title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The procedures for religious rituals were frequently written on papyri, which were used as instructions for those performing the ritual. These ritual texts were kept mainly in the temple libraries. Temples themselves are also inscribed with such texts, often accompanied by illustrations. Unlike the ritual papyri, these inscriptions were not intended as instructions, but were meant to symbolically perpetuate the rituals even if, in reality, people ceased to perform them. Magical texts likewise describe rituals, although these rituals were part of the spells used for specific goals in everyday life. Despite their mundane purpose, many of these texts also originated in temple libraries and later became disseminated among the general populace.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The Egyptians produced numerous prayers and hymns, written in the form of poetry. Hymns and prayers follow a similar structure and are distinguished mainly by the purposes they serve. Hymns were written to praise particular deities. Like ritual texts, they were written on papyri and on temple walls, and they were probably recited as part of the rituals they accompany in temple inscriptions. Most are structured according to a set literary formula, designed to expound on the nature, aspects, and mythological functions of a given deity. They tend to speak more explicitly about fundamental theology than other Egyptian religious writings, and became particularly important in the New Kingdom, a period of particularly active theological discourse. Prayers follow the same general pattern as hymns, but address the relevant god in a more personal way, asking for blessings, help, or forgiveness for wrongdoing. Such prayers are rare before the New Kingdom, indicating that in earlier periods such direct personal interaction with a deity was not believed possible, or at least was less likely to be expressed in writing. They are known mainly from inscriptions on statues and stelae left in sacred sites as votive offerings.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Among the most significant and extensively preserved Egyptian writings are funerary texts designed to ensure that deceased souls reached a pleasant afterlife. The earliest of these are the Pyramid Texts. They are a loose collection of hundreds of spells inscribed on the walls of royal pyramids during the Old Kingdom, intended to magically provide pharaohs with the means to join the company of the gods in the afterlife. The spells appear in differing arrangements and combinations, and few of them appear in all of the pyramids.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: At the end of the Old Kingdom a new body of funerary spells, which included material from the Pyramid Texts, began appearing in tombs, inscribed primarily on coffins. This collection of writings is known as the Coffin Texts, and was not reserved for royalty, but appeared in the tombs of non-royal officials. In the New Kingdom, several new funerary texts emerged, of which the best-known is the Book of the Dead. Unlike the earlier books, it often contains extensive illustrations, or vignettes. The book was copied on papyrus and sold to commoners to be placed in their tombs.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The Coffin Texts included sections with detailed descriptions of the underworld and instructions on how to overcome its hazards. In the New Kingdom, this material gave rise to several "books of the netherworld", including the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, and the Amduat. Unlike the loose collections of spells, these netherworld books are structured depictions of Ra's passage through the Duat, and by analogy, the journey of the deceased person's soul through the realm of the dead. They were originally restricted to pharaonic tombs, but in the Third Intermediate Period they came to be used more widely.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Temples existed from the beginning of Egyptian history, and at the height of the civilization they were present in most of its towns. They included both mortuary temples to serve the spirits of deceased pharaohs and temples dedicated to patron gods, although the distinction was blurred because divinity and kingship were so closely intertwined. The temples were not primarily intended as places for worship by the general populace, and the common people had a complex set of religious practices of their own. Instead, the state-run temples served as houses for the gods, in which physical images which served as their intermediaries were cared for and provided with offerings. This service was believed to be necessary to sustain the gods, so that they could in turn maintain the universe itself. Thus, temples were central to Egyptian society, and vast resources were devoted to their upkeep, including both donations from the monarchy and large estates of their own. Pharaohs often expanded them as part of their obligation to honor the gods, so that many temples grew to enormous size. However, not all gods had temples dedicated to them, as many gods who were important in official theology received only minimal worship, and many household gods were the focus of popular veneration rather than temple ritual.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The earliest Egyptian temples were small, impermanent structures, but through the Old and Middle Kingdoms their designs grew more elaborate, and they were increasingly built out of stone. In the New Kingdom, a basic temple layout emerged, which had evolved from common elements in Old and Middle Kingdom temples. With variations, this plan was used for most of the temples built from then on, and most of those that survive today adhere to it. In this standard plan, the temple was built along a central processional way that led through a series of courts and halls to the sanctuary, which held a statue of the temple's god. Access to this most sacred part of the temple was restricted to the pharaoh and the highest-ranking priests. The journey from the temple entrance to the sanctuary was seen as a journey from the human world to the divine realm, a point emphasized by the complex mythological symbolism present in temple architecture. Well beyond the temple building proper was the outermost wall. Between the two lay many subsidiary buildings, including workshops and storage areas to supply the temple's needs, and the library where the temple's sacred writings and mundane records were kept, and which also served as a center of learning on a multitude of subjects.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Theoretically it was the duty of the pharaoh to carry out temple rituals, as he was Egypt's official representative to the gods. In reality, ritual duties were almost always carried out by priests. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms, there was no separate class of priests; instead, many government officials served in this capacity for several months out of the year before returning to their secular duties. Only in the New Kingdom did professional priesthood become widespread, although most lower-ranking priests were still part-time. All were still employed by the state, and the pharaoh had final say in their appointments. However, as the wealth of the temples grew, the influence of their priesthoods increased, until it rivaled that of the pharaoh. In the political fragmentation of the Third Intermediate Period (–664 BC), the high priests of Amun at Karnak even became the effective rulers of Upper Egypt. The temple staff also included many people other than priests, such as musicians and chanters in temple ceremonies. Outside the temple were artisans and other laborers who helped supply the temple's needs, as well as farmers who worked on temple estates. All were paid with portions of the temple's income. Large temples were therefore very important centers of economic activity, sometimes employing thousands of people.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: State religious practice included both temple rituals involved in the cult of a deity, and ceremonies related to divine kingship. Among the latter were coronation ceremonies and the Sed festival, a ritual renewal of the pharaoh's strength that took place periodically during his reign. There were numerous temple rituals, including rites that took place across the country and rites limited to single temples or to the temples of a single god. Some were performed daily, while others took place annually or on rare occasions. The most common temple ritual was the morning offering ceremony, performed daily in temples across Egypt. In it, a high-ranking priest, or occasionally the pharaoh, washed, anointed, and elaborately dressed the god's statue before presenting it with offerings. Afterward, when the god had consumed the spiritual essence of the offerings, the items themselves were taken to be distributed among the priests.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The less frequent temple rituals, or festivals, were still numerous, with dozens occurring every year. These festivals often entailed actions beyond simple offerings to the gods, such as reenactments of particular myths or the symbolic destruction of the forces of disorder. Most of these events were probably celebrated only by the priests and took place only inside the temple. However, the most important temple festivals, like the Opet Festival celebrated at Karnak, usually involved a procession carrying the god's image out of the sanctuary in a model barque to visit other significant sites, such as the temple of a related deity. Commoners gathered to watch the procession and sometimes received portions of the unusually large offerings given to the gods on these occasions.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: At many sacred sites, the Egyptians worshipped individual animals which they believed to be manifestations of particular deities. These animals were selected based on specific sacred markings which were believed to indicate their fitness for the role. Some of these cult animals retained their positions for the rest of their lives, as with the Apis bull worshipped in Memphis as a manifestation of Ptah. Other animals were selected for much shorter periods. These cults grew more popular in later times, and many temples began raising stocks of such animals from which to choose a new divine manifestation. A separate practice developed in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, when people began mummifying any member of a particular animal species as an offering to the god whom the species represented. Millions of mummified cats, birds, and other creatures were buried at temples honoring Egyptian deities. Worshippers paid the priests of a particular deity to obtain and mummify an animal associated with that deity, and the mummy was placed in a cemetery near the god's cult center.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The Egyptians used oracles to ask the gods for knowledge or guidance. Egyptian oracles are known mainly from the New Kingdom and afterward, though they probably appeared much earlier. People of all classes, including the king, asked questions of oracles. The most common means of consulting an oracle was to pose a question to the divine image while it was being carried in a festival procession, and interpret an answer from the barque's movements. Other methods included interpreting the behavior of cult animals, drawing lots, or consulting statues through which a priest apparently spoke. The means of discerning the god's will gave great influence to the priests who spoke and interpreted the god's message.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: While the state cults were meant to preserve the stability of the Egyptian world, lay individuals had their own religious practices that related more directly to daily life. This popular religion left less evidence than the official cults, and because this evidence was mostly produced by the wealthiest portion of the Egyptian population, it is uncertain to what degree it reflects the practices of the populace as a whole.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Popular religious practice included ceremonies marking important transitions in life. These included birth, because of the danger involved in the process, and naming, because the name was held to be a crucial part of a person's identity. The most important of these ceremonies were those surrounding death, because they ensured the soul's survival beyond it. Other religious practices sought to discern the gods' will or seek their knowledge. These included the interpretation of dreams, which could be seen as messages from the divine realm, and the consultation of oracles. People also sought to affect the gods' behavior to their own benefit through magical rituals.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Individual Egyptians also prayed to gods and gave them private offerings. Evidence of this type of personal piety is sparse before the New Kingdom. This is probably due to cultural restrictions on depiction of nonroyal religious activity, which relaxed during the Middle and New Kingdoms. Personal piety became still more prominent in the late New Kingdom, when it was believed that the gods intervened directly in individual lives, punishing wrongdoers and saving the pious from disaster. Official temples were important venues for private prayer and offering, even though their central activities were closed to laypeople. Egyptians frequently donated goods to be offered to the temple deity and objects inscribed with prayers to be placed in temple courts. Often they prayed in person before temple statues or in shrines set aside for their use. Yet in addition to temples, the populace also used separate local chapels, smaller but more accessible than the formal temples. These chapels were very numerous and probably staffed by members of the community. Households, too, often had their own small shrines for offering to gods or deceased relatives.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The deities invoked in these situations differed somewhat from those at the center of state cults. Many of the important popular deities, such as the fertility goddess Taweret and the household protector Bes, had no temples of their own. However, many other gods, including Amun and Osiris, were very important in both popular and official religion. Some individuals might be particularly devoted to a single god. Often they favored deities affiliated with their own region, or with their role in life. The god Ptah, for instance, was particularly important in his cult center of Memphis, but as the patron of craftsmen he received the nationwide veneration of many in that occupation.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The word ""magic"" is normally used to translate the Egyptian term "heka", which meant, as James P. Allen puts it, "the ability to make things happen by indirect means".


