hans-joachim herrmann kicks the bucket

[frankthring]

This is really for my old sparring partner Jim Slip !! In case you missed
it, Hans-Joachim Herrmann has died aged 97.
Who was Hans ? Well he was Hitler`s Inspector-General of night fighters,
learned his trade as a Luftwaffe pilot bombing civilians in Spain during the
Civil War, was over Poland bombing more defenceless folk on the very
first day of WW II and did 21 bombing missions over London.
He was handsome, ruthless and to the end of his days a committed Nazi.
Not for Hans any signs of repentence, oh no ! As a lawyer he defended
David Irving and other holocaust deniers. He once said "My oath was to
Hitler unto death".
Courageous, cool and utterly without moral scruples !
Who says old Nazis are only in books and movies like Marathon Man !!

[spider]

Just read that the Russians captured him and he spent ten years in a Russian Gulag.

He must have been one tough guy, not many Germans survived capture by the Russians.

[andy at handiwork]

Indeed not. For example, of the 92000 prisoner taken after the defeat of 6th Army at Stalingrad, less than 5000 ever returned to Germany. Senior German officers captured by the Russians generally had a much better chance of surviving imprisonment than the rankers and junior officers. On the other hand, not that many Russians survived capture by the Germans either.

[jimslip]

Danke sch?n! Herr Thring! F?r ihr Vergn?gen, ich habe angezeigt ein Bild von Hans f?r alle zu halten, f?r die Nachwelt!

[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AuPoOCVtSzM/T ... ille05.jpg[/img]

Vergessen Sie nicht, Herr Thring, war er folgende Auftr?ge!!adolf!

[Robches]

I read his book some time back, you are right, he was quite unrepentant about Germany's war aims.

I also read that at some time in the 70s there was some sort of reunion of RAF and Luftwaffe pilots. Douglas Bader was invited, and as he entered the room he saw the massed ranks of Huns, he turned to his mate and said "I didn't realise so many of the bastards had survived."

[frankthring]

Thanks for the comments lads, and danke schon Herr Slip for the
photo of handsome Hans in his heyday ! Reminds me a little of another
and far worse good looking Nazi - Gustav Wagner, SS deputy commandant
of Treblinka death camp, who at the end of the war compiled a scrapbook
of photos and ephemera and labelled it "The Good Old Days". He, I am
happy to say, committed suicide rather than face trial in Germany in 1980.

[andy at handiwork]

So it only took 35 years to bring him to justice.

[RoddersUK]

Pity he wasn't topped with the rest of the bastards at Neuremburg, eh?