Bullet-riddled tailplane of the Luftwaffe’s deadliest pilot up for auction
A TAILFIN from a Second World War Nazi plane flown by the most lethal pilot ever is up for auction.
The bullet-riddled port fin of the Messerschmitt is adorned with stencil paintings of the 121 planes shot down by Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer.
The “kill” icons, showing British bombers and the date each was downed, take up the top half of the aluminium fin, while the bottom half consists of a swastika.
Schnaufer, a Luftwaffe night fighter pilot, is the highest scoring ace in the history of aerial warfare.
During just 164 sorties between June 1, 1942, and March 7, 1945, he confirmed 121 British and Commonwealth bombers downed.
He may have cost the Allies as many as 500 lives.
Nicknamed “The Night Ghost of St Trond”, after his unit’s base in occupied Belgium, he is one of only 27 men awarded Nazi Germany’s Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds.
The plane was believed to have been shot down by an American-made P-47 Thunderbolt on March 30, 1945.
We have not had a Messerschmitt bell fin like this before
However, Schnaufer was not at the controls.
He survived the war but died in a road crash on July 15, 1950, while on a wine-buying trip in Bordeaux.
He was just 28.
Wolfgang Lohmann, a military air historian, discovered the tailfin being used to patch a roof in the village of Hillegossen, Germany.
He bought it in the 1970s and has displayed it at his German home ever since.
It is now set to be sold by Dominic Winter Auctioneers in Cirencester, Glos, on May 15 and could fetch as much as £20,000.
Chris Albury, a senior auctioneer, said: “We have not had a Messerschmitt bell fin like this before.
"This one is unique.
"It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”
