
Show Notes
Dr Philip W. Blood, author of 'Birds of Prey', joins us in this follow-up to our recent episode where I erased the noted Luftwaffe ace, Gunther Rall, signature, off of a print by Robert Taylor.
Phil and I delve into the truth about Luftwaffe complicity in the crimes of the Nazis during the Second World War and discuss the uncomfortable relationship with the regard to which those who survived were viewed.
Grab your copy of Phil's Birds of Prey: Hitler’s Luftwaffe, Ordinary Soldiers, and the Holocaust in Poland and War Comes to Aachen: The Nazis, Churchill and the 'Stalingrad of the West' at The Aviation Show Bookshop. 10% of every sale supports the show and independent bookshops.
Birds of Prey UK Link: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/11015/9783838215679 US Link: https://bookshop.org/a/111804/9783838215679
War Comes to Aachen UK Link: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/11015/9781911723691 US Link: https://bookshop.org/a/111804/9781911723691
You can listen to both parts of our Birds of Prey discussion with Dr. Philip Blood via the old History Hack podcast here on The Aviation Show website here: https://theaviation.show/hedge-hopping/
----------------------------------------------------- 🛫 Join us on Patreon! Join from just £3 + VAT a month to get ad-free episodes, chat with Matt, and receive a personalised welcome pack. Click here for more info: https://www.patreon.com/theaviationshow
----------------------------------------------------- ✈️Get the latest from the Pima Air and Space Museum by following their socials! Website: https://pimaair.org/ https://www.facebook.com/PimaAirAndSpace https://www.instagram.com/pimaair https://www.youtube.com/c/PimaAirSpaceMuseum
Check out the Tucson Military Vehicle Museum here: https://www.tucsonmilitaryvehicle.org/
👕Get your aviation on with 909 Apparel today! Check out their website here: https://www.909apparel.com/ ----------------------------------------------------- The Aviation Show © 2026 by Matt Bone is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International -----------------------------------------------------
0:00 Erasing History Debate 1:49 Collecting Luftwaffe Prints 7:38 Luftwaffe and Nazi Ideology 15:08 Signatures and Historical Value 17:56 Mass Signatures Questioned 27:59 Rudel and War Myths 36:32 Commercial Versus Historic Autographs 38:54 Erasure as History 46:57 Public Memory and Hero Worship 49:17 Anti-Semitism in Luftwaffe Stories 54:35 Final Solution and Aftermath 56:31 Auschwitz Book Preview Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from The Aviation Show
On our recent journey through Ohio, we visited the WACO Museum in Troy, Ohio, and looked at the history of the WACO aircraft company and the museum’s preserved material from the original plant. We check out some early WACO aircraft, the wildly unsuccessful RPT trainer, and the wartime CG-4 Hadrian glider, including its construction, production, and combat use. We also cover later aircraft such as the Model 4, Model 9, and ATO, along with Harold Johnson’s “Red Baron” and several women pilots associated with WACO.
Join us as Jason Capra and the Vintage Wing Inc. team show us around 'Beach City Baby', a C-53 Skytrooper with an incredible history that takes in the early days of airlines in the United States, Air Transport Command's efforts in North Africa and her role in the growth of civil aviation in Ohio. She is getting a new set of wings, and you can find out how you can help too!
I promise this is the last video on autographs and signatures, but I recently bought a mostly lovely print of Frank Wootton's Typhoon Squadron, which had had all the signatures cut out of it. This led me down a rabbit hole of looking at the commoditisation of these signatures and autographs, where the very rarest are now sliced out and added to both new and old artwork, all in the name of "exclusivity". I mean, we look at a Rommel signature in this one...
The final Convair B-36J Peacemaker ever built, 52-2827 'City of Fort Worth', has been moved to the @PimaAirSpaceMuseum restorations hangar for some TLC after nearly 20-years in the Arizona sun. Scott Marchand, the Pima Air and Space Museum's CEO, joins us from the cockpit of the B-36 to discuss what is going to happen over the coming months as the B-36 is stripped back to bare metal and then given many new coats of paint.
In 1955, Paramount Pictures released one of their tentpole VistaVision epics, Strategic Air Command, starring James Stewart and directed by his longtime collaborator, Anthony Mann. Strategic Air Command is peak, high-resolution, widescreen 1950s propaganda at its finest, and while not a great film (David and I argue about that aspect too!), its time and place in the building of the mythology of Curtis LeMay's US Air Force bombing arm offers a fascinating insight into the mindset of both LeMay and Jimmy Stewart.