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: "Heka" was believed to be a natural phenomenon, the force which was used to create the universe and which the gods employed to work their will. Humans could also use it, and magical practices were closely intertwined with religion. In fact, even the regular rituals performed in temples were counted as magical. Individuals also frequently employed magical techniques for personal purposes. Although these ends could be harmful to other people, no form of magic was considered inimical in itself. Instead, magic was seen primarily as a way for humans to prevent or overcome negative events.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Magic was closely associated with the priesthood. Because temple libraries contained numerous magical texts, great magical knowledge was ascribed to the lector priests, who studied these texts. These priests often worked outside their temples, hiring out their magical services to laymen. Other professions also commonly employed magic as part of their work, including doctors, scorpion-charmers, and makers of magical amulets. It is also possible that the peasantry used simple magic for their own purposes, but because this magical knowledge would have been passed down orally, there is limited evidence of it.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Language was closely linked with "heka", to such a degree that Thoth, the god of writing, was sometimes said to be the inventor of "heka". Therefore, magic frequently involved written or spoken incantations, although these were usually accompanied by ritual actions. Often these rituals invoked an appropriate deity to perform the desired action, using the power of "heka" to compel the deity to act. Sometimes this entailed casting the practitioner or subject of a ritual in the role of a character in mythology, thus inducing the god to act toward that person as it had in the myth.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Rituals also employed sympathetic magic, using objects believed to have a magically significant resemblance to the subject of the rite. The Egyptians also commonly used objects believed to be imbued with "heka" of their own, such as the magically protective amulets worn in great numbers by ordinary Egyptians.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Because it was considered necessary for the survival of the soul, preservation of the body was a central part of Egyptian funerary practices. Originally the Egyptians buried their dead in the desert, where the arid conditions mummified the body naturally. In the Early Dynastic Period, however, they began using tombs for greater protection, and the body was insulated from the desiccating effect of the sand and was subject to natural decay. Thus, the Egyptians developed their elaborate embalming practices, in which the corpse was artificially desiccated and wrapped to be placed in its coffin. The quality of the process varied according to cost, however, and those who could not afford it were still buried in desert graves.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Once the mummification process was complete, the mummy was carried from the deceased person's house to the tomb in a funeral procession that included his or her relatives and friends, along with a variety of priests. Before the burial, these priests performed several rituals, including the Opening of the mouth ceremony intended to restore the dead person's senses and give him or her the ability to receive offerings. Then the mummy was buried and the tomb sealed. Afterwards, relatives or hired priests gave food offerings to the deceased in a nearby mortuary chapel at regular intervals. Over time, families inevitably neglected offerings to long-dead relatives, so most mortuary cults only lasted one or two generations. However, while the cult lasted, the living sometimes wrote letters asking deceased relatives for help, in the belief that the dead could affect the world of the living as the gods did.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The first Egyptian tombs were mastabas, rectangular brick structures where kings and nobles were entombed. Each of them contained a subterranean burial chamber and a separate, above ground chapel for mortuary rituals. In the Old Kingdom the mastaba developed into the pyramid, which symbolized the primeval mound of Egyptian myth. Pyramids were reserved for royalty, and were accompanied by large mortuary temples sitting at their base. Middle Kingdom pharaohs continued to build pyramids, but the popularity of mastabas waned. Increasingly, commoners with sufficient means were buried in rock-cut tombs with separate mortuary chapels nearby, an approach which was less vulnerable to tomb robbery. By the beginning of the New Kingdom even the pharaohs were buried in such tombs, and they continued to be used until the decline of the religion itself.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Tombs could contain a great variety of other items, including statues of the deceased to serve as substitutes for the body in case it was damaged. Because it was believed that the deceased would have to do work in the afterlife, just as in life, burials often included small models of humans to do work in place of the deceased. Human sacrifices found in early royal tombs were probably meant to serve the pharaoh in his afterlife.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The tombs of wealthier individuals could also contain furniture, clothing, and other everyday objects intended for use in the afterlife, along with amulets and other items intended to provide magical protection against the hazards of the spirit world. Further protection was provided by funerary texts included in the burial. The tomb walls also bore artwork, such as images of the deceased eating food that were believed to allow him or her to magically receive sustenance even after the mortuary offerings had ceased.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The beginnings of Egyptian religion extend into prehistory, though evidence for them comes only from the sparse and ambiguous archaeological record. Careful burials during the Predynastic period imply that the people of this time believed in some form of an afterlife. At the same time, animals were ritually buried, a practice which may reflect the development of zoomorphic deities like those found in the later religion. The evidence is less clear for gods in human form, and this type of deity may have emerged more slowly than those in animal shape. Each region of Egypt originally had its own patron deity, but it is likely that as these small communities conquered or absorbed each other, the god of the defeated area was either incorporated into the other god's mythology or entirely subsumed by it. This resulted in a complex pantheon in which some deities remained only locally important while others developed more universal significance.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Archaeological data has suggested that the Egyptian religious system had close, cultural affinities with Eastern African populations and arose from an African substratum rather than deriving from the Mesopotamian or Mediterranean regions.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The Early Dynastic Period began with the unification of Egypt around 3000 BC. This event transformed Egyptian religion, as some deities rose to national importance and the cult of the divine pharaoh became the central focus of religious activity. Horus was identified with the king, and his cult center in the Upper Egyptian city of Nekhen was among the most important religious sites of the period. Another important center was Abydos, where the early rulers built large funerary complexes.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: During the Old Kingdom, the priesthoods of the major deities attempted to organize the complicated national pantheon into groups linked by their mythology and worshipped in a single cult center, such as the Ennead of Heliopolis, which linked important deities such as Atum, Ra, Osiris, and Set in a single creation myth. Meanwhile, pyramids, accompanied by large mortuary temple complexes, replaced mastabas as the tombs of pharaohs. In contrast with the great size of the pyramid complexes, temples to gods remained comparatively small, suggesting that official religion in this period emphasized the cult of the divine king more than the direct worship of deities. The funerary rituals and architecture of this time greatly influenced the more elaborate temples and rituals used in worshipping the gods in later periods.