page_title: Hermann Graf
section_title: Towards Stalingrad
hierarchical_section_title: Hermann Graf / World War II / Towards Stalingrad
caption_attribution_description: English: picture of Hermann Graf's leather jacket and Me 109 tail rudder on display at the Technikmuseum Speyer, Germany
context_page_description: Hermann Graf was a German Luftwaffe World War II fighter ace. He served on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. He became the first pilot in aviation history to claim 200 aerial victories—that is, 200 aerial combat encounters resulting in the destruction of the enemy aircraft. In about 830 combat missions, he claimed a total of 212 aerial victories, almost all of which were achieved on the Eastern Front.
  Graf, a pre-war football player and glider pilot, he joined the Luftwaffe and started flight training in 1936. He was initially selected for transport aviation but was subsequently posted to Jagdgeschwader 51 in May 1939. At the outbreak of war he was stationed on the Franco–German border flying uneventful patrols. He was then posted as a flight instructor stationed in Romania as part of a German military mission training Romanian pilots. Graf flew a few ground support missions in the closing days of the German invasion of Crete.
  Following the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Graf claimed his first aerial victory on 4 August 1941. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross after 45 victories on 24 January 1942.
context_section_description: By the time Graf returned to active duty at the end of July, III./JG 52 had re-equipped with the Bf 109G, and was back at Taganrog in the south. On the ground, the German Army's summer offensive, Fall Blau, was underway, and the city of Rostov, gateway to the Caucasus, had fallen. In mid-August, III./JG 52 moved forward to provide air cover as the army tried to establish bridgeheads across the Kuban River to capture the Black Sea ports. Geschwaderkommodore Gordon Gollob, of nearby JG 77, was temporarily appointed to command JG 52, after Major Herbert Ihlefeld, was severely wounded in a take-off accident. Gollob rivalled Graf for highest scoring pilot on the Eastern Front. On 14 August, both pilots had 120 victories. Soon after, Graf led a detachment of experienced aces from III./JG 52 reassigned to JG 3 to cover the assault on Stalingrad. The detachment came under the command of Hauptmann Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke from JG 3.
  Initially Graf was based at Tuzov and then Pitomnik west of the city. He and his colleagues no longer faced obsolescent aircraft, as they had in the south. The city was critical to both sides. It was strongly defended and became the focus of intense air battles. Graf's victories quickly mounted, reaching 140 by the end of August.  In September, he shot down 62 enemy aircraft. On 4 September 1942, he became the second pilot to reach their 150th victory – downing a Yakovlev Yak-1. This came just 6 days after Gollob achieved the same milestone. Many times, he was lucky to get back to base uninjured. His aircraft was routinely shot up by enemy pilots or anti-aircraft fire. The fastest-scoring ace of the Luftwaffe, he was now shooting down several planes each day. The three fighters he downed on 9 September took him to 172 victories, which made him the top-scorer in the Luftwaffe. For this, he was awarded the Diamonds to his Knight's Cross. He became the fifth member of the Wehrmacht to receive this award, which at that time had only been awarded to Luftwaffe personnel. Within the space of eight months, he had received all four levels of the Knight's Cross – Germany's highest military decoration. He was also soon promoted to Hauptmann (Captain). 
  The next day tempered this achievement. Despite shooting down two more aircraft, it was the first time he had lost his wingman. Unteroffizier Johann Kalb had to bail out over the Volga River and was captured by Soviet troops. On 17 September he claimed three more victories but a 20mm Soviet cannon-shell went through his canopy, narrowly missing his head. On 23 September, he scored a remarkable ten victories in three missions, taking him to 197. On 26 September, he became the first pilot in aviation history to claim 200 enemy aircraft shot down. The 62 victories he claimed in that single month (of September) remain a record unbeaten in aviation history. Elevated to hero status by the Luftwaffe, he was promoted to Major on 29 September and forbidden from flying further combat missions. The whole of JG 52 gathered at Soldatskaja to congratulate him before he flew back to Berlin a few days later.
caption: Hermann Graf's leather jacket and Me 109 tail rudder on display at the Technikmuseum Speyer, Germany
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