German Fighter Ace Erich Hartmann: The Life Story of the World's Highest Scoring Ace

Here is the life story of the most successful fighter pilot of all time - Erich Hartmann, with 352 air combat victories - who spent ten and a half years behind Soviet barbed wire, surviving prison uprisings, hunger strikes, resistance against the NKVD and forced labor. After being released he was still mentally and physically fit enough to fly F-86 jet fighters in the post - World War II German Air Force. This photo album presents the stages of his life - a man who wished to become a doctor, but whose fate it was to become and remain a soldier. If Erich Hartmann were "only" the most successful fighter pilot of all time, that itself would be noteworthy. But its uniqueness would no doubt fade with time.

Ursula Hartmann. 296 pp., over 560 b/w photographs, Large Format Hardback