European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 31, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Profile air Ace after combat soviet prison German Pilot found peace Story and photo by Joseph Owen staff writer when Frith Hartmann joined the German air force1 in world War ii Many germans thou gel the i on flick would be Brief no matter who won. Bui War lasted live and a half Yiirs. Anil for Hartmann who won Fame As the world s deadliest fighter Pilot the War spanned 15 years. I a Rev accused by his soviet jailers of War crimes he languished As a prisoner of War for More than a Ilei Ade after the last bullets were fired. I Lar Mann f 7, now lives in retirement with his wife Ursula or such in his Hometown the Stuttgart suburb of Weil in Schonbuch. As the 50lh anniversary of the i on Fly i that changed his life Drew near he expressed an ardent distaste for War something one might not expect to hear from a Man who shot 352 enemy planes out of the air More than any other fighter Pilot in history. What is War ii is something in which Young people who Don t know each other at All have to shoot at one another on the orders of old people who know each other hut Don t want to shoot at each other Hartmann said during an interview in the House he built shortly after his release from prison. War is the greatest crime that Ever  Only one other news Agency a los Angeles newspaper sought his reflections on the Start of the War 50 years ago. 1 hat is perhaps .1 tribute to his tendency not to draw attention to himself. We live a very secluded life he said. I Hartmann was like that even when the world had its Eye on him according to his biographers Raymond f. Toliver and trevo Constable. In the but Tel Kniehl of Germany they cite Hartmann s insistence on returning to Germany in 1955 after release from a soviet prison that a giant Celebration planned for him in Stuttgart be cancelled newspapermen asked him Why he would not at i Cpl the Heartfelt Welcome Home from his fellow Cili ens of Stuttgart. Because the russians View life differently from us he said. They might Well dec Ide on hearing or leading of such a Celebration Mil to release any More German prisoners. I know the russians Well enough to be fearful on this account for the continued imprisonment of my countrymen in the soviet Union " usually flying a Messerschmidt 109 decorated with a heart and such s name Hartmann shot Down hundreds of soviet planes and several american planes As Well in two and a half years of combat on the germans Eastern front. He had to make 14 emergency landings although he was never wounded. The biographers cite his Pride in never having lost a Wingman a fellow Pilot in an accompanying plane in combat and he insisted on returning to his Wing at the front despite offers of safer assignments. He defied a final order to Fly to Dortmund and surrender to the British because he wanted to Shepherd members of his unit and their families to safety. Americans look custody the group and turned its members Over to soviet soldiers who immediately raped and killed Many of the women in the group while the men watched helplessly at gunpoint Hartmann said in soviet slave labor Camps Hartmann refused to knuckle under to pressure to confess to War crimes. He staged hunger strikes and became the inspiration lot a prison revolt in one of the Many instances when he was sent to solitary confinement. Erich Hartmann 67, Beni Cawall of photographs at his Home in Weiliam Schonbuch his lonely struggle against the soviet secret Putli a said the authors far eclipses anything he achieved As a fighter  Hartmann once railed Bubi Young boy because of his Youthful appearance was born raised and educated in the towns West and South of Stuttgart he was attending a boarding school in Krontal when the news broke that Germany had invaded Poland. I Lar Mann still remembers the headmaster bursting into the dormitory the morning of sept. 1,.1 j39, saying Wake up Wake up the Little Worms Are calling ii was the headmaster s idea of a joke suggesting that some of his students would soon be dead and buried despite Adolf Hitler s Zeal in expanding his realm he said German citizens were not enthusiastic about the War. World War i had killed off much of the nation s youth and impoverished everyone else for two decades the germans were not in the mood to risk repealing that. But under the i Tiller dictatorship protesting a government decision was suicidal. So when the a is said on the radio that Poland had attacked Germany and Germany was invading Poland Only in self defense few believed but fewer resisted the inevitable he said. When it came on the radio i remember How my Mother cried Ursula Hartmann recalled Bubi and such were just getting to know each other then. The Only things thai interested Hartmann then were Romance and a desire to Fly. His Mother the first woman in Germany licensed to Fly a motorized plane had run the Bobingen gliding club in which Erich Learned to Fly. Knowing he would be drafted anyway Hartmann joined the air Force in october 1940 and was flying motorized planes by March 1941. By october 1942, when he joined the 52nd fighter Wing on the Eastern front the germans already had occupied the Ukraine and other vast tracts of the Western soviet Union. Hartmann racked up strings of Quick kills by using a technique other pilots shunned firing from Point Blank Range during an Aerial ambush. He avoided dogfights because they wasted time and fuel and often achieved nothing. His career almost ended abruptly when he made and emergency Landing and the soviet forces took him prisoner in 1943, but he escaped. He shot Down his 352nd plane a soviet Yak-7, Over Brno Czechoslovakia on May 8,1945, the last Day of the War in Europe. He had married such in 1944. She gave birth to their first child a son when he was in prison when the boy died in 1948, the soviets withheld the information from Hartmann for a year As they did when his father died in 1952. His Only Comfort was the occasional censored letter he received from such and the kindness of villagers who lived near some of the 11 Camps where he was imprisoned. Often i am expected to hate the russian people As though no other emotion could possibly be open to me he told his biographers but my 10 years in russian prisons taught me the difference Between the russian people and their secret  i to said the latter have a mentality that no rational Western educated individual can comprehend. You i an kill your father there and confess it to the police and hey May confine you for two years. If you steal something that is inconsequential. The russians laugh if you Don t steal something. But if you say that the american Chevrolet is belter than the russian Zilss car then you will gel 25 years in  i he physically and emotionally emaciated i Lar Mann and Many other German prisoners of War finally were released in 1955 after West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer interceded on their behalf with the Post Stalin soviet government. After a period of recuperation he joined the Brand new West German air Force rising to the rank of colonel and commanding the  Wing the fun e s first Jet fighter Wing. 1 Lis career also brought him into close Contact with americans. He Learned English and spent several months training in jets in Arizona. I tar Mann retired in 1970. I said to my wife Al 50 i m slaying Here " he said during the interview at his Home this week. N of his contacts with flying Are few. He let his Pilot s License expire last fall and does t expect to Fly again. Bui the display of photographs and other Memorabilia in his basement shows that he has t forgotten the thrill. And unlike other expos he does t try to shut out his past As a prisoner. Hartmann just received a Swiss Book cataloguing soviet prison Camps ant he has been charting his transfers Between Camps. T be does t Bear animosity toward the pilots he fought saying he shot them Down because if he had to they would have done it to him. His biography cites examples of his Friendly behaviour toward captured soviet airmen. Hartmann acknowledges that conditions appear to be changing in the soviet Union but he maintains his mistrust. The russian Promise promises promises but he never delivers he said. He also has Little stomach for politicians in his own country. A successful politician he said is one who dreams of the future sleeps away the present and is always finding mistakes in the  but he said he and his wife prefer the flaws of the present system to the nazi government under which he fought As a youth. Personally we feel quite at ease Hartmann said. A democracy is always belter than a  70 scripts Maguinez August 31,1989