Certificate of recognition from the Commander-in-Chief of the Army for aircraft kills
The forerunner of the low-level aircraft destruction badge is the Commander-in-Chief of the Army's certificate of recognition for aircraft shooting (with infantry weapons). The award was donated by Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch in mid-1941 shortly before the attack on the Soviet Union or immediately after it began . The date of the foundation of September 6, 1941, mentioned in other sources, is incorrect, as there is evidence that the first awards took place on September 2, 1941. For example, to the private Mäser of the 258th Infantry Division for a plane shot at Studenez (approx. 160 km from Moscow ) and to the 9th platoon of the 478 Infantry Regiment near Karna . First, like his Urkundenpedant the certificate of approval of the Commander of the Army for outstanding performance on the battlefield meant as a collective award, but later more and more awarded as a single award that should Certificate of Recognition for aircraft launch the assessment of aircraft kills by infantry weapons of formations and units of the army and the Waffen-SS express. This prevented aircraft being shot down by anti-aircraft weapons, such as the special army anti-aircraft units. The Army Flaka badge was specially donated for this.
Definition of aircraft launch
The shooting down of an enemy aircraft was understood primarily to mean that the enemy aircraft crashed as a result of fire ( impact fire ) but also as a result of the fire, burning with a visible white or black plume of smoke, fell from the sky or was so destroyed on impact that it could be used again Aircraft was no longer given. If the enemy aircraft was only forced to make an emergency landing as a result of bombardment and this happened on this side of one's own lines, it was considered a shot down, but on the other side of one's own lines only forced to land . In this case, it could also be subsequently rated as shot down if it was destroyed by subsequent shelling or bombing prior to enemy attack and recovery.
Award criteria
Hitler, himself Commander-in-Chief of the Army since December 19, 1941, stated in a leaflet specially issued for this purpose that the certificates of recognition he signed could generally not be awarded to individuals, but rather to the responsible company, platoon or regiment. Only in unequivocal individual cases in which an enemy aircraft was definitely shot down by an individual, a naming ceremony could be considered. In particular, in addition to the use of infantry weapons such as machine guns , carbines , pistols , etc., the following award requirements had to be met in order to recognize an aircraft kill:
- Clear report from the firing unit with a statement from at least one neutral observer and a sketch of the aircraft being shot down. When shooting down this side of one's own lines, the finding of aircraft remains was required for recognition.
- Attachment of a battle report from which the type of aircraft was shot down. The form provided for this contained information on
- Firing position of the company, the battalion or the platoon at the time of shooting
- Day, hour, minute and location of the launch
- Type of fire and use of ammunition
- Height and direction of flight of the downed aircraft
- Nationality, type, serial number or license plate number of the downed aircraft
- Type of destruction
- Flames with a dark or light flag after fire
- Which individual parts were blown away by the bombardment or were dismantled. The term fly away included unimportant cladding elements of the aircraft or the cockpit, whereby the term dismantle described the loss of airworthy parts (tail unit, wings, etc.)
- Name of the type of these flown or dismantled parts
- The enemy plane bursts apart
- Enemy aircraft on this side or on the other side of the own lines forced to crash-land
- Fired on fire beyond own lines
- General behavior of the enemy aircraft when shooting down
- Type and place of the service
- Fate of the inmates
- Participation of other platoons within the unit or other own earth troops or participation of own fighters in the shooting down
- Witness naming
- Attachment of a witness report with a description of the fight
- Unequivocal clarification of the individual kill through statements of the intermediate superiors. If there was no flawless evidence of an actual aircraft being shot down to a specific unit or individual, only the troop (s) were recognized in the order of the day.
Recognition procedure
After each enemy aircraft had been shot down, an application for the issuance of a certificate of recognition had to be completed using the official form, provided with the battle report and forwarded to the intermediate superiors for comment. The responsible army groups finally also issued a statement and forwarded the applications to the Army High Command . The handing over of the documents, signed by Hitler, were sent back via official channels after processing and were mostly given to the troops or to the individual as part of the daily orders. However, not only were certificates awarded for single kills, but also certificates for two or more aircraft kills. While in 1941 only about 37 days passed between the shooting and the dispatch of the documents, the time it took to process the applications increased with every further year of the war. In 1942, 143 days passed between the application and the dispatch. In 1943 it rose to 210 days and in 1944 the average waiting time was an incredible 226 days. This enormously long processing time inevitably led to the fact that many of the awarded persons or units no longer exist at the front at the time the documents were received or had been dissolved or long since fallen.
Award numbers
From September 1941 to February 1945 a total of 591 certificates of recognition were awarded, 282 of them to individual members of the army, 17 of whom were officers. An Italian soldier and two other individuals who belonged to the Todt Organization and the NSKK received a certificate . Members of the Waffen SS, one of whom was an officer, received eight certificates. The remainder of 306 awards were made to units and associations, 17 of which were members of the Waffen SS. The highest honored was Lieutenant General and Knight's Cross holder Wolf Hagemann and Knight's Cross holder Oberleutnant Bernhard Kuhna . The last official award to an individual took place on October 15, 1944, to a non-commissioned officer in the heavy tank division 506, and on January 23, 1945, to the 3rd platoon of the field replacement battalion 198 as a collective.
literature
- Veit Scherzer : The holder of the certificate of recognition of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army for aircraft kills 1941-1945. Scherzer's Militair-Verlag, Burgstadt Ranis 1994.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Veit Scherzer: The holder of the certificate of recognition of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army for aircraft kills 1941-1945. Scherzer's Militair-Verlag, Burgstadt Ranis 1994, pp. 86 and 129.
- ^ Veit Scherzer: The holder of the certificate of recognition of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army for aircraft kills 1941-1945. Scherzer's Militair-Verlag, Burgstadt Ranis 1994, pp. 120 and 229.