Covers the 60 German fliers who scored 15 or more aerial victories in World War One.

A short chapter is devoted to each, noting (where known!) their date and place of birth, parents and jobs, their pre-war schooling and work and their wartime route into the German Air Service and the fighter arm.

Brief details of their first few and other notable victories and any awards they received for their victories. Information on their ultimate deaths, the majority on active service during WW1 - carried to their death in a spinning, often flaming, wreck; falling to their deaths when their parachute failed to open or to escape a worse death by simply jumping from their flaming planes or trapped in the wreckage of a planer when its structure just fails (Two exmaples when the upper wing of their Fokker Dr1 Triplane seperated from the rest), others died during fighting post WW1, either during border disputes with Poland or at the hands of fellow Germans during the anarchic years between the Hollenzohlen dynasty's demise and the birth of short-lived Weimar Republic.

The chapters go from the famous - Mannfred Von Richthoven (80 confirmed victories), Oswald Boelke (40), via those who gained further fame (or notoriety) during WW2 - Hermann Goering (22 victories), Theo Osterkamp (38 victories in WW1 plus 2 further confirmed victories in WW2 when commanding JG51), Gerhard Fiesler (19 victories, designer of the famous Fiesler Storch in WW2), through to the pioneers of aerial combat like Kurt Wintgens (19 confirmed victories), who's first (and uncomfirmed) victory on July 1st 1915 was the first by a German fighter plane in history and Max Immelmann (a "mere" 15 victories) .

Many of these aces won the coverted Pour le Merit (aka The Blue Max), Goering seems to have won his by using his "contacts" in high society, as he had scored only 18 victories at the time of the award, whereas 20 was the absolute minimum at this stage in the war!)The youngest was a mere 20 at the time of the award (and his death

Immelmann gained some 13 awards for bravery, Von Richthofen 23.

One pilot, who's name is virtually unknown today, needs special mention.

Leutnant Wilhelm Frankl, who scored 19 victories and fell in the service of his country on 8th April 1917. Lt Frankl's name was removed from the list of air heroes of WW1 in the 1930's, only being reinstated in 1973 and the modern Luftwaffe JG74 bears his name. Why was it removed? Because he was Jewish.

Just to fill out your admirable question, and research Pzkpfw-e, strange retro recognition of a hero from the First World War.

How many decades before they start looking at the heroes of the Second,  Norge, Cossack, Belgium, French, Latvian, Croatian?

 

Very nice thought provoking line!

 

Stand back Kamerad, I think HvM is coming in on this one !