet invation. The plan, except the use of nuclear weapons, was to a large degree implented. Any trace of this workgroup has been eliminated in Norway to prevent negative reactions in the population so soon after the war. The Swedes, however, have the records in their National Archives.

@@tebo2770 great to „sea“?

I am thinking of Vice Admiral Rogge, who was a decorated commander and also of Jewish heritage.

@@petershen6924 And the former captain of the _Atlantis._ I have a copy of his co-authored book _Under Ten Flags_ which is a fascinating "read" - especially how _Atlantis_ captured the _SS Automedon_ and its trove of secret documents. The latter were sent to Japan directly, and influenced the Japanese military's decision to enter the war.

They were extreemly clean had a very high wing loading, and a high stall speed. The Germans wanted ground attack. They were a very poor and unsafe plane in that role but they were world class as an interceptor.

Hartmann didn't play well with higher command throughout his military career.

@@ourshelties7649 Maybe the disastrous handling of the Luftwaffe by the bigwigs in WWII left a strong impression on him and he felt the need to be outspoken. The relative freedom of speech in West Germany may have encouraged him. It would be interesting to know more.

...we had an F-104 go down in an area close to my base at Illesheim ca 1973 or so - they got a QRF from the Combat Support Company of 4/35 Armor (my unit) go go out and secure the area - I went into my office - I was the battalion S-2 clerk - and 'borrowed' the then new (to us) starlight scope from the 'confidential' safe and along with my buddy from S-2 drove off post in my VW bug to try and find the site - with no idea where it was - returning to post was the hardest & scariest part - luckily I wasn't stopped by the MPs and managed to get the scope back where it belonged - undetected...

@@cuauhtemoc8350 I'm sure he was just as outspoken to all his superiors. 🙂

The dude owes me 20 bucks.

You were down south, next to Luxembourg 🇱🇺 and France. I was in Germany from 1997-2001. Thank you for your service

@@christiansimon3749 I am curious as to why the world's highest scoring ace and a man who flew more fighter missions than anyone else in the war and gave 10 and a half years of his life in a Soviet gulag for his country had a bad rep among a bunch of untested, spoiled American jet jocks? Maybe you could explain your comment and tell us why he was so unpopular? Maybe because he had honor and integrity and wouldn't sign off on a plane that was being sold to the West German Air Force simply because a lot of scum bags were going to make a lot of money?

My comment to Christian Simon was meant for Andreina Rangel.

That is a very cool story.

@@ReaperCH90 Thanks! I was not super happy at the time because he could be very moody on bad days (I think he was in pain often). And I found it kind of distasteful that he would keep a propeller blade with his shot down planes engraved into next to his TV. ^^ But in retrospective I am thankful that I had a chance to not only talk to him, but to other WWII survivors including an SS officer and a KZ survivor in private. That opportunity is mostly gone for the young people now.

@@hmpeter very nice story and yes i would say the chances of speaking to someone who was there and played a role is most certainly gone

Bahr, the next nazi... as always.

And it was always really easy to spot him, since you only have to look for the thick cloud of smoke ascending into the sky

Schmidt was a flight defense Company Officer in eastern front

Rudel was an avid Nazi, but his exploits are legendary. Remarkable footage of him exists, he was using HVAP 37mms to engage lvats, KVs and ships, impressive stuff really.

I'd always wondered if that was a true story until I ran into someone in 2019 who had worked on the A-10 program back then and he confirmed Rudel was indeed consulted on the project. His German-speaking wife also confirmed this and that she'd talked to him several times in German. They both said he was a very interesting person

A10 is a ground striker; not specifically tank killing

@@t2av159 When armed with AGM-65 Maverick missiles and depleted uranium 30MM rounds, the A-10 is a superb tank killing machine.

​@@t2av159That's how it's used today, mostly because the contemporary adversaries of the US have no tanks but in the first Gulf war these things knocked out scores of Iraqi armour. It was originally designed to counter mass Soviet tank attacks.

Sometimes the memories are more important than the mementos.

That is true. I do have Hartman's and Rall's autograph on print displays, although I never met them.

@@shawnr771 Indeed, focus on the moment

I have a ww2 history book with his signature that he gifted to my grandfather.

Germans in general can seem a little standoff-ish at first. My dad’s parents were from Germany and my friends thought they seemed very aloof and strict at first. I think in general, Germans are just a bit more guarded at first, but open up after and become very loyal and fun people.

The big US jet aces were all WWII aces. Probably the Russians too.

