Talk:Günther Schack

To the editor

Hallo, MisterBee, Guten Abend,

thank you for having "reanimated" the article about my uncle Günther Schack.

Tried to transfer the text about his life from the German Wiki to English (without copyright violation, because it is my own text), but my English is not so good. Perhaps you can pimp it up and then insert it?????

Thank you in advance Best regards --88.72.6.8 (talk) 21:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC) (in German Wiki: Reichensee)

Life

Guenther Schack was born in Bartenstein, a small town in Eastern Prussia, on November 12th 1917 as the son of Dr. Willy Schack and his wife, Dorothea, born Nietzki. He studied at the Technical Universities of Stuttgart and Aachen. In 1937, when he first tried to join the Luftwaffe, he was categorised as “wehruntauglich” (ineligible for military service) because of a sports injury in his early life. But after a new application as a volunteer he was accepted and joined the German Air Force (Luftwafffe at September 2nd 1939. After training for fighter pilot he met the 7th flying squadron of the Jagdgeschwader 51 with the service grad of a private/lance corporal. His first victory in aerial combat, he won on July 23rd 1941 at the eastern front (“Ostfront”). Meanwhile, he was promoted to the rank of a sergeant. After his 48th air victory, he was ordered back to Germany to serve as a flight instructor and was there promoted to lieutenant on January 1st 1943. In Mid-1943 he returned back to the eastern front and now served in the 9th flying squadron of the Jagdgeschwader 51. On September 3rd 1943 he could mark up his 100th Air victory and on December 8th 1943 he became chief of the 9th flying squadron. On July 1st 1944 Schack got his promotion to captain (Hauptmann). In December 1944 he advanced to commander of the 1st Group and after its dissolution at May 1st 1945 he was named commander of the 4th Group of the Jagdgeschwader 3. By the end of the war, he had scored 174 victories in 780 aerial combats and was shot down 15 times.

After the war Günther Schack worked as a sales manager in the manufacturing company of his uncle. In 1968 he resign from his job, left his wife and his three children and begun a new life in a isolated cottage in the mountain area Eifel where he lived as a vegetarian cultivating his own vegetables. During this time, he tried to deal with his traumata of the war and to develop and propagate his own philosophy of life: the “Homokratie”

Thank you MisterBee for the work done. My only remark: A Gruppenkommandeur can not advance to commander of a group, because a Gruppenkommandeur is a commander of a group. "Gruppenkommandeur" is no rank. So: he advanced to commander of the I. group, that`s why he then could be called a "Gruppenkommandeur". For the discussion about the reliablity of the sources: There was no doubt about the reliability of the source "Luftwaffe.cz" in the German Wiki, but there was claimed a copyright violation of that source, because the first German articel was a translation of the English wiki articel, and that was classified as plagiarism of the articel at "Luftwaffe.cz". Of course more reliable sources should be found. When I will find time, i will try.... --Reichensee (talk) 17:13, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Claims

The text says Schack's five-Pe-2 kill was on 1943-01-29, referring to Weal's book "Fw 190 Aces of the Eastern front". This is in contradiction with the JG51 claims list available from http://www.luftwaffe.cz/jg51_victories.html, which gives the data as 1942-12-17. This latter date I have also seen in other sources. Is there a way to decide which date is more reliable? 83.250.140.199 (talk) 21:30, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I have now explored this further with the help of Tony Wood's Combat Claims & Casualties Lists, where the official German records state that Schack shot down five Pe-2 on 1942-12-17 and then a further four on 1943-01-29, both while with 7./JG 51. I have therefore edited the text in accordance with this. 83.250.130.237 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC).