It's my understanding that pilots did not carry their soldbuch when flying for fears if he was shot down that the enemy could exploit the information contained within it. Am I correct in assuming this? If so when did it go into effect? Did they carry any other identification papers other than a Soldbuch if that was the case?
I guess I could ask the same question of the Erkennungsmarke. Did they carry a sterilized version with just a number of the full "official" markings?
Thanks
Pilots Soldbuch and Identification
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Re: Pilots Soldbuch and Identification
You are correct in assuming that aircrew were meant to hand in their Soldbücher prior to flying on a sortie and instead carried an Ausweis which contained far less details. But sometimes it happened that aircrew forgot (unintentionally or intentionally) and still carried their SB on missions and these sometimes fell into Allied hands when the aircraft was brought down.
Re: Pilots Soldbuch and Identification
The problem was that if an airman was unidentified or unidentifiable after a crash, he was buried as an unknown. He had to have at least some kind of survivable ID on him, which gave a bit more detail than just an ID disc. The writing on a German ID disc means nothing to a non German speaker. Sometimes, it took interaction with the Red Cross to get aircrew identified. Obviously, a crewman should have no personal stuff like letters or official documents like Posting Orders or Routine Orders. Incidentally, I saw once where British captors removed the ID page of the soldbuch upon capture of a group of men, much to their dismay. When they queried this, they were told that the paper page was preferred by the administration system and that the Red Cross were happy with it. They could keep the rest of the book for military details.