The Red Hunters

Text: Jan Bobek

Illustration: Piotr Forkasiewicz

Cat. No. 84197

In mid-September 1942, Oblt. Hermann Graf, the commander of 9./JG 52, received Diamonds to the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords for surpassing the 200 air victories mark. Propaganda didn't want such a media star to fall in combat or into enemy hands. Therefore, in late January 1943, Graf became commander of the operational training unit Erg. Gr. Ost in France. In this capacity, he finally got around to his passion, which was football. It was then that the red tulip marking first appeared on his Fw 190.

Before the war, Graf was trying to qualify for the Germany national football team, and in the process he met the legendary German player Sepp Heberger for the first time. This footballer later became famous as coach of the West German national team that won the 1954 World Cup final, in a match later dubbed the “The Miracle of Bern”. In the second half, the German team completely outclassed the Hungarians, thanks to Adidas soccer cleats and probably also thanks to Pervitin, which was officially used by the German armed forces during the war.

Graf and Heberger met again in 1941, when they organised the participation of first league footballers in a friendly match between the German military mission and the Romanian team. In early 1943, Graf tried to organize a football team to relax and increase physical fitness. His men, however, had little affinity for the sport. Though, he was soon approached by a soldier from a neighbour unit named Bruno Klaffke, a football player, and Graf quickly arranged for his transfer to his own unit. Heberger took advantage of Graf's contacts and gave him the idea of pulling top German footballers to Graf's unit. They were assigned to ground personnel and it saved a large number of them from death at the front. Heberger also helped Graf train them.

Thus Graf's football team “Red Hunters” (Rote Jäger) was formed. They got the “red” nickname from the colour of the jerseys donated by a prominent German businessman. One of Graf's superiors was suspicious of his communist sympathies. Gradually, 20 first league players from Germany and Austria were concentrated on the Rote Jäger team. From August 1943 to November 1943 they played a total of 29 matches, 22 of them victorious. A detailed overview can be found here.

When Graf became CO of the high-altitude fighter unit JG 50, he managed to take the football team with him. The same was repeated when he was appointed Kommodore of JG 1, later the players followed him to JG 11 and in October 1944 moved with him to the Eastern Front to JG 52. Graf at that time was unable to perform combat flights due to the effects of a serious injury and so  he gradually recruited JG 52 aces for his Stab. They were Lt. Karl Gratz (138 v., KC), Oblt. Heinrich Füllgrabe (67 v., KC) and Lt. Anton Resch. Gratz became CO of 10./JG 52 in January 1945 and Füllgrabe was killed in late January 1945 after being hit by flak in a “Green 2”.

Hermann Graf also provided his Stab with latest equipment. Although JG 52 is considered one of the German units that used exclusively Messerschmitt Bf 109s, Graf was the exception to this rule. In December 1944, in addition to eight Bf 109 G-14/U4s and one Bf 109 G-14, he had three Fw 190 A-9s,  which outperformed the Messerschmitt at low level flights. However, Graf had one  Focke-Wulf (unsuccessfully) converted to the DB 605 engine, much to the displeasure of his mechanics! No further records of the Fw 190 at Stab JG 52 are yet available.

Of the approximately thirty victories achieved by the airmen of Stab JG 52 in 1945, mostly during the battles in Silesia, Anton Resch scored 22. For achieving 88 kills he was awarded the Knight's Cross on 7 April and by the end of the war he had gained three more victories. In the last days of the war, Stab, I. and III./JG 52 moved to Deutschbrod (now Havlíčkův Brod, Czech Republic). Among the wreckage at this base probably ended up not only Hartmann's plane from I./JG 52 with a black tulip on the nose, but also several Bf 109 K-4s of the Stab JG 52 with red tulips and small fuselage numbers placed behind the cross. Graf's Stab JG 50 aircraft were already similarly marked in 1943. In a private collection in the Czech Republic is part of the engine cowling of a  K-4 which, apart from the camouflage in shades of grey, bears part of the red tulip . For a more detailed study of the fate of Hermann Graf I recommend the excellent publication Graf & Grislawski A Pair of Aces by Christer Bergström.