But his real secret was simple: He refused to fight unless he knew he would win.
This is the story of Erich Hartmann..
His own comrades called him Bubi. Little Boy. Because at 20 years old he looked like a teenager who had wandered onto an airfield by accident. His first combat mission was a disaster. He chased a Soviet fighter, lost control of the engagement, nearly collided with his wingman and had to belly land in a field. His commander sentenced him to three days working with the ground crew. He used the time to think. He never made the same mistake again.
He stopped chasing. Stopped taking fair fights. Instead he developed a system. Climb high. Find the enemy before they find you. Dive from altitude. Close until their aircraft filled his entire windshield — 60 feet or less. Fire one short burst. Break away before anyone could react. He described it simply: when the enemy fills the entire windscreen you cannot miss. It was less like flying and more like hunting. He did all of this in the same aircraft from the first kill to the last. The Messerschmitt Bf 109.
Soviet pilots began to recognise his plane by its black tulip insignia. When they spotted it they turned back to base rather than engage him. Stalin placed a 10,000 ruble bounty on his head, exceeded only by the bounties on Hitler's most senior commanders. So Hartmann removed the insignia entirely. Better to be invisible than feared. His kill count kept climbing. 50. 100. 150. 200. The Soviets had no answer for a man who simply refused to fight on anything other than his own terms.
On May 8 1945 hours before Germany surrendered he shot down his 352nd aircraft over Czechoslovakia. He then flew west and surrendered to American forces rather than Soviet ones. He knew exactly what the Soviets would do with him. The Americans handed him over anyway. Soviet prosecutors charged him with war crimes specifically the deliberate destruction of 345 Soviet aircraft. He pointed out that it was war. They sentenced him to 25 years of hard labour. He spent a decade in gulags refusing to work, refusing to confess, refusing to break. While he was imprisoned his son was born. And died aged three. He never met him.
The Soviets offered him a way out. Join the East German Air Force and go home. He refused. Every single time they asked. He was beaten, tortured and thrown into solitary confinement. He still refused. In 1955 West Germany finally negotiated his release. He came home to find his father had also died while he was gone. He had missed a decade of his life. He joined the West German Air Force anyway. Because flying was all he had left.
He was forced into retirement in 1970 for opposing his government's procurement of a fighter jet he believed was killing his pilots.
In 1997 Russia posthumously cleared him of all war crimes charges.
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