Hermann Graf

Hermann Graf (24 October 1912 – 4 November 1988) was a German Luftwaffe World War II fighter ace. He served on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. He became the first pilot in aviation history to claim 200 aerial victories—that is, 200 aerial combat encounters resulting in the destruction of the enemy aircraft. In about 830 combat missions, he claimed a total of 212 aerial victories, almost all of which were achieved on the Eastern Front.

Graf, a pre-war football player and glider pilot, joined the Luftwaffe and started flight training in 1936. He was initially selected for transport aviation but was subsequently posted to Jagdgeschwader 51 (JG 51—51st Fighter Wing) in May 1939. At the outbreak of war he was stationed on the Franco–German border flying uneventful patrols. He was then posted as a flight instructor stationed in Romania as part of a German military mission training Romanian pilots. Graf flew a few ground support missions in the closing days of the German invasion of Crete.

Following the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Graf claimed his first aerial victory on 4 August 1941. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross after 45 victories on 24 January 1942. It was during the second summer of the eastern campaign; however, that his success rate dramatically increased. By 16 September 1942 his number of victories had increased to 172 for which he was honored with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. At the time of its presentation to Graf it was Germany's highest military decoration. On 26 September 1942 he shot down his 200th enemy aircraft.

By then a national hero, Graf was withdrawn from combat operations and posted to a fighter pilot training school in France before being tasked with the setting up of a new special unit: Jagdgeschwader 50 (JG 50—Fighter Wing 50). Its mission was as a high-altitude unit to intercept the de Havilland Mosquito intruders. In November 1943 Graf returned to combat operations. He was appointed Geschwaderkommodore (Wing Commander) of Jagdgeschwader 11 (JG 11—11th Fighter Wing) and claimed his last and 212th aerial victory on 29 March 1944. He was severely injured during that encounter and, after a period of convalescence, became Geschwaderkommodore of Jagdgeschwader 52 (JG 52—52nd Fighter Wing). He and the remainder of JG 52 surrendered to units of the United States Army on 8 May 1945, but were turned over to the Red Army. Graf was held in Soviet captivity until 1949. After the war he worked as an electronic sales manager and died after a long illness in his home town of Engen on 4 November 1988.

Early life Hermann Anton Graf was born on 24 October 1912 in Engen in what was then the Grand Duchy of Baden near Lake Constance and the border to Switzerland, the son of Wilhelm Graf (1878–1937), a farmer, and his wife Maria, née Sailer (1877–1953). He was the third of three children, with two older brothers, Wilhelm Wilhelm (1904–1981) and Josef Wilhelm (1909–1981). His father fought in and survived World War I as an artillery soldier, being awarded the Iron Cross. Postwar, the Weimar Inflation crisis of 1923 wiped out virtually all the family savings, and as a result, from a very early age, Graf had to work.

As a young boy, Graf was an avid footballer. He started with his local football club DJK Engen and later became a goalkeeper at FC Höhen. In his teens, he was selected to join a group of talented young players trained by Sepp Herberger. Herberger was a forward in the Germany national football team from 1921–1925, and later head coach of the German 1954 FIFA World Cup-winning team. However, a broken thumb ended Graf's early hopes for a professional football career.

Graf finished his Volksschule (primary school) in 1926 at the age of thirteen. Without the means to fund a higher education, Graf applied for an apprenticeship. For the next three years, he worked as a locksmith's apprentice at a local factory. A locksmith had a low income, so when offered work as an apprentice clerk, he gladly accepted a change in career.

Amateur pilot and joining the Luftwaffe Graf saw his first aircraft when he was twelve years old. This sight created a conflict between his passion for football and a new obsession with flying. From 1930, he worked at the Engen town hall and saved all his money to buy a glider. Before his 20th birthday, he provided a homemade glider to the new Engen Sailplane Club. Every Sunday he would go out to the nearby Ballenberg mountain until a heavy crash destroyed his glider in the fall of 1932. In 1935, after Adolf Hitler officially revoked the Treaty of Versailles, Graf applied for flight training in the newly created Luftwaffe.

