I Flew for the Fuhrer (Cassell Military Paperbacks) Paperback – April 1, 2007

This book is intelligent, candid, courageous and well written. There are few books written by World War Two German fighter pilots. From this point of view alone the book is very valuable, but considering its high quality it is a major contribution to the literature from the war. Heinz Knocke is bold in his depiction of his political attitudes and the character of the German air war strategy and tactics. I highly recommend it to those interested in the subjects it covers.

Not as informative and dramatic as the many books I've read written by American and English fighter pilots, but I still found very, interesting Knocke's contrasting career in the German air force. I guess that the book was just too short for the detailed history I sought. Other than that I have no major criticism. One had to ignore his Nazism, but after all, he is giving us the enemy side. I found this account one of the few German pilot survivor's experiences very informative, making his book worthwhile and recommend it for others also seeking views and info from the "other" side.

The book came quickly and was in good condition.

Pragmatic and easy read. Very real and first person account of a German fighter pilots view of WW2. Starts a little slow but hard to put down. Amazing story of this German war hero.

I have read other memoires of WWII aces but none is as emotional and eloquent as this one.

A book from a German fighter pilots viewpoint.I would have liked to know what happened to the pilots Irish Setter. As a dog lover I was intrigued by the brief accounts of the dog's relationship with the German fighter pilot, Heinz Knoke.I realize that the dog is not important in the overall story but somehow I cared about the fate of that dog.I would recommend that anyone who cares about ww2 1st hand actions read this book.I wish that I could have met this author.Bob Oxfurth

"At 0540 hours this morning the German armies move across the Polish border into action. This means war. Thus ends the last summer of my boyhood. Thus a humble, insignificant individual is caught in the relentless path of the giant wheel of Time. I must prepare for war to descend like an avalanche on my head. I shall have to become as tough as steel, or be crushed. My most ardent desire now is to become a soldier." Heinz Knoke's wishes were granted. Barely old enough to shave, the red-haired Prussian joined the Luftwaffe in late 1939, was selected for officer training and flight school, and began a career as a fighter pilot, a career he tersely but entertainingly recounts in I FLEW FOR THE FÜHRER. Beginning his active service shooting up airfields in the British Isles, and later participating in dozens of ground-attack missions during the Russian campaign, his first two years behind the stick of an ME 109 were enormously frustrating for him. It wasn't until 1942 that he shot down his first enemy aircraft, but after that the kills came thick and fast, and Knoke's ultimate tally of 33 confirmed and 5 unconfirmed victories (three times what Chuck Yeager scored) is all the more impressive when one considers that each and every one of those kills was against either an American or British aircraft - he bagged Flying Fortresses, Liberators, Spitfires, Mustangs, Thunderbolts, a Lighting, a Marauder and a Mosquito and a Blenheim. He was also shot down himself five times and wounded as many as that, and saw nearly every one of his classmates and comrades - which included Gerhard Barkhorn and Hans-Jochaim Marsaille - either killed or wounded. He wanted war, and he sure as hell got it.Knoke's memoir is largely written in the quick, Spartan, present-tense style often favored by German soldaten, especially airmen, and weighing in at 175 pages or so, it's a fast read. And as the title suggests, Knoke is not the sort of guy you'd find in a Jack Higgins novel, where all Germans are either cartoon Nazis or cartoon anti-Nazis just doin' their best for Germany. He's in that open-eyed yet unrepentant category characterized by ex-flyers such as Klaus Häberlin and Hans-Ulrich Rudel, men who believe that the Nazi state was flawed but who don't think a whole helluva lot about the Allies either and hate Communism like poison. This attitude, which may dismay some readers less familiar with the many shades of repentance shown by former members of Hitler's Wehrmacht, is actually a selling point of the book from my POV: I prefer emotional honesty to the sickly coat of "please the victors" which is slapped over a lot of postwar German military literature. When Knoke speaks with grim admiration of the British and American airmen - even as he is killing them - he is telling the truth, just as he is when he gloats over mowing down Bolsheviks in Russia as if they were so many lice being thrown into a fire. And indeed, this mixture of cool professionalism - handing out cigarettes to American prisoners of war and swapping stories with them - and scathing contempt (not just for the Russians but for the Italians as well) is an interesting example of the mindset of many Nazi-era Germans, whether they were Nazis or not. The book is also an invaluable record of the declining years of the Luftwaffe; in '43, Knoke and his comrades set about the task of stopping the daylight raids over Germany with enthusiasm and confidence; by early '45 the few survivors strap themselves into their cockpits with the full awareness not only of the futility of their efforts, but the near-certainty of their own horrible deaths. If it's not this mission, it'll be the next one. Or the next one. Or the next. "No one ever remains upstairs," Knoke reflects as he attends the funeral of one of his closest pals. "A thousand flights mean a thousand landings. Somehow you always have to come down, one way or the other. And then one day it will be for the last time."I FLEW FOR THE FÜHRER is not the best WW2 memoir I've ever read; it is not even the best Luftwaffe memoir I've ever read (so far that honor goes to Rudel), but it is a quick, incisive, honest look into the mind of an efficient and unregenerate hunter of his own species, a man who fought the good fight as he understood it and made no apologies afterwards.