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The Ancient Egyptians regarded the sun as a powerful life force. The sun god Ra had been worshipped from the Early Dynastic period (3100–2686 BCE), but it was not until the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BCE), when Ra became the dominant figure in the Egyptian pantheon, that the Sun Cult took power. Early in the Old Kingdom, Ra grew in influence, and his cult center at Heliopolis became the nation's most important religious site. By the Fifth Dynasty, Ra was the most prominent god in Egypt and had developed the close links with kingship and the afterlife that he retained for the rest of Egyptian history. Around the same time, Osiris became an important afterlife deity. The Pyramid Texts, first written at this time, reflect the prominence of the solar and Osirian concepts of the afterlife, although they also contain remnants of much older traditions. The texts are an extremely important source for understanding early Egyptian theology.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Symbols such as the 'winged disc' took on new features. Originally, the solar disk with the wings of a hawk was originally the symbol of Horus and associated with his cult in the Delta town of Behdet. The sacred cobras were added on either side of the disc during the Old Kingdom. The winged disc had protective significance and was found on temple ceilings and ceremonial entrances.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: In the 22nd century BC, the Old Kingdom collapsed into the disorder of the First Intermediate Period. Eventually, rulers from Thebes reunified the Egyptian nation in the Middle Kingdom (–1650 BC). These Theban pharaohs initially promoted their patron god Montu to national importance, but during the Middle Kingdom, he was eclipsed by the rising popularity of Amun. In this new Egyptian state, personal piety grew more important and was expressed more freely in writing, a trend that continued in the New Kingdom.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The Middle Kingdom crumbled in the Second Intermediate Period (–1550 BC), but the country was again reunited by Theban rulers, who became the first pharaohs of the New Kingdom. Under the new regime, Amun became the supreme state god. He was syncretized with Ra, the long-established patron of kingship and his temple at Karnak in Thebes became Egypt's most important religious center. Amun's elevation was partly due to the great importance of Thebes, but it was also due to the increasingly professional priesthood. Their sophisticated theological discussion produced detailed descriptions of Amun's universal power.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Increased contact with outside peoples in this period led to the adoption of many Near Eastern deities into the pantheon. At the same time, the subjugated Nubians absorbed Egyptian religious beliefs, and in particular, adopted Amun as their own.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: The New Kingdom religious order was disrupted when Akhenaten acceded, and replaced Amun with the Aten as the state god. Eventually, he eliminated the official worship of most other gods and moved Egypt's capital to a new city at Amarna. This part of Egyptian history, the Amarna Period, is named after this. In doing so, Akhenaten claimed unprecedented status: only he could worship the Aten, and the populace directed their worship toward him. The Atenist system lacked well-developed mythology and afterlife beliefs, and the Aten seemed distant and impersonal, so the new order did not appeal to ordinary Egyptians. Thus, many probably continued to worship the traditional gods in private. Nevertheless, the withdrawal of state support for the other deities severely disrupted Egyptian society. Akhenaten's successors restored the traditional religious system, and eventually, they dismantled all Atenist monuments.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Before the Amarna Period, popular religion had trended toward more personal relationships between worshippers and their gods. Akhenaten's changes had reversed this trend, but once the traditional religion was restored, there was a backlash. The populace began to believe that the gods were much more directly involved in daily life. Amun, the supreme god, was increasingly seen as the final arbiter of human destiny, the true ruler of Egypt. The pharaoh was correspondingly more human and less divine. The importance of oracles as a means of decision-making grew, as did the wealth and influence of the oracles' interpreters, the priesthood. These trends undermined the traditional structure of society and contributed to the breakdown of the New Kingdom.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: In the 1st millennium BC, Egypt was significantly weaker than in earlier times, and in several periods foreigners seized the country and assumed the position of pharaoh. The importance of the pharaoh continued to decline, and the emphasis on popular piety continued to increase. Animal cults, a characteristically Egyptian form of worship, became increasingly popular in this period, possibly as a response to the uncertainty and foreign influence of the time. Isis grew more popular as a goddess of protection, magic, and personal salvation, and became the most important goddess in Egypt.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: In the 4th century BC, Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom under the Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC), which assumed the pharaonic role, maintaining the traditional religion and building or rebuilding many temples. The kingdom's Greek ruling class identified the Egyptian deities with their own. From this cross-cultural syncretism emerged Serapis, a god who combined Osiris and Apis with characteristics of Greek deities, and who became very popular among the Greek population. Nevertheless, for the most part the two belief systems remained separate, and the Egyptian deities remained Egyptian.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Ptolemaic-era beliefs changed little after Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 BC, with the Ptolemaic kings replaced by distant emperors. The cult of Isis appealed even to Greeks and Romans outside Egypt, and in Hellenized form it spread across the empire. In Egypt itself, as the empire weakened, official temples fell into decay, and without their centralizing influence religious practice became fragmented and localized. Meanwhile, Christianity spread across Egypt, and in the third and fourth centuries AD, edicts by Christian emperors and the missionary activity of Christians eroded traditional beliefs.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Nevertheless, the traditional Egyptian religion persisted for a long time. The traditional worship in the temples of the city of Philae apparently survived at least until the 5th century, despite the active Christianization of Egypt. In fact, the fifth-century historian Priscus mentions a treaty between the Roman commander Maximinus and the Blemmyes and Nobades in 452, which among other things ensured access to the cult image of Isis.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: According to the 6th-century historian Procopius, the temples in Philae was closed down officially in AD 537 by the local commander Narses the Persarmenian in accordance with an order of Byzantine emperor Justinian I. This event is conventionally considered to mark the end of ancient Egyptian religion. However, its importance has recently come into question, following a major study by Jitse Dijkstra who argues that organized paganism at Philae ended in the fifth century, based on the fact that the last inscriptional evidence of an active pagan priesthood there dates to the 450s. Nevertheless, some adherence to traditional religion seems to have survived into the sixth century, based on a petition from Dioscorus of Aphrodito to the governor of the Thebaid dated to 567. The letter warns of an unnamed man (the text calls him "eater of raw meat") who, in addition to plundering houses and stealing tax revenue, is alleged to have restored paganism at "the sanctuaries," possibly referring to the temples at Philae.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Egyptian religion produced the temples and tombs which are ancient Egypt's most enduring monuments, but it also influenced other cultures. In pharaonic times many of its symbols, such as the sphinx and winged solar disk, were adopted by other cultures across the Mediterranean and Near East, as were some of its deities, such as Bes. Some of these connections are difficult to trace. The Greek concept of Elysium may have derived from the Egyptian vision of the afterlife. In late antiquity, the Christian conception of Hell was most likely influenced by some of the imagery of the Duat. Egyptian beliefs also influenced or gave rise to several esoteric belief systems developed by Greeks and Romans, who considered Egypt as a source of mystic wisdom. Hermeticism, for instance, derived from the tradition of secret magical knowledge associated with Thoth.