Graf was accepted for the Luftwaffes A-level pilot training school in Karlsruhe on 2 June 1936. |group=Note based in occupied France. Here newly trained fighter pilots destined for the Eastern Front received their final training from experienced Eastern Front pilots. The main base was at St. Jean d'Angély north of Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast although Graf spent most of his time at the Toulouse-Blagnac Airport. Graf selected a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-5 aircraft for his personal use and lavishly decorated it. Without the stress of aerial combat, Graf was again able to indulge his other great passion: soccer.

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-5/U7 flown by Major Hermann Graf, Southern France 1943. alt=A fighter aircraft, shown in profile, viewed from the left. The aircraft is grey, with a yellow and red nose and a yellow and red rudder at the rear. Decorations include a stylized yellow and red lightning bolt, black-and-white crosses on the body and on the wing, and a black swastika on the tail.

In response to political humiliation caused by de Havilland Mosquito bombing raids into Germany, Hermann Göring ordered the formation of special high-altitude Luftwaffe units (Jagdgeschwader 25, commanded by Ihlefeld and Jagdgeschwader 50, under Graf) to combat these attacks. In mid-March, Graf was ordered to Berchtesgarden, Hitler's alpine retreat, where he received his instructions from Göring personally. Graf was permitted to choose his personnel. He transferred his old friends, Grislawski, Süss and Füllgrabe, from III./ JG 52, as well as a number of football players serving as administrators in his JGr Ost training unit.

While in Berlin organizing the necessary transfers, Graf was introduced to the young film actress, Jola Jobst, whom he later wed. The new assignment was then delayed for two months for political reasons. Graf was to run one final pilot-training program: the latest draft of Spanish volunteers heading to the Eastern Front – the 4th Escudrilla Azul (4th Blue Squadron). From 18 May to 6 June 1943, the pilots received three weeks of specialized fighter pilot training for the Soviet conditions.

Defense of the Reich On 11 June 1943, Graf arrived at the Wiesbaden airfield to set up his new unit. Remaining elements were drafted out of Jagdgruppe Süd . The unit would be equipped with the new Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-5, a high-altitude variant of the Bf 109 G-6. It was equipped with a pressurized cockpit and armed with extra underwing cannons or rockets. Delivery of the aircraft was delayed but in the meantime, Graf was able to shoot down a Mosquito intruder. Graf's focus also went back to football. He invited Sepp Herberger, coach of Reich's football team, to Wiesbaden to train his team for a day. During this visit, Herberger encouraged Graf to use his influence to save Germany's best footballers from frontline duty. Subsequently, Graf brought in players from the Germany national football team as administrators, drivers and mechanics – men like Hermann Eppenhoff, Hermann Koch, Alfons Moog, Franz Hanreiter and Walter Bammes. Graf also requested Fritz Walter, who later captained the West German World Cup team of 1954. Walter's transfer was more difficult. For this, Graf had to submit his request directly to Generaloberst (Colonel General) Friedrich Fromm, the commander of the Ersatzheer (Reserve Army).

The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) daylight bombing offensive over Europe commenced in January 1943. It was having an increasing impact. By July, they were able to reach deep into Germany and demanded more and more attention from the Luftwaffe. At the end of the month, against an 800-bomber raid on Kassel, Graf claimed his first four-engine bomber.

His unit received the first twelve Bf 109 G-5 planes in July 1943. With one of these aircraft he managed to reach an altitude of . The unit was finally declared combat ready on 31 July 1943, albeit with only nineteen aircraft and made up of a single, three-squadron, Gruppe. Graf's football team, the Roten Jäger (Red Hunters), was also ready and played its first game on 4 August 1943, with Graf as goalkeeper. This football team followed Graf in his command postings for the remainder of the war. The unit's first major interception was fairly inauspicious – a bomber raid on the Ruhr on 12 August. Graf was greatly annoyed that no enemy aircraft were shot down. On 15 August 1943, Graf's unit was officially named Jagdgeschwader 50 (50th Fighter Wing). On 17 August, the USAAF Eighth Air Force raided Regensburg, attacking the Messerschmitt factories there. This time JG 50 was far more successful. It was based almost right in the raid's flightpath and claimed 11 bombers shot down for the loss of two of their own pilots. It was mooted that JG 50 would be equipped with the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket fighter. The Me 163 was being tested by Major Wolfgang Späte's test unit Erprobungskommando 16 (16th Test Commando) at Peenemünde and Rechlin in the summer of 1943. Following a visit to the test unit, Graf also learned about the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. He returned to JG 50 full of optimism. The unit's regular role was extended to bomber interception, and Graf's Mosquito, the first victory for the unit, ironically proved to be the only one shot down by JG 50. After the heavy losses of the Regensburg raid, the USAAF was unable to immediately mount further unescorted deep raids into Germany. This allowed some respite for JG 50. Its next major action was 6 September. Graf shot down two of the four four-engined bombers claimed, even though he had to crash-land his aircraft.

