I followed this thread with a lot of interest.
All in all I tend towards Furios side, hopefully not only because I find Rudel an absolutely despicable person.
I am pretty sure that he was a very good pilot, but largely a creature of propaganda. The Nazis, despite their mass-ideology that tried to eliminate indiviuality, needed heroes. The public especially loved fighter pilots like Marseille. Hitler himself, who always perceived the war from the perspective of a foot soldier in WWI trenches, never liked the 'gentlemanly' fighters pilots, but favoured the bombers (interestingly labelled 'Kampfflieger', that is fighters, while fighters are 'Jäger' = hunters). The idea of bringing unescapable death from above most probably was a wet dream of his sick brain. So there was a need to find a bomber pilot and make him a propaganda hero. Rudel was fitting the description and very willing and ready to believe that he was the 'chosen one'
It is true that the Nazis were obsessed with keeping records and kill claim procedure was meticulous. But for propaganda exeptions were easily madeor numbers were manipulated. For example the rumours never died that Galland, as long as he was in favour, reached his kill numbers by shooting down airplanes that were already crippled by his squadron members (no shared kills in the Luftwaffe system), other pilots like Krupinski found it sometimes pretty hard to get their kill claims accepted.
So I think it is easily possible that every time Rudel started the engine of his plane, it was counted as a sortie. Or equally that he was credited with the kills of other pilots of his squadron, who conveniently did not return ...
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