title: Ancient Egyptian religion

text: Traces of ancient beliefs remained in Egyptian folk traditions into modern times, but its influence on modern societies greatly increased with the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria in 1798 and their seeing the monuments and images. As a result of it, Westerners began to study Egyptian beliefs firsthand, and Egyptian religious motifs were adopted into Western art. Egyptian religion has since had a significant influence in popular culture. Due to continued interest in Egyptian beliefs, in the late 20th century, several new religious groups going under the blanket term of Kemetism have formed based on different reconstructions of ancient Egyptian religion.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Erich Alfred Hartmann (19 April 1922 – 20 September 1993) was a German fighter pilot during World War II and the most successful fighter ace in the history of aerial warfare. He flew 1,404 combat missions and participated in aerial combat on 825 separate occasions. He was credited with shooting down a total of 352 Allied aircraft: 345 Soviet and seven American while serving with the Luftwaffe. During the course of his career, Hartmann was forced to crash-land his fighter 16 times due either to mechanical failure or damage received from parts of enemy aircraft he had shot down; he was never shot down by direct enemy action.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann, a pre-war glider pilot, joined the Luftwaffe in 1940 and completed his fighter pilot training in 1942. He was posted to the veteran Jagdgeschwader 52 (JG 52) on the Eastern Front and placed under the supervision of some of the Luftwaffes most experienced fighter pilots. Under their guidance, Hartmann steadily developed his tactics.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: On 29 October 1943, Hartmann was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for 148 enemy aircraft destroyed and the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross for 202 enemy aircraft on 2 March 1944. Exactly four months later, he received the Swords to the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves for 268 enemy aircraft shot down. Ultimately, Hartmann earned the coveted Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds on 25 August 1944 for 301 aerial victories. At the time of its presentation to Hartmann, this was Germany's highest military decoration.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann achieved his 352nd and last aerial victory at midday on 8 May 1945, hours before the German surrender. Along with the remainder of JG 52, he surrendered to United States Army forces and was turned over to the Red Army. In an attempt to pressure him into service with the Soviet-friendly East German National People's Army, he was tried on war crimes charges and convicted. He was initially sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment, later increased to 25 years, and spent 10 years in Soviet prison camps and gulags until he was released in 1955. In 1997, the Russian Federation (posthumously) relieved him of all charges.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In 1956, Hartmann joined the newly established West German Air Force in the "Bundeswehr", and became the first "Geschwaderkommodore" of Jagdgeschwader 71 "Richthofen". He was retired in 1970, due to his opposition to the procurement of the F-104 Starfighter. In his later years, after his military career had ended, he became a civilian flight instructor. Hartmann died on 20 September 1993 at age 71.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Erich Hartmann was born on 19 April 1922 in Weissach, Württemberg, to Doctor Alfred Erich Hartmann and his wife, Elisabeth Wilhelmine Machtholf. The economic depression that followed World War I in Germany prompted Doctor Hartmann to find work in China, and Erich spent his early childhood there. The family was forced to return to Germany in 1928, when the Chinese Civil War broke out. During World War II, Hartmann's younger brother, Alfred, also joined the Luftwaffe, serving as a gunner on a Junkers Ju 87 in North Africa. Alfred Hartmann was captured by the British and spent four years as a prisoner of war.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann was educated at the "Volksschule" in Weil im Schönbuch (April 1928 – April 1932), the Gymnasium in Böblingen (April 1932 – April 1936), the National Political Institutes of Education (Nazi Secondary Education School) in Rottweil (April 1936 – April 1937), and the Gymnasium in Korntal (April 1937 – April 1940), from which he received his Abitur. It was at Korntal that he met his wife-to-be, Ursula "Usch" Paetsch.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann's flying career began when he joined the glider training program of the fledgling Luftwaffe and was taught to fly by his mother, one of the first female glider pilots in Germany. The Hartmanns also owned a light aircraft but were forced to sell it in 1932 as the German economy collapsed. The rise to power of the Nazi Party in 1933 resulted in government support for gliding, and, in 1936, Elisabeth Hartmann established the glider club in Weil im Schönbuch for locals and served as instructor. The 14-year-old Hartmann became a gliding instructor in the Hitler Youth. In 1937, he gained his pilot's license, allowing him to fly powered aircraft.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann began his military training on 1 October 1940 at the 10th Flying Regiment in Neukuhren. On 1 March 1941, he progressed to the "Luftkriegsschule" 2 (Air War School 2) in Berlin-Gatow, making his first flight with an instructor four days later, followed in just under three weeks by his first solo flight. He completed his basic flying training in October 1941 and began advanced flight training at pre-fighter school 2 in Lachen-Speyerdorf on 1 November 1941. There, Hartmann learned combat techniques and gunnery skills. His advanced pilot training was completed on 31 January 1942, and, between 1 March 1942 and 20 August 1942, he learned to fly the Messerschmitt Bf 109 at the "Jagdfliegerschule" 2 (Fighter Pilot School 2).


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann's time as a trainee pilot did not always go smoothly. On 31 March 1942, during a gunnery training flight, he ignored regulations and performed some aerobatics in his Bf 109 over the Zerbst airfield. His punishment was a week of confinement to quarters with the loss of two-thirds of his pay in fines. Hartmann later recalled that the incident saved his life:


