Rybin, Y. Luftwaffe ace Walter Schuck researched / Christer Bergstrom, Yuriy Rybin. - Sweden : [s. l.], 2019. - 190 p. : ill.

WALTER SCHUCK 0 THE TIRPITZ STORY - EHRLER IN TROUBLE Before Schuck left for Berlin, he held a press confer­ ence for Norwegian and German press in Oslo. When he was asked how he could stand the long time in the desolate Far North, he knew exactly what to answer. He did not have to think of the recent incident wherer Ober- stleutnant Ehrler had saved him; it was merely another expression of the strong bonds between all the “Eis­ meerjager”: “That is because of the strong comradeship,” Schuck answered without hesitation. “I would say: Comradeship is above all!” The next day, 2 November 1944, he flew to Berlin in a Ju 52. Fortunately, the transport plane was able to avoid the attention from the nine hundred U.S. fight­ ers which swarmed in over Germany during the mid­ day hours, escorting more then one thousand American heavy bombers as these pounded on various oil targets in Germany. When they landed in Berlin, Schuck knew nothing of the terrible slaughter in the air, where over one third of the three hundred German fighters which made contact with the American air fleet had been shot down. However, the Luftwaffe’s commander in chief, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring, knew, and he was furious. By this time, Goring’s Luftwaffe was a mere shadow of what it had once been. Five years of war had worn down the German Air Force to a point where it was una­ ble to defend the homeland against a mounting Allied bomber offensive. One week before the disaster of 2 November 1944, a frustrated Goring had threatened the commanders of the fighter units in the Home Defence that unless five hundred heavy bombers would be shot down “the next time”, they would all be demoted and sent to the infantry. “I have spoiled you,” Goring had thundered. “I have showered you with awards, and that has made you fat and lazy.” He also had lashed out against the victory scores of the fighter pilots: “Oh, and this aerial victory circus. . . No one on earth believes in your astronomical victory claims!” Schuck and the other “Eismeerjager”, who had been practically isolated in the Far North for all those years, knew nothing, or almost nothing, about all of this. When Schuck met Goring in Berlin, for the award ceremony on 6 November, the Reichsmarschall was in the same ter­ rible mood against the fighter pilots, and Schuck under­ stood nothing. Thirteen Luftwaffe officers had been summoned to the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, the Air Ministry, for the award ceremony. Among them were Generalmajor Heinz Trettner and Oberst Karl-Lothar Schulz, the com­ manders of the 4th and 1st Paratroop Divisions, six other paratroopers, and four Schlachtflieger (ground-attack pilots), each of whom had performed over one thousand combat missions. But apart from Schuck, there was no T