WWII: It has been said that Hans-Ulrich Rudel, the great Stuka pilot, was something of a maniac. Did you know him?

Rall: Absolutely, he was a bit of a maniac. I flew with him as his fighter escort for his group several times. They were flying normal Ju-87 missions, and we escorted them. This was in Russia, of course. He was a great Stuka pilot, no doubt–after all, he shot up 519 tanks among other things, which is quite something. After the war I was a fellow prisoner with him in France, as guests of the Americans. Rudel and I were in the same camp, and later we were borrowed by the Royal Air Force. I was sent to the British Fighter Leaders School at Tangmere. This was for interrogation, which lasted three weeks. I was there with Rudel as well, and we slept in the same room. Living very close together you get acquainted, and you come to understand the thinking of such a man, but I had known him before that. Anyhow, I was really surprised at this egocentric man; he was the greatest in his own mind, that sort. It was a little disgusting to me.

WWII: What do you recall of your meetings with Adolf Hitler, such as the occasion when he awarded you the Oak Leaves and Swords to your Knight’s Cross?

Rall: The first time was in November 1942, when I was given the Oak Leaves. As you know, additional honors to the Knight’s Cross, from the Oak Leaves onward, were presented by Hitler personally. I was there with Steinhoff–at that time it was Hauptmann Steinhoff and Oberleutnant Rall–with some others, five of us in all. Certainly we were impressed with his headquarters in East Prussia, at the Wolfschanze (Wolf’s Lair) at Lotzen. We entered, he was standing there, and he handed over our decorations. We sat around the fireplace, and he asked each of us which units we came from, our battle experience and so on. All questions such as this, quite normal. Well, pretty soon he started his own monologue, knowing that we would go back to our unit and repeat what he had told us, and we would remark on what a great guy he was. Well, he started talking about the buildup of the anti-aircraft defense and new communications systems in Russia, the railway system and things like this. He talked about the width of the railroad tracks, how they needed to be made wider for standard German rail traffic and extended into the deeper regions. This was to be the expansion of the Third Reich in the Middle East–the building of villages and towns, all of these very essential things, which was a program he had in mind, no doubt. I asked him then, perhaps I was too courageous, but I interrupted him and asked, ‘Despite all of that, how long do you think this war will be? Because when we moved into Russia, the newspapers said that by the time the first snows came down we would be finished with the war in the East. Instead, we have suffered in the cold over there.’ So Hitler then said to me, ‘Well, I cannot tell you. This might be an open area. We have our settlements here, and when the enemy comes from the depths of the Asian steppe, then we will defend this area. Just like in the days of Genghis Khan.’

WWII: Wasn’t General Steinhoff under the impression that Hitler was a little crazy after meeting him near Stalingrad?

Rall: Yes, this is the next point. This was before the collapse of Stalingrad and before El Alamein. This was the apex of his war. From that point on we went backward. It was too optimistic. Well then, nine months later I had to come back again to receive my Swords from Hitler. By that time we had lost the Sixth Army and Stalingrad, as well as El Alamein and the front in North Africa. You know, we had a hell of a time with the submarine war, and this was now a very different Hitler. He was no longer talking about tangible facts. He was talking about, ‘I see the deep valley. I see the strip on the horizon,’ and it was all nonsense. He was speaking about magical figures of manpower and production, a fantasyland. We saw this man as no longer certain, and as infirm. The third time I saw Hitler was when I was summoned to receive my documentation for my Oak Leaves and Swords. It was engraved, gilded and beautifully made with a lovely skirt, frame and so on.

WWII: Do you still have these certificates?

Rall: No, they were stolen in Vienna, most likely by the Russians. There are some of them still available, but not mine. I gave them to my wife and told her to keep them safe and place them in the bunker in the city of Vienna. When we came back a couple of years later, they were gone and nothing was left. At that time there were only 16 or so (who had been so honored), with names such as Adolf Galland, Helmut Lent, Walter Nowotny, as they were all still alive at that time. Lent and Nowotny died before the war ended. Walter Oesau, Dietrich Pelz, Heinz Bar and I were present when Hitler handed these over. Then we had lunch with him, and as usual he started to talk. The main subject of his speech was the pending Allied invasion. This was January 1944. Everybody expected the invasion all along the Channel coast, wondering when it was coming and how they were coming and so on. At that time he developed his ideas, and you could see that Hitler was hopping around, very uncertain. Also, you know, one thing that was very typical of him was his stating how the British were always having problems with their opposition parties, the Labor Party, the labor unions and so on. It was clear to me that this man was a little out of his mind. Hitler did not have a really clear, serious concept of the situation. Whatever their problems, the British come together during war; they are one nation.

WWII: What was your impression of the Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter, which you flew?