title: Erich Hartmann

text: That week confined to my room actually saved my life. I had been scheduled to go up on a gunnery flight the afternoon that I was confined. My roommate took the flight instead of me, in an aircraft I had been scheduled to fly. Shortly after he took off, while on his way to the gunnery range, he developed engine trouble and had to crash-land near the Hindenburg-Kattowitz railroad. He was killed in the crash.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Afterward, Hartmann practised diligently and adopted a new credo which he passed on to other young pilots: "Fly with your head, not with your muscles." During a gunnery practice session in June 1942, he hit a target drogue with 24 of the allotted 50 rounds of machine-gun fire, a feat that was considered difficult to achieve. His training had qualified him to fly 17 different types of powered aircraft, and, following his graduation, he was posted on 21 August 1942 to "Ergänzungs-Jagdgruppe Ost" (Supplementary Fighter Group, East) in Kraków, Upper Silesia, where he remained until 10 October 1942.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In October 1942, Hartmann was assigned to fighter wing "Jagdgeschwader" 52 (JG 52), based at Maykop on the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union. The wing was equipped with the Messerschmitt Bf 109G, but Hartmann and several other pilots were initially given the task of ferrying Junkers Ju 87 Stukas down to Mariupol. His first flight ended with brake failure, causing the Stuka to crash into and destroy the controller's hut. Hartmann was assigned to III. "Gruppe" of JG 52, led by "Gruppenkommandeur" (group commander) Major Hubertus von Bonin, and placed under the experienced "Oberfeldwebel" Edmund "Paule" Roßmann, although he also flew with such experienced pilots as Alfred Grislawski, Hans Dammers and Josef Zwernemann. After a few days of intensive mock combats and practice flights, Grislawski conceded that, although Hartmann had much to learn regarding combat tactics, he was a talented pilot.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann was placed as wingman to Paule Roßmann, who acted as his teacher, and one of the factors that enabled Hartmann's success. Grislawski also gave Hartmann pointers on where to aim. Hartmann eventually adopted the tactic "See – Decide – Attack – Break". The tactics were learned from Roßmann who had been injured in one arm and was not able to fly in physically demanding dogfights. Roßmann's solution was to "stand off", evaluate the situation, then select a target that was not taking evasive action and destroy it at close range.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: On 19 September 1942, III. "Gruppe" had relocated to an airfield named Soldatskaja, located approximately halfway between Mozdok and Pyatigorsk. The "Gruppe" stayed at this airfield until 1 January 1943. During this period, the pilots occasionally also operated from airfields at Mozdok (15, 18, 19, 21, 22 and 23 October) and from Digora (5 to 17 November 1942), supporting Army Group A in the Battle of the Caucasus.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann flew his first combat mission on 14 October 1942 as Roßmann's wingman. When they encountered 10 enemy aircraft below, an impatient Hartmann opened full throttle and separated from Roßmann. He engaged an enemy fighter, but failed to score any hits and nearly collided with it. He then ran for cover in low cloud, and his mission subsequently ended with a crash landing after his aircraft ran out of fuel. Hartmann had violated almost every rule of air-to-air combat, and von Bonin sentenced him to three days of working with the ground crew. According to Günther Rall, who later became Hartmann's "Gruppenkommandeur", Roßmann refused to fly with Hartmann again following this incident. Hartmann was then paired up with Grislawski as his wingman. Twenty-two days later, Hartmann claimed his first victory, an Ilyushin Il-2 "Sturmovik" of the 7th Guards Ground Attack Aviation Regiment, but by the end of 1942, he had added only one more victory to his tally. As with many high-claiming aces, it took him some time to establish himself as a consistently successful fighter pilot. On 5 November 1942, debris from an Il-2 damaged his Bf 109 G-2 engine resulting in a forced landing at Digora.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: His "Gruppe" was moved to the combat area of the Kuban bridgehead on 1 April 1943 where it was based at an airfield at Taman. Operating from Taman until 2 July, III. "Gruppe" also flew missions from Kerch on 12 May, from Sarabuz and Saky on 14 May, Zürichtal, present-day Solote Pole, a village near the urban settlement Kirovske on 23 May, and Yevpatoria on 25/26 June. Hartmann's youthful appearance earned him the nickname "Bubi" (the hypocoristic form of "young boy" in the German language; roughly equivalent to "Kid"), and Walter Krupinski, to whom Hartmann was assigned as wingman, would constantly urge him: "Hey, Bubi, get in closer" or chastise him with "What was that, Bubi?" The danger of this method was evident on 25 May 1943 when he collided with a Soviet fighter instead of shooting it down. Nevertheless, Hartmann steadily improved. In Krupinski's absence, from the third week of May to the first week of August, Hartmann's number of claims rose from 17 to 60.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In preparation for Operation Citadel, III. "Gruppe" was relocated to the central sector of the eastern Front. The "Gruppe" first moved to Zaporizhzhia and then to Ugrim on 3 July. There, under the command of "Luftflotte" 4, they supported Army Group South fighting on the southern flank of the salient. On 5 July Hartmann claimed four victories during the large dogfights that took place during the Battle of Kursk. The day ended badly when Hartmann was unable to prevent Krupinski from being shot down and wounded over Ugrim airfield. Hartmann remarked; "the departure of Krupinski was a severe strike against the "Staffel", and particularly against me." According to authors Prien, Stemmer, Rodeike and Bock, Krupinski was injured when his aircraft flipped on its back during landing in an attempt to evade other Bf 109s taking off. During Krupinski's convalescence, Hartmann served as temporary "Staffelkapitän" (squadron leader) of 7. "Staffel" until 12 August. Hartmann began to score successes regularly in a target rich environment. On 7 July, he for the first time became an "ace-in-a-day", claiming seven aerial victories that day, three Il-2 ground attack aircraft and four Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov (LaGG) fighters. This figure includes two Il-2s from the 1 ShAK regiment claimed shot down on an early morning mission.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: On 8 July, he claimed four aerial victories and three the next day. On the former date, Hartmann claimed two aircraft on each mission he flew. In the first, Soviet records show at least one La-5 was lost. Major Tokarev of the 40 IAP (Fighter Aviation Regiment—"Istrebitelny Aviatsionny Polk") was killed. In the afternoon, a two-man patrol with Rall resulted in two claims, and a third for Rall. A Soviet after-battle analysis mentioned this specific engagement;


title: Erich Hartmann

text: "Eight Yak-1s in the Provorot region observed two Me 109s off their flight path. Paying no attention to the enemy aircraft our fighters continued. Seizing a convenient moment, the German fighters attacked our aircraft and shot down three Yak-1s."


title: Erich Hartmann

text: At the start of August 1943, his tally stood at 42, but Hartmann's tally had more than doubled by the end. The Red Army began a counteroffensive in the region to contain the German operation and destroy its forces (Operation Kutuzov and Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev). JG 52 was engaged in defensive operations throughout the month. On 1 August 1943, Hartmann again became an "ace-in-a day" by claiming five victories over LaGG fighters. Another four followed on 3 August and five on 4 August. On 5 August, III. "Gruppe" was ordered to an airfield named Kharkov-Rogan, east of Kharkov where they fought against the Soviet Belgorod–Kharkov offensive operation. That day, he again claimed five aircraft destroyed, followed a single on 6 August, and a further five on 7 August. On 8 and 9 August he claimed another four Soviet fighters. Hartmann's last claim of the month came on the 20th, when he accounted for an IL-2 for his 90th victory. The next month, on 2 September, he was appointed "Staffelkapitän" of 9./JG 52. He replaced "Leutnant" Berthold Korts in this capacity who had been reported missing in action on 29 August.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In his first year of operational service, Hartmann felt a distinct lack of respect towards Soviet pilots. Most Soviet fighters did not even have effective gunsights and their pilots, some cases in the early weeks, were forced to draw one on the windscreen by hand: "In the early days, incredible as it may seem, there was no reason for you to feel fear if the Russian fighter was behind you. With their hand-painted gunsights they couldn't pull the lead properly (deflection shooting) or hit you." Hartmann also considered the Bell P-39 Airacobra, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, and the Hawker Hurricane to be inferior to the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and Bf 109, although they did provide the Soviets with valuable gunsight technology.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann said the German pilots themselves still learned from their enemy. Oil freezing in the DB 605 engines of the Bf 109G-6s made them difficult to start in the extreme cold of the Russian winter. A captured Soviet airman showed them how pouring fuel into the aircraft's oil sump would thaw the oil and enable the engine to start on the first try. Another solution, also learned from the Soviets, was to ignite fuel under the engine.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In contrast to Hans-Joachim Marseille, who was a marksman and expert in the art of deflection shooting, Hartmann was a master of stalk-and-ambush tactics, preferring to ambush and fire at close range rather than dogfight.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: When the decorated British test pilot Captain Eric Brown asked Hartmann how he had accomplished his total, Hartmann remarked, that along with firing at close range, inadequate Soviet defensive armament and manoeuvre tactics allowed him to claim a victim in every attack.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: His preferred method of attack was to hold fire until extremely close ( or less), then unleash a short burst at point-blank range—a technique he learned while flying as wingman of his former commander, Walter Krupinski, who favoured this approach. This technique, as opposed to long-range shooting, allowed him to:


