Nothing but Tigers!

[m10bob]

http://www.alanhamby.com/tiger.html

NOTE:Everybody knows the name of Michael Wittmann, but how many know of "Hans" Bolter?..Hauptmann Bolter was Germany's 2nd highest Panzer ace, behind Wittmann.
On this site, go to the Tiger aces screen and you will see these gents were not the highest aces with kills on the Tiger alone.
Wittmann for instance made a lot of kills in the Stug, which was used as a tank killer.

[jeffmac]

What about Kurt Knipsel? He had 168 kills, MIchel Wittman had 138. It would seem to me that politics had a great deal to do with wha got recognition and who didn'td.

[stevemk1a]

The German propaganda machine in WWII had a great appetite for "aces". Wittman, Rudel, Hartmann, Rommel, Prein, etc ...

Superhuman aryan aces defeating masses of lesser skilled opponents! Be it Tigers, ME109's, or the Bismark! All fodder for Signal magazine!

Early war allies had plenty of heroes but less press releases ... until later on!

[freddiefly]

I think that very few have heard of Knispel, probably because he wasnt the typical aryan national socialist that they required for their propaganda machine.
He should have received a lot more decorations than he did, but rising through the ranks and not being a commited Nazi probably didnt do him any favours.

regards
Freddie

[Apocal]

I'm fairly certain Michael Wittmann rose through the ranks as well.

[Kevin E. Duguay]

It's all good to me![:D]

[Grell]

ORIGINAL: jeffmac

What about Kurt Knipsel?

Hi Jeff,


I've never heard of Knipsel.

Regards,

Grell

[Adnan Meshuggi]

well, Wittmann had also al lot antitankgun-kills... the german army rated different.

Also, Wittmann was in the SS, and Himmlers wet dream (to replace the Army by the SS) needed urgently SS-Heros.

But this has nothing to do with the records of these people. blond and blue eyes does not help sitting in a mark3f-stug duelling with a pair of t34...

so, if someone have a problem with propaganda, this seems fine. But the taste of "i dislike these records because they are not leaded by "my" nations heros" is very strong.

I scanned the list and was surprised. Sure, Will Fey is know, but not for killing 90 tanks. Bolters is also a well known name but again, not the high numbers

For Otto Carius i am surprized, cause his record is given with 180+ tanks. Main problem is the record tracking late war. In this time a few tigers was everything the germans had. And they had no time to make long observations... so i think some records are to high.