Stefano,
Not a problem to bring this up. Many WWII German pilots were professional pilots and soldiers first. Adolf Galland was one, Werner Molders was another. Molders demanded that all captured Allied pilots under his command be treated civilly, even inviting captured Allied pilots to dine with him.
Another that comes to mind is Franz Stigler. One of my favorite quotes by a WWII German commander was from Gustav Rodel, then a commanding officer in Jagdgeschwader 27 in North Africa: "You are fighter pilots first, last, always. If I ever hear of any of you shooting at someone in a parachute, I'll shoot you myself."
Franz Stigler was in JG 27 in North Africa and remembered Gustav's words when he went after the B-17 over Germany, hence why he guided the B-17 home.
Yes Andrew,
Stanford-Tuck was received by Galland when he was shot down over France, that was the starting point of a friendship which lasted their entire lifetimes. Galland and Molders were good friends as well, both honed their skills in the Legion Condor during the Spanish Civil War and both kept the same behaviour with POW Allied aviators, trying their best within the Nazi police system to ease their imprisonment life.
Stanford-Tuck and Galland were consultant during the shooting of the 1968 "Battle of Britain" epic movie and both prevented the movie script from taking strange directions from what actually happened in 1940. This is one of the several reasons why this movie is so great, flying real aircrafts among them, and why it will last forever as a top ranking classic WWII aviation movie.
I have a book written in 1967 about the making of the "Battle of Britain". In it there's an episode where Galland showed once again his true feelings about the Nazis. In one of the last scenes of the movie, when an angry Goering leaves Northern France aboard his private train, accusing his staff to have betrayed him, the script called for Feldmarshall Kesselring raising his arm in the Nazi salute as the train moved.
The book tells how Galland shot up from his chair screaming "No, no!" and broke into the scene, thus ruining the sequence, which had to be shot again. "We were soldiers and the Nazi salute was neither used nor welcome in the Luftwaffe! Only the traditional military salute should be used here!" were Galland's words, who threatened Guy Hamilton, the movie director, to leave the movie staff if the scene would have not been changed.
Despite Galland's fierce opposition, the scene remained as such, and Stanford-Tuck had the tough job of bringing Galland back to the movie, which he did to the movie great advantage.
This is who Adolf Galland was.
Cheers!
KH 