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann's guidance amplified the need to detect while remaining undetected. His approach was described by himself by the motto: "See–Decide–Attack–Reverse"; observe the enemy, decide how to proceed with the attack, make the attack, and then disengage to re-evaluate the situation. Hartmann's instinct was to select an easy target or withdraw and seek a more favorable situation. Once the attack was over, the rule was to vacate the area; survival was paramount. Another attack could be executed if the pilot could re-enter the combat zone with the advantage.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: If attacked in-kind Hartmann flew straight and used the rudder [yaw] to point the Bf 109 in a slightly different direction to mislead the attacker in the amount of deflection needed. Hartmann then forced the column into the corner of the cockpit beginning the outside rotation of an oblique loop. It was an emergency measure if ambushed and it saved his life several times.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: These tactics inflated Hartmann's successes over the summer of 1943. By 7 July he had claimed 21 Soviet aircraft destroyed and by 20 September he had claimed over 100.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: The demands on fighter pilots increased after Kursk. In early August Hartmann flew 20 missions totalling 18 hours and 29 minutes in six days. By late August 1943, Hartmann had 90 aerial victories. On 20 August, in combat with Il-2s, his Bf 109 G-6 ("Werknummer" 20485—factory number) was damaged by debris, and he was forced to land behind Soviet lines at 06:20 in the vicinity of Artemivsk. Hartmann's "Geschwaderkommodore", Dietrich Hrabak, had given orders to Hartmann's unit to support the dive bombers of "Sturzkampfgeschwader 2", led by Hans-Ulrich Rudel in a counter-attack. The flight of eight German fighters engaged a mass of Soviet Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-5 fighter aircraft. Hartmann claimed two enemy aircraft before his fighter was hit by debris and he was forced to make an emergency landing.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In accordance with regulations, he attempted to recover the precision board clock. As he was doing so, Soviet soldiers approached. Realising that capture was unavoidable, he faked internal injuries. Hartmann's acting so convinced the Soviets that they put him on a stretcher and placed him on a truck. When Hartmann's Crew Chief, Heinz Mertens, heard what had happened, he took a rifle and went to search for Hartmann. Mertens was another important factor behind Hartmann's success, ensuring the aircraft was reliable. Hartmann subsequently escaped, and returned to his unit on 23 August. At least one source suggests the cause of the crash-landing was enemy fire. Lieutenant P. Yevdokimov, flying an IL-2, from the 232 ShAP, may have hit Hartmann. This period was very successful; during five days of August 1943, Hartmann claimed 24 Soviet aircraft in 20 missions.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: On 18 September, Hartmann downed two Yaks from the 812 IAP regiment for claims 92 and 93. On 20 September 1943, Hartmann was credited with his 100th aerial victory—he claimed four this day to end it on 101. He was the 54th Luftwaffe pilot to achieve the century mark. Nine days later, Hartmann downed the Soviet ace Major Vladimir Semenishin of the 104 GvIAP (Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment—"Gvardeyskiy Istrebitelny Aviatsionny Polk") while protecting bombers from "Kampfgeschwader" 27 for his 112th victory.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In October 1943, Hartmann claimed another 33 aerial victories. On 2 and 12 October he accounted for four victories and achieved a treble on 14, 15 and 20 October and double claims on 24, 25 and 29 October. On 29 October, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (), at which point his tally stood at 148. By the end of the year, this had risen to 159. On 14 November 1943, his Bf 109 G-6 ("Werknummer" 20499) suffered engine failure resulting in a forced landing at Kirovohrad airfield.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: On 10 January 1944, III. "Gruppe" moved to an airfield at Novokrasne located approximately south-southwest of Novoukrainka. While based at Novokrasne, elements of the "Gruppe" also operated from Ivanhorod (11 to 13 January), at Velyka Lepetykha (3 to 22 February), and Mykolaiv (2 to 23 February). In the first two months of 1944, Hartmann claimed over 50 Soviet aircraft. On 22 February, he crashed another Bf 109 G-6 on a transfer flight to Uman. The successes included four on 17 January 1944 and on 26 February, a further 10 fighters were claimed shot down; all of them Soviet-flown P-39s to reach 202. His spectacular rate of success raised a few eyebrows even in the Luftwaffe High Command; his claims were double and triple-checked, and his performance closely monitored by an observer flying in his formation.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: By this time, the Soviet pilots were familiar with Hartmann's radio call sign of "Karaya 1", and the Soviet Command had put a price of 10,000 rubles on the German pilot's head. Hartmann was nicknamed the "Cherniy Chort" ("Black Devil") because of his skill and paint scheme of his aircraft. This scheme was in the shape of a black tulip on the engine cowling; though this became synonymous with Hartmann in reality he flew with the insignia on only five or six occasions. Hartmann's opponents were often reluctant to stay and fight if they noticed his personal design. As a result, this aircraft was often allocated to novices, who could fly it in relative safety. On 21 March, it was Hartmann who claimed JG 52s 3,500th victory of the war. Adversely, the supposed reluctance of the Soviet airmen to fight caused Hartmann's kill rate to drop. Hartmann then had the tulip design removed, and his aircraft painted just like the rest of his unit. Consequently, in the following two months, Hartmann claimed over 50 victories.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In March 1944, Hartmann, Gerhard Barkhorn, Walter Krupinski and Johannes Wiese were summoned to Adolf Hitler's "Berghof" in Berchtesgaden. Barkhorn was to be honoured with the Swords, while Hartmann, Krupinski and Wiese were to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (). According to Hartmann, all four of them got drunk on cognac and champagne. On arrival at Berchtesgarden, Hartmann was reprimanded by Hitler's adjutant for intoxication and for handling Hitler's hat.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In April and May 1944, 9./JG 52 resisted the Soviet Crimean Offensive. In April Hartmann claimed five victories. In May, Hartmann filed claims number 208 to 231 which included six on 6 May. On 8 May 1944, JG 52 fled the region as the German defence collapsed. JG 52 subsequently took part in the fighting on the Romanian border.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: III. "Gruppe" relocated to Roman on 18 May. Three days later, Hartmann engaged United States Army Air Forces aircraft in Defence of the Reich for the first time flying in defence of the Ploiești oilfields and engaging North American P-51 Mustang fighters for the first time over Romania. On 24 June, the United States Army Air Forces' (USAAF) Fifteenth Air Force attacked various targets in Romania with 377 bombers. A fraction of this attack force, consisting of 135 Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers and Lockheed P-38 Lightning and P-51 fighters, headed for the Ploiești oilfields. Defending against this attack, Hartmann claimed a P-51 shot down. Only one other claim against this type was made by Hartmann in 1945.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Later that month, P-51s ran his Messerschmitt out of fuel. During the intense manoeuvring, Hartmann ran out of ammunition. One of the P-51Bs flown by Lt. Robert J. Goebel of the 308th Squadron, 31st Fighter Group, broke away and headed straight for Hartmann while he hung in his parachute. Goebel was making a camera pass to record the bailout and banked away from him only at the last moment, waving at Hartmann as he went by.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: On 15 August, III. "Gruppe" moved to Warzyn Pierwszy, Poland. The airfield was located approximately west of Jędrzejów. Two days later, Hartmann became the top scoring fighter ace, surpassing fellow JG 52 pilot Gerhard Barkhorn, with his 274th victory. On 23 August, Hartmann claimed eight victories in three combat missions, an "ace-in-a-day" achievement, bringing his score to 290 victories. He passed the 300-mark on 24 August 1944, a day on which he shot down 11 aircraft in two combat missions south of Radom-Lublin, representing his greatest ever victories-per-day ratio (a "double-ace-in-a-day") and bringing the number of aerial victories to an unprecedented 301.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann became one of only 27 German soldiers in World War II to receive the Diamonds to his Knight's Cross. Hartmann was summoned to the "Führerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze", (the "Wolf's Lair") Adolf Hitler's military headquarters near Rastenburg, to receive the coveted award from Hitler personally. Hartmann was asked to surrender his side arm – a security measure heightened by the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt on 20 July 1944. According to one account, Hartmann refused and threatened to decline the Diamonds if he were not trusted to carry his pistol. During Hartmann's meeting with Hitler, Hartmann discussed at length the shortcomings of fighter pilot training. Allegedly, Hitler admitted to Hartmann that he believed that, "militarily, the war is lost," and that he wished the Luftwaffe had "more like him and Rudel."


