Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant
His claims were subject to the usual very strict Luftwaffe kill-claiming procedures - at least for air-to-air kills. Rudel might have been an unrepentant Nazi, and possibly a braggart, but he was undoubtedly one of the finest attack pilots ever.
I think that there's a lot of truth to his stories. Certainly, his story about sinking the Marat is valid, as is his sortie record (over 2,500 combat missions!). How many ground vehicles he actually destroyed is questionable, but it's probably a considerable number.
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The problem is not that Rudel was an unrepentant Nazi, but that his feats were surely amplified by Nazi propaganda, and we don’t know how much. In the process, his ego was inflated to the point that, very humanly, he probably ended up believing his own tales. But why today should we take his words for granted? He surely was a fine pilot, but how he really compares to his comrades? Anyone knows – this is a serious question, not a rhetorical one – how many Luftwaffe pilots flew the same plane types as Rudel, mainly the Stuka?