Wing commander of JG 1 and JG 11 The Allied bomber offensive was taking its toll of experienced leaders. On 8 October 1943, Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) Hans Philipp, the second pilot after Graf to reach 200 air victories, and Geschwaderkommodore (Wing Commander) of Jagdgeschwader 1 (JG 1 – 1st Fighter Wing), was killed in action. The next day, while still officially remaining in command of JG 50, Graf was appointed acting Geschwaderkommodore of JG 1 and transferred to Jever. Graf appointed Grislawski (then Staffelkapitän [Squadron leader] of 1./ JG 50) as acting Kommodore in his absence. The Eighth Air Force flew their second raid on Schweinfurt on 14 October 1943. Although costly to the attackers (77 heavy bombers were destroyed by either German fighters or by the anti-aircraft fire for the loss of 46 German fighters), Göring was not satisfied. On 23 October, Graf and Major Anton Mader, Geschwaderkommodore of Jagdgeschwader 11 (JG 11 – 11th Fighter Wing, the other home-defense day-fighter unit) were summoned to a meeting of the fighter commanders with Göring at Deelen Air Base near Arnhem. The night before, 6,000 civilians had been killed in a bombing raid on Kassel. En route from Jever, Graf and Mader were nearly shot down by a flight of two Mosquitos over the North Sea Coast, while flying in an unarmed Messerschmitt Bf 108 Taifun.

Several days after the October meeting, JG 50 was disbanded and its personnel absorbed into I./Jagdgeschwader 301, a Wilde Sau night-fighter unit. While operational, JG 50 had claimed 45 Allied four-engined bombers. Graf was promoted to Oberst (Colonel) and on 11 November, appointed Geschwaderkommodore (Wing Commander) of JG 11, General Hans Seidemann, commander of Luftwaffenkommando VIII, wanted to make a last stand in the Alps. Graf disobeyed Seidemann's order for him and Erich Hartmann to fly to the British sector to avoid capture by the Soviets. He also refused to abandon his ground-crew and fly with his pilots to join Seidemann in the alpine redoubt. Instead, he led the 2,000 unit-personnel and fleeing local citizens on a march through Bohemia to cross the Moldau River (the nominal Allied stop-line). Once there, he surrendered his unit to the 90th US Infantry Division near Písek on 8 May 1945 and became a prisoner of war (POW).

Prisoner of war alt=A black and white photo of numerous men, some carrying backpacks, heading for a train. Graf's unit was interned for over a week with more than 30,000 other disarmed soldiers in a primitive camp with minimal food and sanitation. Following the letter of the Allied agreement, units fighting on the Eastern Front were to become Soviet prisoners. Graf and most of the JG 52 personnel were handed over by the American forces to the Soviet Union on 15 May 1945. On 20 August, he and other senior Luftwaffe officers, including Hartmann and Hans Hahn, were moved to POW Camp No. 150 in Gryazovets, northeast of Moscow. This was a (relatively) more comfortable confinement than the regular labour camps and intended to provide a more sympathetic environment for high-profile prisoners. When Graf was found not to be malleable for their purposes, the Soviet regime put him on trial for war-crimes. However, when insufficient evidence could be produced, the charges were dropped. Erich Hartmann however, was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years of forced labour. On 8 December 1945, Graf was moved to POW Camp No. 27 in Krasnogorsk, Moscow. The author, Musciano, mentions that he was subject to solitary confinement for extended periods, but that he had his final order hidden in his shoe and would re-read it to keep his sanity.

Whereas German POWs in Allied camps were progressively released in 1946–1947, the Soviets mainly released their prisoners in 1948–1949. Graf's release was finally approved late in 1949 and he was transferred to Repatriation Camp No. 69 (Heimkehrerlager Gronenfelde) near Frankfurt (Oder) in East Germany on 25 December 1949. after = Maj Werner Andres title = Commander of Jagdgruppe Ost years = 1 February 1943 – April 1943