title: Erich Hartmann

text: The Diamonds to the Knight's Cross also earned Hartmann a 10-day leave. On his way to his vacation, he was ordered by "General der Jagdflieger" Adolf Galland to attend a meeting in Berlin-Gatow. Galland wanted to transfer Hartmann to the Messerschmitt Me 262 test program but, at Hartmann's request, the transfer was cancelled on the grounds of his professed attachment to JG 52. Hartmann argued to Göring that he best served the war effort on the Eastern Front. On 10 September, Hartmann married his long-time teenage love, Ursula "Usch" Paetsch. Witnesses to the wedding included his friends Gerhard Barkhorn and Wilhelm Batz.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: On 25 May, II. "Gruppe" was ordered to transfer one "Staffel" to the west in Defence of the Reich. Barkhorn, the commander of II. "Gruppe", selected "Leutnant" Hans Waldmann's 4. "Staffel" which was officially assigned to the II. "Gruppe" of "Jagdgeschwader" 3 "Udet" (JG 3—3rd Fighter Wing). On 10 August, this squadron officially became the 8. "Staffel" of JG 3. In consequence, Hartmann was transferred on 30 September and tasked with creation and leadership of a new 4. "Staffel" of JG 52. Command of his former 9. "Staffel" was passed on to "Leutnant" Hans-Joachim Birkner. At the time, II. "Gruppe" was based in Nagyrábé, Hungary. Before flying further combat missions, Hartmann had to train the new inexperienced pilots. He led this squadron until 16 January 1945 when he was given command of I. "Gruppe" of JG 52, thus succeeding "Major" Barkhorn in this capacity. Hartmann transferred command of 4. "Staffel" to "Leutnant" Friedrich Haas.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: On 31 January 1945, Hartmann transferred command of I. "Gruppe" of JG 52 to "Major" Batz. From 1–14 February, he then briefly led I. "Gruppe" of "Jagdgeschwader" 53 as acting "Gruppenkommandeur" until he was replaced by "Hauptmann" Helmut Lipfert. At the time, the "Gruppe" was based in Veszprém and was fighting in the siege of Budapest. He claimed his only aerial victory with JG 53 on 4 February when he shot down a Yak-9 fighter. In March 1945, Hartmann, his score now standing at 337 aerial victories, was asked a second time by General Adolf Galland to join the Me 262 units forming to fly the new jet fighter.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann attended the jet conversion program led by Heinrich Bär. Galland also intended Hartmann to fly with "Jagdverband" 44. Hartmann declined the offer, preferring to remain with JG 52. Some sources report that Hartmann's decision to stay with his unit was due to a request via telegram made by "Oberstleutnant" Hermann Graf.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: On 1 February, Hartmann was appointed "Gruppenkommandeur" of I./JG 52, succeeding "Hautpmann" Adolf Borchers. Hartmann claimed his 350th aerial victory on 17 April, in the vicinity of Chrudim. The last wartime photograph of Hartmann known was taken in connection with this victory. Hartmann's last aerial victory occurred over Brno, Czechoslovakia, on 8 May, the last day of the war in Europe. Early that morning, he was ordered to fly a reconnaissance mission and report the position of Soviet forces. Hartmann took off with his wingman at 08:30 and spotted the first Soviet units just away. Passing over the area, Hartmann saw a Yak-9, ambushed it from his vantage point at and shot it down.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: When he landed, Hartmann learned that the Soviet forces were within artillery range of the airfield, so JG 52 destroyed "Karaya" One, 24 other Bf 109s, and large quantities of ammunition. Hartmann and Hermann Graf were ordered to fly to the British sector to avoid capture by Soviet forces while the remainder of JG 52 was ordered to surrender to the approaching Soviets. As "Gruppenkommandeur" of I./JG 52, Hartmann chose to surrender his unit to members of the US 90th Infantry Division.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: After his capture, the U.S. Army handed Hartmann, his pilots, and ground crew over to the Soviet Union on 14 May, where he was imprisoned in accordance with the Yalta Agreements, which stated that airmen and soldiers fighting Soviet forces had to surrender directly to them. Hartmann and his unit were led by the Americans to a large open-air compound to await the transfer.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In Hartmann's account, the Soviets attempted to convince him to cooperate with them. He was asked to spy on fellow officers, but refused and was given ten days' solitary confinement in a chamber. He slept on a concrete floor and was given only bread and water. On another occasion, according to Hartmann, the Soviets threatened to kidnap and murder his wife (the death of his son was kept from Hartmann). During similar interrogations about his knowledge of the Me 262, Hartmann was struck by a Soviet officer using a cane, prompting Hartmann to hit the assailant with a chair, knocking him out. Expecting to be shot, he was transferred back to the small bunker.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann, not ashamed of his war service, opted to go on a hunger strike and starve rather than fold to "Soviet will", as he called it. The Soviets allowed the hunger strike to go on for four days before force-feeding him. More subtle efforts by the Soviet authorities to convert Hartmann to communism also failed. He was offered a post in the East German Air Force, which he refused:


title: Erich Hartmann

text: If, after I am home in the West, you make me a normal contract offer, a business deal such as people sign every day all over the world, and I like your offer, then I will come back and work with you in accordance with the contract. But if you try to put me to work under coercion of any kind, then I will resist to my dying gasp.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: During his captivity Hartmann was first arrested on 24 December 1949, and three days later, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The sentence was carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the district Ivanovo. The preliminary criminal investigation was carried out only formally. He was condemned for atrocities against Soviet citizens, the attack on military objects and the destruction of Soviet aircraft and thus having significantly damaged the Soviet economy. Hartmann protested multiple times against this judgement. In June 1951, he was charged for a second time as an alleged member of an anti-Soviet group.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: This tribunal was carried out under military authority in the military district of Rostov-on-Don. Hartmann was charged with war crimes, specifically the "deliberate shooting of 780 Soviet civilians" in the village of Briansk, attacking a bread factory on 23 May 1943, and destroying 345 "expensive" Soviet aircraft. He refused to confess to these charges and conducted his own defence, which, according to Hartmann, the presiding judge denounced as a "waste of time".