Rall: Well, it was certainly a new dimension. The first time I sat in it, I was most surprised about the silence. If you are sitting in a standard piston-powered aircraft, you have a hell of a noise in the radio headset, background noise and static and such, which I did not experience in the Me-262. It was absolutely clear. With radio from the ground they controlled the flight. They gave me my orders, such as ‘Now accelerate your engines, build your rpm.’ It was very clear. Totally clear. One other thing was you had to advance the throttles very slowly. If you went forward too fast, you might overheat and set the engines on fire. Also, if you were up to 8,000 rpm, or whatever it was, you released the brakes and you were taxiing. Unlike the Bf-109, which had no front wheel and was a tail dragger, the Me-262 had a tricycle landing gear. It was a new sensation, beautiful visibility. You could go down the runway and see straight forward. This was, however, also a weak moment for the Me-262. The aircraft at this point was a little bit stiff and slow during landing and takeoff, but fine when coming up to speed gradually. It was absolutely superior to the old aircraft.

WWII: So how did you like the armament of the Me-262?

Rall: You know, I never did get to shoot the weapons because when I had about 15 or 20 hours I became commander of the JG-300, which was equipped with Bf-109s. I only made some training flights, but never flew the jet in combat.

WWII: What was it like commanding JG-300?

Rall: I came to the unit in late February or early March 1945. This was no longer a wing, just a ruin of the former wing because one group was in the north. As you know, a wing has three groups. In the meantime, the Americans got to the Elbe River, cutting this group off, and some managed to escape to the south. I had only two rudimentary groups, and I will tell you something that was typical: when I arrived at the wing to take over, I came by jeep because I had no aircraft. While I was commander of the Fighter Leaders School, they sent me a jeep and said, ‘You are going up to Plattling in Bavaria to take over as commander of JG-300,’ and when I approached the base I saw that some airplanes were standing out on the apron, and my driver said, ‘Oops, we are being attacked!’ We stopped and ran off the road. It was an attack by P-38 Lightnings, and when I finally arrived there were 15 of our aircraft in flames.

WWII: These were the Bf-109s?

Rall: Yes, and this marked my entrance into the wing. The next day we were transferred to the south, and from there on we had no solid operations. We had no radar, no air situation. We had only narrow contact to higher authority in the division, so we relocated to the area south of Munich. On the way to Salzburg I dissolved the wing, as the war was over, and told the group commanders, ‘This thing is over and you had better go home.’ We gave all that we had, including our food, to the airmen and ground personnel. Then we gave a final salute, and everyone went on his own. As you can imagine, at that time there was no solid warfare. Even the higher ranks came to my headquarters and asked if they could stay there because they wanted to get through it. You could only get out using your feet in a normal unit. So this was a very bad time, and there were no firmly planned or controlled missions. The main fight for me was to try and get fuel for the aircraft. Without it we could not fly, naturally. Even if you listened to the fact that wing so and so dissolved at the hands of the Americans, it was because of this situation, that you were alone and on your own.

WWII: What was the mission of JG-300? Were you still expected to intercept and attack bombers?

Rall: That was early on, and that time had passed. It did not usually work well. Now we had normal fighter missions. In February 1945, there were no normal fighter missions left, you know. What we were doing was looking for targets of opportunity. We had no idea where the enemy was at any time. We were totally in the dark.

WWII: What is your knowledge of Operation Bodenplatte, the fighter sweeps against Allied airfields that took place on January 1, 1945?

Rall: I was in the hospital because my left thumb had been shot off, and the wound was still open and I had an infection. I listened in on the higher staff, so this was how I learned about Bodenplatte. As you know, we lost many of our most experienced unit leaders, irreplaceable losses. A total of 58 unit leaders were lost in that operation, I believe.

WWII: Which Allied fighter was the most difficult to shoot down in combat?

Rall: At the beginning of the war we flew short-range missions and encountered Spitfires, which were superior. And do not forget the Hurricanes. I think that the Supermarine Spitfire was the most dangerous to us early on. I flew the Spitfire myself, and it was a very, very good aircraft. It was maneuverable and with good climbing potential. Then in Russia the first aircraft we encountered were obsolete. The Russians lost about 7,000 aircraft in the first three to four months of the war, but they learned their lessons well and began building better aircraft–the MiGs, Yaks, and the LaG-5. Developed by Semyon A. Lavochkin and Mikhail I. Gudkov from their earlier, unsuccessful LaGG-3 with an in-line, water-cooled engine, the LaG-5 came out in 1943 and had a big radial engine. It was a powerful, excellent aircraft and served as the basis for even better versions: the La-5FN and the La-7.

WWII: Soviet General Ivan Kozhedub, the highest scoring Allied ace of the war with 62 victories, recalled fighting against JG-52 many times. He also felt that the La-7 was the best Soviet fighter.

