Black Tulip

The Life and Myth of Erich Hartmann, the World's Top Fighter Ace

By: Erik Schmidt

Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright

With over 1,404 wartime missions, Erich Hartmann claimed a staggering 352 airborne kills, and his career contains all the dramas you would expect. There were the frostbitten fighter sweeps over the Eastern Front, drunken forays to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, a decade of imprisonment in the wretched Soviet POW camps, and further military service during the Cold War that ended with conflict and angst.

Hartmann was adopted by a network of writers and commentators personally invested in his welfare and reputation. These men, mostly Americans, published elaborate, celebratory stories about Hartmann and his elite fraternity of Luftwaffe pilots. Hartmann's legacy became loftier and more secure, and his complicated service in support of Nazism faded away. A simplified, one-dimensional account of his life has gone unchallenged for almost a generation.

Black Tulip locates the ambiguous truth about Hartmann and so much of the German Wehrmacht in general: that many of these men were neither full-blown Nazis nor impeccable knights. They were complex, contradictory, and elusive. This book portrays a complex human rather than the heroic caricature we're used to, and it argues that the tidy, polished hero stories we've inherited about men like Hartmann say as much about those who've crafted them as they do about the heroes themselves.

©2020 Erik Schmidt (P)2021 Tantor

Didn’t like it.

The author started out writing about an aviator and his wartime exploits and after just a few chapters went off on a rambling commiseration about NAZIs and how bad they were. I guess I just expected something different.

Mediocre and predictable

Me Schmidt tries harder to remind us that nazis were bad than to understand the life of Hartmann

Nothing new

No new ground. However entertaining as narration was excellent and subject matter is very interesting

Way too much nazi politics.

The story was great about Erich. I felt a lot of the book was about Nazi politics. So much so at times I thought I was reading another book altogether.

No good

Was waiting for this. The ww2 aviation aspect seems to be only few mins long. This is some sort of awkward thesis on him not being closely examined enough for his knowledge and complicity in all things Nazi. Fair enough but not really a compelling book. Peppered with Wikipedia grade research on a few topics (eg, paragraph on me163). Accuses previous authors of being armchair/ part time historians. Most of the time ,while I attempted to listen, my main thought was “what the heck is he trying to get at here”

waste of time and money

author basically claims that all German pilots were closet Nazi racists and their biographies were all sugar coated to make them look better and not at all based on facts

Horrible!

I only stomached about half of the book. Hands down the worse read in about 80 titles. DO NOT purchase

The Hartmann Bio You've Been Waiting For

While taking nothing away from Hartmann's achievements, this book goes well beyond the early post-war sycophantic hagiographies that placed Hartmann and other German aces on pedestals for adoration, presenting an academic-quality analysis that considers the fighter pilots' roles in the larger war, their places against the wartime and post-war political backdrops, and the part they played in post-war reconciliation. The author works in an appropriate amount of introspection that provides a good learning exercise for readers who may wish to examine their own attitudes.

Well-researched, written, and read -- highly recommended for anyone wishing to consider the Luftwaffe jagdflieger experience in context during and after the war.

The modern day hypocrit Erik Schmidt

The author is guilty of the very things he accused the other authors of the German air war stories. I have read most of the books he is critical of. He has basically rehashed the stories of the other authors, who at least interviewed the aces Erik complains about. It is obvious that he is anti military service, even of our own aces. From his own website under services he provides "Everybody needs excellent words to show the world who they are and why they matter." Isn't this what he accuses the other authors, the German and American aces of doing? Again from his own website under services provided "Imagine a world where your as-needed editor makes you sound even more awesome than you already are." He brags he is an aviation writer with one book to his credit. The aviation community probably is disappointed at his efforts to discredit them. This book wasn't worth the $3-4.00 I spent for it.

Over all - Well done

I enjoyed this audiobook. It seems like a far better modern take on the man and legend than many older works. If the period or the man are of interest to you I think it is worth it.