@@rogersmith7396 Yes, I read a biography by a Soviet WW2 and Korea ace. They flew with North Korean markings but it was pretty obvious what was going on.

@@momotheelder7124 My dad was in an F 86 squadron in Korea. They had many WWII aces as well as did the Russians. Our pilots always knew when they were facing Russians. They were good. The North Korean pilots were barely trained and incompetent.

Really good question. I'd watch that video

I never met the man, but I heard about him when I was in the Marines. Not a pilot, but a former Luftwaffe bomber radio operator who emigrated to the US after the war and joined the US Marine Corps around 1950. He was stationed in Beaufort SC with an air control squadron as a warrant officer and everyone called him "Herman the German," and all said he was the nicest man you'd ever want to meet. He even wore his Iron Cross 1st Class and other Luftwaffe decorations on his Dress Blues! Swastikas removed of course. No one took offense either, they thought it was cool!

Some Wehrmacht soldiers were in the US Army circa Korean War. I remember my dad mentioning that although he didn't have one on one contact with them. He had some oddballs in his unit. Like the WW2 private in his company. The guy got promoted a whole bunch of times but he'd get drunk and get busted down to E2 or E3 and start all over. Then there was the Chinese guy who played checkers by himself. He'd make a move then switch chairs to make a counter move then switch chairs to make a move. He'd do this for hours. Dad thought there was something wrong in the head with that guy.

In 1973 we had an NCO in our unit who had been a private in the Soviet army during WW2, afterwards managed to emigrate to the US and joined the US Army. Just a little different.

@@LuvBorderCollies ptsd is insidious

Nobody can mess with Hartmann, o.k.?

I have the book, "The Blond Knight of Germany" about Hartmann. It appears he didn't play well with the higher ups and even when he got out of the Gulag, the German high command didn't want to promote him as high as others of his rank were once they returned home. And as we see, he wasn't well liked to retire as a colonel.

@@ourshelties7649 He had the punishment of 10 years in Russia inside his brain. You can’t ignore such a long time and it changes you in your mind. I got to know some POWs from our small village. They returned home and stood at the door and nobody no longer recognized him physically and in character. That’s not a fine situation to introduce yourself to your own wife. At least because of the idiots which filed the treaty of Versailles and because of this absolutely sick Hitler.

@@dr.wilfriedhitzler1885 Not only that, but also the "normal" PTSD a long-term combat veteran has. He came within a hair's width of death so many times, also so many young men died at his hands. Add to that, ten years of physical and psychological torture in a Soviet Gulag and it's a wonder he didn't put a gun in his mouth.

@@dr.wilfriedhitzler1885 I'm sure it did, but it appears he didn't take any crap from his superiors or the Russians.

Admittedly, Galland had the personality to pull this off, with the looks and the sunny disposition of a Spanish Caballero. He was actually born in my area. In the mid-late 80s he would occasionally show up at "Haus Galland", a restaurant less than 10 miles from my current house that at least than was run by his wider family. I never met him, though. Edit: If your father was shot down over the Ruhr, my father might have been on the receiving end of that raid, growing up in that area and beeing around 11 years old at the time. War sucks. Let's just enjoy the fact that both of them survived. Greetings from the Ruhr!

True. Most Luftwaffe bases on the Eastern Front were within 25 miles of the lines, making multiple sorties a day possible, if not absolutely necessary for ground troop support.

He’s right several sorties were absolutely usual.

That late in the war, Stukas could only operate on the eastern front.

Must have been short sorties, they had no fuel.

@@ourshelties7649 Can't find it just now, but, there's a very highly detailed book on the combined attack of an American unit named "The Railsplitters" & their neighbouring British unit "The Wessex" men & their "minutiae" daily actions whilst attempting to engineer & cross the River Wesel (Germany), in April 1945 In it, they clearly and categorically state that they (collectively), actually WERE attacked beside the river, by successive attacks of Junkers Ju.87 Stukas - (The 'D' = Jumo engined later-war variants) Some WERE shot down, whilst some made it back - hundreds saw it happen, too Many expressed their complete & utter shock, seeing the cranked-wing, fixed u/c Ju.87's Remember - This is//was "APRIL 1945" & on the British & American sectors I'll believe THEIR highly-detailed eyewitness accounts, over YOUR (untrained) postwar armchair-warrior "guesstimates" & (clearly wrong &) erroneous assumptions anyday !!!!! (Although in your defence, I can see as to "why" you wrongly assumed that, by "generalising") .

