Black Tulip: The Life and Myth of Erich Hartmann, the World's Top Fighter Ace
Erik Schmidt
Feb 2021 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Keith Sellon-Wright
headphones
Audiobook
9 hr 10 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
Want a 55 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
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.
About the author
Erik Schmidt has made a career of researching complicated topics. A former magazine editor and senior marketing writer, he has an MFA in creative nonfiction and a lifelong love of history and aviation. He is a freelance writer living in Denver, Colorado, with his family.
Keith Sellon-Wright is a seasoned professional with a career in Hollywood spanning over thirty years. He has worked with some of Hollywood's seminal directors, including Christopher Guest and Spike Lee. His television credits include Wings, Frasier, Seinfeld, The West Wing, NCIS, Mad Men, and Parks and Recreation.
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
