NZFF

BF 109-F4. Black 4, W.Nr 8653. Gruppe II Staffel 5./JG3 'Udet'. As flown by Hauptmann Joachim Kirschner over the USSR 1942.






Kirschner scored 188 aerial victories over 635 combat missions. He was also very effective at disrupting ground targets.
On December 17 1943 , he was shot down but bailed out safely , only to be killed by Yugoslav partisans.
He aged 23.

Always on the bad side. But it's not a joke. My model building dealer in Berlin got in trouble and had to pay a hefty fine because decals for airplane kits contained swastikas. Hasegawa, for example, does not include any in kits intended for Germany. This also applies to the national emblems for Finland and Latvia. My Latvian "Gladiator" in 1:72 from 1938 is in Riga. My Latvian neighbors there have no problem with that. And in my collection here in Potsdam there is no Finnish Brewster "Buffalo." (From October 1944, the blue swastikas in a white circle were replaced by the cockade that is still valid today.) but I don't think the last remaining aircraft were repainted. Germany banned part of its history from 1933-1945. I think it's unwise, but that's the law.

Are you allowed to import decal sheets of them from overseas? When I built Luftwaffe aircraft when I was a kid, Dad and I imported a few sheets of them.

I've got a couple of new Airfix kits which have them, I believe . I haven't had a look for a while.