Yes please

and why was Erich Topp (3 stripes) not called to account after WW2. After all he sunk the "Reuben James"

.. you think he said 'ach', or you just made that up.??

Probably shouldn't laugh at this, but couldn't help having a chuckle. 😀

@@FalkeEins My wife is German. It's possible.

Tom, just to add..... He didn't just make one test flight, he was based there. I live down the road from THAT actual air-base (the supposed story of which you mention) TWELVE pilots were assigned to test the P.1127, Four Yanks, Four Brits, Two Canucks, Two Germans The airbase in question is/was RAF West Raynham in North//North-West Norfolk (England) It was an active base, until 1994, when, sadly, like the B.47 base down the road, they closed them** **(the so-called 'collapse' of the Soviet Union's "Cold War") There's a "Fish n' Chip" van//vendor that goes there each Friday night - (i.e, tonight !) Made me laugh to think it's the one & the exact same place..... Lastly, there IS film, of Gerhard Barkhorn receiving his "RAF Wings" being pinned on his RAF uniform It took place at Stanmore, Middlesex, in 1956 - razor sharp footage too, of him at RAF H.Q saluting Also great film of him getting into & piloting a 56.Sqdn RAF Hawker Hunter, "Mustard" at that time ! .

that´s only one part of his story, the other is he did not sign to the political party the others belong too.... he did not get promotion any further.

I knew Hartmann and his wife Ursula quite well. His interview is in my book, The German Aces Speak II.

@@colinheaton2679 You are very lucky to have known these two remarkable people. I not only revere Erich, even more because of what he had to endure after the war. Usch is my ideal woman because of the hell she went through being separated from her husband all those years, their baby son dying (whom he never saw). I wonder if I could have endured that? I am going to purchase your book ASAP. Thank you for the heads-up!

@@colinheaton2679 Do you have any contact information for his daughter?

That is true, thanks for posting

@@dorothyburry42 Sorry I do not, I never met her.

I read a great story about Hartmann. He used to speak to school groups about his experiences, and when one student asked him if he hated the Russians for the way they treated him he said no. Then he added "Don't hate. Please don't hate. Hatred destroyed my country."

Yes, Hartmann was a man of character. At the end of the war, instead of flying to safety, he decided to stay as head of his base personal and ground crew, leading to his capture by the Russians.

He was a man of character, and one of the main opponents of the 104, not mincing words on its shortcomings. Reportedly, that was one of the reasons he never made much of a career in the post war Luftwaffe.

He was sentenced to 25 years hard labour. Fortunately, the last German POWs were repatriated in 1956 following Stalin's death.

@@HeadPack The choice of the F-104 seems like an odd one to begin with. The 104 strikes me as too much airplane for the somewhat restricted airspace of West Germany. USAF pilots called the F-104 "The missile with a man in it."

Now THAT is a real family history!

My hat is off to your relatives who fought so valiantly against Germany's enemies.

sad to think but my grandfather flew lead A in multiple missions over Nuremberg in the b17.

Your son knows quality when he hears it!...you've brought him up well.

German engineers? I don't think they ever came to much did they? One or two might have ended up with NASA, getting nan on the moon ....

Reminds me of the Japanese ace Saburo Sakai. When the Japanese Self-Defense Force was building it's air force Sakai was invited to join. He turned the offer down cold, he wanted nothing more to do with military aviation having become a confirmed pacifist. He wouldn't even kill mosquitos. He DID say the only time he'd climb into a fighter cockpit again was if "The Soviet slave-masters ever reach out and try to take Japan!"

Can say the same with the video about the king tiger in the river video

Born and raised okie, I never knew this! I would love to learn more. I recently heard there was a POW camp in chickasha OK, oddly enough not more than 20 minutes from my home. It’s now the chickisha fairgrounds, but I haven’t been able to find any more information on it than just a couple tidbits.

I am sorry for you that you did not discover Virginia Bader's (Sir Douglas Bader and she were cousins) world of aviation art shows and symposiums. She used to have her gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, and had her symposiums and art shows at nearby hotels and Air & Space. I missed a lot of them myself, having only discovered this world in 1990 when she had her Battle of Britain symposium Many Luftwaffe aces (and those from other nations, also) were guests of honor, and I had the great honor and pleasure of meeting some of them--Rall, Hrabak, almost met Steinhoff, and General Galland was there a couple of times, but I was so in awe of him that all I could do was worship him from afar. Though Virginia Bader still has a gallery out in California (she has a web site), I am afraid those days are over because i don't think there is anybody left.

