r/AviationHistory • u/Substantial-While922 • 20h ago
The black tulip flew twice: Erich Hartmann's Bf 109 nose art returned on his West German Sabre after 10 years in Soviet camps
Erich Hartmann flew for Nazi Germany and finished WWII as the highest-scoring fighter pilot in history, with 352 claimed victories, almost all on the Eastern Front. His personal marking was a black tulip painted around the nose of his Bf 109.
**The WWII tulip**
He flew tulip-nosed 109s on and off from 1943, and a photo of his last Bf 109 G-10 from April 1945 seems to show the tulip as well.
The famous story: Soviet pilots learned to recognize the tulip and avoided combat with it, his score dropped, so he had it painted over in March 1944. It's repeated everywhere, but I couldn't find it confirmed in Soviet sources, so take it with a grain of salt.
He wasn't the only one with a tulip, either. Hermann Graf used one with JG 50 in 1943 and brought it to the JG 52 staff flight in late 1944. At least three tulip-nosed 109s were found at Deutsch Brod in May 1945.
**The Cold War tulip**
Hartmann spent ten years in Soviet camps and came home in 1955. In 1956 he joined the new West German Luftwaffe and became the first commander of JG 71, West Germany's first operational jet fighter wing, later named "Richthofen" after the Red Baron.
His Canadair Sabre Mk 6 got the same tulip on the nose. The jet was built as JC+368 and later recoded JA+111.
**Where it is now**
Sabre JA+111 (c/n 1625) stood as a gate guard at Wittmund, then went to the Luftwaffe Museum in Berlin-Gatow, and today it's at the Flugplatzmuseum Cottbus. Its history lists the old code JC+368, the same as Hartmann's own jet, so it looks like the real airframe.
Two questions for people who know more than me:
Can anyone confirm this is the airframe he actually flew, not just a jet painted in his markings?
What color was the tulip on the Sabre? I've seen both black and red.
