HANS ULRICH RUDEL, STUKA PILOT

A good read, I must get a copy of it for myself as I got it from the library

I read his story, Stuka Pilot, as a kid, and still have the paperback…

Amazing how much he flew in the war! Unstoppable…

Can’t comment on Rudel’s politics specifically, but he was one touch cookie on the tank-busting front. In aviation some stunningly skilled and high achieving folks have some rather ropey politics. (It would make a fun but unpostable list!)

Hanna Reisch was also quite clear about her politics postwar. I can’t agree with her, but she was at least honest – a rough and brief summary would be that through the Nazi party she got a lot of oportunities and thus served her country well – her view was to change later would be hypocritical. That said, what revalations of horror does one need to change your mind?

Again, whatever her politics, and she certainly was pushyas well (but she needed to be…) one of the truely great pilots.

Cheers!

All the sites which I searched remark that he was an unrepentant Nazi until his dying day.
Some seem proud of that fact 🙁

Unrepentant Nazi?
I wonder how many of the WWII Luftwaffe pilots/aces admired by aviation buffs share that viewpoint?

Here are a few links you likely have found already but just in case…

http://members.aol.com/ab763/rudel.htm

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/gen9.htm

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.pilotenbunker.de/Stuka/Rudel/rudel.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3DHANS%2BULRICH%2BRUDEL%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG

NOTE: That last one is huge because it is the Google translation of the page of you do not read German.

Though some websites claim he did not change his views some state he never was a hardcore Nazi… Thus why change from being a Nazi if you aren’t one in the first place… Either way hard to be a war criminal flying in a plane I guess… But that is a whole other debate….

Here’s his gravesite:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ejnoomen/rudel.html

I believe he died 18 December, 1982