We are good immigrants 😅🇩🇪

Barkhorn was on the tripartite Kestrel Evaluation Squadron at RAF West Raynham in 1968. Flying the predecessor to the Harrier was a bit different to his experiences on the Eastern Front.

The smaller countries formerly occupied by the Third Reich also got a piece of Germany to occupy. Belgium got a thin slice between the British and American zones, roughly a line from Aachen to Kassel.

@@flitsertheo True!

@@flitsertheo There is funny fact about the german-belgian border. Germany has an enclave within belgium because ther is a thin stripe of border which is part of belgium. The stripe is c. 12km long and only 4m wide. The reason for this strange border lies in the end of WW1 and the treaty of versailles. On that stripe there was an important railway line which became part of belgium. The rails are history but the border remains still today.

I can add one I remember. I was attached to the 766 MI Det in the occupied city of West Berlin from 1981 to 1984. One of the senior investigators was a former Luftwaffe fighter pilot. His name escapes me right now. He was pretty old by then but still attended the Luftwaffe Reunions when they occurred. He even took one of the junior US investigators to one of them. Regards

Lots of German WWII ex soldiers in French Army units fighting in Vietnam. According to "Le Monde" 1,600 of the 3,500 airborne troops dropped into Dien Bien Phu to defend it have been ex German military.

This is hard to believe but it's true, the German army in WW2 never had enough of their own small arms to go around. While the front-line troops were typically well-equipped the support and occupation forces were frequently equipped with captured weapons. It's no surprise your father was given a French rifle to fight with.

I believe you. At one point they had more non German tanks and vehicles than German ones. They also relied heavily on horses and mules for transporting equipment.

@@bugler75 Right. I've heard it said that when Operation Barbarossa began the motorized portion of the German invasion looked like "A military museum on wheels." The Germans scrounged usable tanks (mostly Czech) and trucks from all over the occupied countries.

@@wayneantoniazzi2706 I know that they reused French tanks, which actually were very good, to occupy Europe whilst they sent their more modern PzIIIs and IVs to North Africa. They relied heavily on their horses right through the war. I had a book, long since lost which I really regret which showed the statistical comparison between the Axis and Allies and the Germans were actually outnumbered in armour about 4 to 1. Because vyhwir armoir was manufactured to such a high standard it was easier to repair their armour whereas the Allies, after the Americans entered the war, could just replace a damaged tank. I really wish I could remember the name of the book.

😂😂😂😂😂natürlich

Disgusting how German WW2 veterans were treated after the war, men that fought for their country deserved respect. My grandfather was a German paratrooper in Italy, he married an Italian woman and moved there, I met him when I was very young and he was elderly, I wish I had know what a treasure he was. I joined the Army at 17 and earned my Airborne wings(89 jumps at the time of retirement) and honored him with a diving eagle tattoo on my right shoulder.

@@0WickedSensation0 Thank you for that and honoring those that tried to defend Europe from communist invasion.

@@BasementEngineer always.

I'd like that as well. I'm not sure that happened as the East German airforce didn't come into existence until after 1953.

In that case they would´ve been mercenaries.... is not the case. They were loyal to West Germany, not to the US, another former enemy, as the russians...

I suppose they much preferred flying to maintain peace over engaging in another war. However, WW2 aces both on the Soviet and US side flew against each other.

The Soviets had a habit of flying combat for other countries. When Egypt was losing so many MiGs to Israeli pilots, the Soviet "advisors" mocked the Egyptian pilots for their inept ability. So the Egyptians told the Russians to go ahead and prove they were better. The Soviets didn't fare better than the Egyptians. Believe this was during what's called The War of Attrition, prior to the Yom Kippur attack in October 1973. Supposedly this bad experience against the IAF is what prompted the Soviet/Egyptian commands to place extra heavy emphasis on ground based AA missiles and AAA.

They were made by Hugo Boss using slave labour. Funfact Hugo Boss still makes coats that have a Red Patch on the right Arm (though it Shows the Hugo Logo and not the swastika)

@@jhh1451 they were made by them but not designed

Yup, all around the world, military costumes serve an important PR function. It helps those who can't think for themselves believe in what they're being told.

@@D4rthDuck never said otherwise

@@D4rthDuck he didn't even say "designed", wtf do you mean?

DOUGLAS Bader, I recall, wrote the intro to the English language version of HU Rudel's book.