Rall: Yes, it was excellent. I remember once I chased a Lavochkin a great distance at full throttle and I still could not get him. He was damned fast. Then by way of foreign aid, particularly in the south around the Caucasus where I was fighting, they brought in Spitfires and the Bell P-39 Airacobra, which I liked and the Russians liked but which was inferior to the Bf-109. It had the engine behind the cockpit. Now the big thing in the Home Defense as far as problems was the P-51. The P-51 was a damned good airplane and it had tremendous endurance, which for us was a new dimension. The P-47, which as you know shot me down, we knew right away. It had tremendous diving speed and could run up to 1,400 kilometers per hour, where the Bf-109 was limited to 1,000 kph. I learned this quickly when they chased me, and I could do nothing else. The structural layout design of the P-47 was much stronger, yet I consider the P-51 the best battle horse you had of all the fighter escorts.

WWII: How did the war end for you?

Rall: I was at Ainring near Salzburg when we finished the war. I walked with my staff, retreating at night, and we went to the Americans, who did not care too much for us. So at daylight we decided to try and go home. At Lake Chiemsee we could not go any farther and were captured. The Americans took me back to Salzburg and put me in prison. From Salzburg to Neu Ulm, then to Heilbronn, and there the CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) saw me. They knew my name and they said that all air force officers should report, and they took me very quickly to interrogation. Then seven of us were taken to England.

WWII: Is it possible that the Americans and British wanted to recruit Luftwaffe officers since it was the beginning of the Cold War?

Rall: Yes, and there was a situation that I will never forget. There was a Mr. Reed, at least that was the name he gave me, his CIC name anyway. When he came to pick me up he asked me, ‘Major, I understand that you flew the 262,’ and I answered, ‘Yes, I did.’ He knew more about me and what I had done than I knew myself. Then he asked, ‘Are you willing to assist us in building up a jet force?’ Well, the war was over, so I said, ‘Yes, sure.’ He also wanted to know if I was willing to go to England, and then to America. I went to England for interrogation. His last question was, ‘Would you be willing to fly with us against the Japanese?’ Well, here I said ‘No,’ and he asked me why not. I told him that they were former allies, and I could not do that.

WWII: Did you consider that a matter of honor?

Rall: Sure.

WWII: How did you become involved in the new Luftwaffe?

Rall: General Steinhoff and Dieter Hrabak were already preparing this. I was in industry and Salem school, where my wife was a doctor, and I was in the organization. Well, they sent me letters saying, ‘You have to come’ and so on. The first of January 1956, I was called and I went to Bonn and there I joined the air force again at the rank of major. From there on I underwent the refresher training, at first in Germany, and later we went to train in the Republic F-84 (Thunderjet) in the United States. This was at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, and from then on I spent quite a lot of time in your country.

WWII: Luke Air Force Base must have been quite a change for you from the forests in Germany.

Rall: Oh, yes, it was a beautiful time. Just beautiful. I remember those early days were great. It looked different than it looks today. You know, Luke Air Force Base and the whole Arizona area was just beginning to build up. It was not as extensive as it is today. Phoenix was not as big a city as it is now, and it was beautiful. It was such a beautiful time and all we did was fly, and then I came back. I was appointed to a staff (position), and then I became the project officer for the F-104–you know, the Starfighter– which took me again to the States.

WWII: Was that when they were putting the F-104 in Germany?

Rall: Yes. I was in Palmdale, California, and Edwards Air Force Base. I later became general and division commander. Then I became chief of staff of the Fourth Allied Tactical Air Force, and then I became commander of German Air Force Command, and the chief of that later.

WWII: When did you retire from the Bundesluftwaffe?

Rall: At the end of 1975.

WWII: Can you tell us a little about your family?

Rall: My wife died eight years ago. I have a daughter who lives in Paris, France, and is married to a Frenchman. She is a great restorer at the Louvre. She has a good career, and she has two children. Clement is 14 and Anna Louise is 12. My (other) daughter is married and lives in Munich with her husband. My son-in-law is a designer with BMW, and my daughter is also a designer. They also have two children, girls. One is 7 years old and the other is 4 years old. My second daughter, Felicita, and my son-in-law studied for one year in Pasadena, California.

Rall: What has your life been like since your retirement?

WWII: When I retired, I went into industry, and I was on different boards in an advisory capacity. I am still involved with the industries. I do quite a bit of traveling in the States. There is a great interest in some galleries, as in signing all these paintings and in giving autographs. This is a good chance to get in close contact with some of my former opponents. I am very close friends now with Colonel Hub Zemke; and it was his wing that shot off my thumb (5th Fighter Group), and we know exactly who got me. It was Joseph Powers. I have a lot of friends over there.

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This article was written by Colin Heaton and originally appeared in the September 1996 issue of World War II magazine.

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