This book is interesting in that its first English edition was published in the mid-50's. Knoke's account of his exploits in the Western Front show that the Luftwaffe was doomed to lose the war against the might of the Allied air forces. Still the Luftwaffe "experten" were hard foes and their experience managed to get some of them through. Knoke was seriously injured by the end of the war and endured its last months on ground duties. Recommended to all interested in military aviation.

I’ve read dozens of books about WW2 mainly in the course of writing research, as was this, but rarely have I read one quite as insightful as ‘I flew for the Fuhrer’, published in 1953. Heinz Knoke’s own story, in his own unabridged words is a fascinating read. Credited with at least 33 victories, most of which were ten-man B17 bombers, he firstly gives us some background information about his family and his youth, and crucially of 1930s Germany. In August 1939 he tells of thousands of minority Germans being massacred in Poland in horrific Polish atrocities, and nowhere does he challenge the validity of these claims. They are then totally surprised by Britain’s declaration of war, and even more surprised when RAF bombers attack north German ports. The reader is therefore under the clear impression the Germans are the victims.He learns to fly in Norway in Feb 1940, in a Focke-Wolfe 44, a biplane, which had to be fitted with skis due to the weather. Everywhere he goes in occupied Europe it appears the locals are always welcoming and friendly. When one of his colleagues is killed in training in Denmark a group of local women lay a wreath on his friend’s grave ‘To a German son from Danish mothers’.There is huge praise for the RAF fighter pilots they faced in the Battle of Britain, which he acknowledges as their first defeat, and for the Spitfire, which he describes as ‘a superb machine’.After the Americans enter the war and the tide begins to turn Knoke states he is mystified as to why Germany is being attacked. ‘’Why do people all over the world hate us Germans?’. Clearly he was either totally ignorant of atrocities on the ground or was choosing to keep them out of his account. They conquered Europe by force, so what did he honestly expect? The reader gets the impression that Hitler and the Nazis were good for Europe so why are people upset about it?There’s an interesting paragraph dated 20th Dec 1943 where he describes Berlin on leave to be full of foreigners. ‘Hundreds of thousands of Dutch, French, Danes, Belgians, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Poles, Czechs, Norwegians, Greeks, Italians,Spaniards, ‘every language in Europe in overcrowded cinemas, theatres, cabarets, restaurants, railway trains and buses, everywhere they push aside the Berliners’. I’ve never heard of this before.He survives being shot down and injured several times in some well written close escapes while one by one virtually all his friends are killed. He spends some time over the Eastern Front but most is spent in the skies above France & Belgium where towards the end one Me109 could often expect to face forty or fifty Thunderbolts, Lightnings or Mustangs. Knoke pioneered the idea of dropping a single 500lb bomb from an Me 109 onto close formations of Liberators or Flying Fortresses, which if it struck a bomb-laden fortress would not only destroy that one but several others surrounding it.In July 1944 he describes the assassination attempt on Hitler as ‘a crime against Western civilisation’. He suggests Germany should make peace with the western allies in order to ‘stop the Asiatic hordes from the east’ which he says ‘ threaten the very existence of western civilisation’. As I said, it’s insightful.He ends his war on crutches & unable to fly, which probably saved his life. There’s a brief postscript by himself dated 1991 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and an update by author Norman Franks dated 1997. After the war Knoke dabbled in politics until the party he supported was banned. This might tell you what sort of politics it was.It’s a fascinating read providing great insight into the minds of the Luftwaffe pilots.

Lovely book. Has kept me engrossed.

This book is really exciting and at same time drive you into the sorrows and fear of a German pilot during the WWII.It is easy to be read, language is simple and not too complicated, ideal for everyone who read it in Englesh without being a mothertongue.

This is an important document for those who want to see the history that lies beyond the fog of time and the myths engendered by propaganda. Mr. Knocke's memoir is his personal account of his youth in the NS-period and his exploits during the war. Reading this as the tale of a man's experiences and development, one begins to see how environment and social conditions influence attitudes and behavior. Read as military history, one gets an inkling of what a disaster the second world war was for the Germans. Heartily recommended.

I loved this book. The diary format makes it flow really well and the whole range of topics you would expect from a fighter pilot are discussed. The frightening amount of crashes and bailing out this man experienced is amazing. You get to see all sides of the personality of the time; from the outright respect to fellow airmen from the UK and US, to the brutal chastisement of anything vaguely communist.Overall, a great read for anyone interested in air combat in the war and how its pressures impacted on the lives of the men involved.