Bernard was a nazi

@@WELLBRAN For a short time in the 1930's he was a member, yes. When he left Germany to marry princess Juliana, he gave Hitler a weak, soft hand when he came by to say goodbye. Hitler did not think much of him. Later on, Bernhard became Inspector General, until he fell from grace after accepting gifts from Lockheed.

It would good to hear a Mark Felton story about the "Starfighter scandal". Wasn't the Starfighter just an interceptor & not a true fighter? I wonder if that was the problem with the Starfighter...?

@@morgan97475 The German Starfighter had to carry a lot of extra equipment. The extra weight was too much and in that configuration, it was a widow maker.

@@PassportToPimlico Much appreciated. interesting.

Former german soldiers had nearly no possibility to wear their medals, because there was ( and still is) no veteran culture in Germany. The outcry of leftwingers would have been heared in USA.

A Nazi Wearing a Nazi medal is pretty cool ?

@@danboro1831 They wasn’t all Nazis

Occasionally those de-Nazified medals show up at militaria shows. Interesting to see.

@@danboro1831 You’ve got a problem with it?

Stigler actually said that's WHY he joined the Luftwaffe. Unlike the Wehrmacht (German Army), the Luftwaffe did not have to take a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler. As a matter of fact, by the late months of the war he and a few pilots hated the Nazi government so much that they even joked in private about them all drowning at sea, allowing Germany to survive. It sounded like they were some decent people stuck in an absolutely impossible situation. Sad how they will always have a tarnished image because of the Nazi monsters, Wehrmacht war criminals and the bomb raids on civilian towns.

@@thunderbird1921 No ones gonna buy your bullshet fairytale.

@@elviadarkgrape2859 If you wish to read Mr. Stigler's own description of it, read the book A Higher Call. It's no fairy tale.

@@elviadarkgrape2859 I concur you would think the only pro Hitler Germans were Eva and his dogs. Reminds me of the American soldier who said he had fought half way across Germany before he met his first Nazi.

The man on the left is not Walter Krupinski. He is Gerhard Barkhorn(1911-1983), second most succesful German fighter pilot during WW2 era. Also high ranking member of the Bundesluftwaffe. So the photo at 9:48 includes top-3 German aces of WW2 (Barkhorn, Hartmann and Rall).

@@jyrkilindholm2691 Yeah, you're right. I wasn't paying attention to the face too much, just the misspelled name.. But they do look somewhat alike, don't they?

Hartmann was 100% an Eastern Front veteran, right down to the USAAF fighters he shot down over Romania

That's very interesting. Are we takling swastika type memorabilia? Was it maps or trophies? Photos?

@@tpxchallenger - Yes, all that you mention plus from memory a few uniforms. I also remember that the photos stood out, with several showing Goring visiting the unit.

@@davidb2206 - I agree. The Officers I was with were in no way promoting Nazism, but proud of the historical element of their unit. I would assume that somewhere along the line people visited military installations and complained about what they saw, or narrow thinking politicians got involved....

@@RA76951 ...especially narrow thinking Politicans!! We Germans, now " a Volk von Gutmenschentum" who are biased on their History. Yes, History can be "bad", but if you erase it, it will happen again!

@@Wuestenkarsten - today's 'cancel culture' I guess. But misguided perception can be almost as bad - because I have an interest in military aviation, I have even come across people who think I must have right wing sympathies!

@@rigasarzemnieks4230 Smack on target!

There were many reasons from all sides. Politicians made it to a bomber with low range so they had to put reserve tanks under those little wings. The german air force had no skilled maintenance crew and the air force personell was a little uncontrolled in the beginnning. This plane had a lot of teething in the beginning not to mention this ejection seat ejecting downward when this plane had a lot of problems (wings, engines) on take off.

@@rigasarzemnieks4230 wrong the 104C was the USAF fighterbomber version of the F-104 A and the USAF used the F-104C in the fighter Bomber role for a short time during the Vietnam war, all Planes painted in SEA Camo.

@@indahooddererste I agree but! The F-104G used at first the Lockheed C-2 upward firing Seat later replaced by Martin Bakers GQ-7, the USAF fighterbomber version F-104C used an upwardfiring seat too, only the early (interceptor) A Version used a downwardfiring seat. About Droptanks, the 104 G could carry up to four in the nuclear strike role two under the Wings and two Wingtiptanks plus the Nuclear payload on the centerline Pylon, its called the four Tanker configuration in service.