Luftwaffe Private Archive in Hannover

[aquarya]

As you may have previously heard, I am researching (with poor luck) Egon Mayer (JG2) and his actions on January 7, 1944 in shooting down several B-24's over France at the German archives. Nothing specific to him, JG2 or this day seems to be present there. I know someone in Germany has (or at least HAD) Mayer's flight records in their private hands - a friend of mine ran into this someone at a fighter pilot reunion in Germany in the 80's and after a few drinks was offered to see them. But who this mysterious person is is still a mystery as my friend never got a name.

When this summer I had the good fortune of interviewing a U-Boot Commander (Eick), he directed me for documentation purposes to the private U-Boot archive in Cuxhaven, Germany, which was run by a WW2 U-Boot veteran who had acquired massive amounts of private and governmental documents and photos, quite impressive and very easy to use.

Somewhere along the line, someone said to me, "For information on Egon Mayer, you should go to the private Luftwaffe archive in Hannover. It is just like the U-Boot one in Cuxhaven - they have more information on Luftwaffe pilots and groups, and are better organized than Freiburg. Just google private Luftwaffe archive in Hannover."

I am hoping this rumored private archive might be able to find or be in possession of those Mayer flight records.

Ok....so, when I google "Private Luftwaffe Archive Hannover" in English and German I get exactly...nothing.

Anyone know what I am missing here?

Thanks,

heather

[StefanSiverud]

It couldn't be Luftfahrtmuseum Hannover? Even if it isn't, they would probably have some clues as to who does hold the archive. Try sending them an email, can't hurt!

[aquarya]

Will do, thanks!

[aquarya]

By the way, they say they don't have any archives. So still striking out...

[John G.]

Unfortunately I can't really help with the German archives....but the "B-24s" shot down in one day must have been from the same attack, same Group, same wing....etc., and thus some records should be available through "U.S." sources....(8th AF Museum, Air Force Museum, US WW2 Museum- former D-Day Museum, etc. (or English/RAF Museums, etc. if they were British B-24?).... that would be about this incident and there might be information from original German records on the pilot, etc. included...(No idear, of course!)

Good luck...
John G.

[aquarya]

Hi, John,

Thank you very much for trying to be of assistance. Yes, of course I've spent three years and many thousand of dollars gathering the American records from various federal agencies and archives, as well as working on getting French records. I've not found any original and/or translated German records in any of the American records. Also terribly unfortunately, there was nothing from/on JG2 that I could use in Freiburg - and it's not cheap to go there from California for nothing.

Now I have many of Egon Mayer's documents and photos from private hands, but still no flight logs or JG2 mission or organizational records, nor Luftgaukommando reports.

Just hoping some day someone will be able to hook me up with whoever has the flight logs or even JG2 mission records -n all in private hands - before the book is written/published.

Thanks,

heather