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Sentenced to 25 years of hard labour, he refused to work, and was put into solitary confinement, which led to a riot by some of his fellow detainees, who overpowered the guards, and temporarily freed him. He made a complaint to the "Kommandant"s office, asking for a representative from Moscow and an international inspection, as well as a new trial hearing to overturn his sentence. This was refused, and he was transferred to a camp in Novocherkassk, where he spent five more months in solitary confinement. He was later put before a new tribunal, which upheld the original sentence. He was subsequently sent to another camp, this time at Diaterka in the Ural Mountains. In late 1955 Hartmann was released as a part of the last "Heimkehrer".


title: Erich Hartmann

text: In January 1997, more than three years after his death, Hartmann's case was reviewed by the Chief Military Prosecutor in Moscow of the Russian Federation, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and he was acquitted of all historical charges against him in Russian Law. The government agency stated that he had been wrongly convicted.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: During his long imprisonment, Hartmann's son, Erich-Peter, was born in 1945 and died as a three-year-old in 1948, without his father ever having seen him. Hartmann later had a daughter, Ursula Isabel, born on 23 February 1957. When Hartmann returned to West Germany, he reentered military service in the "Bundeswehr" and became an officer in the West German Air Force, where he commanded West Germany's first all-jet unit from 6 June 1959 to 29 May 1962, "Jagdgeschwader 71" "Richthofen". This unit was equipped initially with Canadair Sabres and later with Lockheed F-104 Starfighters.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann also made several trips to the United States, where he was trained on U.S. Air Force equipment. In 1957 Hartmann began training with American instructors. The German pilots were trained at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. The Republic F-84 Thunderjet fighter course lasted 60 days and consisted of 33 hours of flight time in the Lockheed T-33 and 47


title: Erich Hartmann

text: hours in the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak. Hartmann and the former Luftwaffe pilots needed only familiarisation training.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann considered the F-104 a fundamentally flawed and unsafe aircraft and strongly opposed its adoption by the Air Force. Already in 1957, Hartmann had recommended to Kammhuber to first buy and evaluate a few new and unfamiliar aircraft before committing the air force to a new aircraft type. Although events subsequently validated his low opinion of the aircraft (269 crashes and 116 German pilots killed on the F-104 in non-combat missions, along with allegations of bribes culminating in the Lockheed scandal), Hartmann's outspoken criticism proved unpopular with his superiors, and he was put into early retirement in 1970. From 1971 to 1974, Hartmann worked as a flight instructor in Hangelar, near Bonn, and also flew in fly-ins with other wartime pilots.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann died on 20 September 1993, at the age of 71 in Weil im Schönbuch. In 2016, Hartmann's former German Air Force unit, JG 71, honoured him by applying his tulip colour scheme to their current aircraft.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann was the subject of a biography by the American authors Trevor J. Constable and Raymond F. Toliver, under the title "The Blond Knight of Germany". Originally released in the United States in 1970, it was published in Germany the next year, as "Holt Hartmann vom Himmel!" (""Shoot Hartmann down!"").


title: Erich Hartmann

text: "The Blond Knight" was a commercial success and enjoyed a wide readership among both the American and the German public. The book has been criticised by some as ahistorical and misleading in recent American and German historiography. Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies, in their work "The Myth of the Eastern Front", describe it as one of the key works that promoted the myth of the "clean Wehrmacht".


title: Erich Hartmann

text: The historian Jens Wehner notes that the German-language version of the book was immensely popular in Germany, but contained serious flaws in its presentation of historical realities. These included uncritical borrowing from the Nazi propaganda elements of the "Fliegerasse" ("aces") and stereotypes about the Soviet Union. According to Wehner, the latter could be traced to the prevailing attitudes during the Cold War. Further, the political and social consequences of World War II were completely ignored.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: According to US historian David T. Zabecki, Hartmann was credited with 352 aerial victories. Spick also lists Hartmann with 352 aerial victories claimed in 1,425 combat missions, all of which on the Eastern Front. Mathews and Foreman, authors of "Luftwaffe Aces – Biographies and Victory Claims", researched the German Federal Archives and found records for 352 aerial victory claims, plus two further unconfirmed claims. This number includes two claims over United States Army Air Forces flown P-51 Mustangs, and 350 Soviet Air Forces piloted aircraft on the Eastern Front. According to the authors Daniel and Gabor Horvath, comparison to enemy loss reports showed that the number of aircraft destroyed by Hartmann may actually be much lower than the 352 he claimed, regardless of enemy nationality.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann had kept the whereabouts of his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross secret from his captors during his time as a prisoner of war, claiming that he had thrown it away. The hiding place was in a small stream. His comrade Hans "Assi" Hahn managed to hide the Knight's Cross in a double bottom cigar box and smuggled it back to Germany when he was released from captivity.


title: Erich Hartmann

text: Hartmann joined the military service in "Wehrmacht" on 1 October 1940. His first station was Neukuhren in East Prussia, where he received his military basic training as a Luftwaffe recruit.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued to members of the eight uniformed services of the United States as well as to military and political figures of foreign governments.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The Legion of Merit (Commander degree) is one of only two United States military decorations to be issued as a neck order (the other being the Medal of Honor), and the only United States military decoration that may be issued in degrees (much like an order of chivalry or certain Orders of Merit), although the degrees including a neck ribbon are only awarded to non-U.S. nationals.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The Legion of Merit is seventh in the order of precedence of all U.S. military awards and is worn after the Defense Superior Service Medal and before the Distinguished Flying Cross. In contemporary use in the U.S. Armed Forces, the Legion of Merit is typically awarded to Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force general officers and colonels, and Navy and Coast Guard flag officers and captains occupying senior command or very senior staff positions in their respective services. It may also be awarded to officers of lesser rank, senior warrant officers (typically in command positions at the rank of chief warrant officer 5), and to very senior enlisted personnel (typically in the rank of command sergeant major and Sergeant Major of the Army in the Army, fleet master chief petty officer and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy in the Navy, command chief master sergeant and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force in the Air Force, command chief master sergeant and Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force in the Space Force, and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps in the Marine Corps), but these instances are less frequent, typically by exception, and the circumstances vary by branch of service.


title: Legion of Merit

text: Authority to award the Legion of Merit is reserved for general officers and flag officers in pay grade O-9 (e.g. lieutenant general and vice admiral) and above, civilian Department of Defense personnel at assistant service secretary or Assistant Secretary of Defense level and above, or equivalent secretary-level civilian personnel with the Department of Homeland Security with direct oversight of the U.S. Coast Guard.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The degrees of Chief Commander, Commander, Officer, and Legionnaire are awarded only to members of armed forces of foreign nations under the criteria outlined in Army Regulation 672-7 and is based on the relative rank or position of the recipient as follows:


title: Legion of Merit

text: When the Legion of Merit is awarded to members of the uniformed services of the United States, it is awarded without reference to degree. The criteria are "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements" and is typically reserved for senior officers at O-6 level and above, typically in connection with senior leadership/command positions or other senior positions of significant responsibility.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The degrees and the design of the decoration were influenced by the French Legion of Honour ("Légion d'honneur").


title: Legion of Merit

text: Although recommendations for creation of a medal for meritorious service were initiated as early as September 1937, no formal action was taken toward approval.


title: Legion of Merit

text: In a letter to the Quartermaster General (QMG) dated December 24, 1941, the Adjutant General formally requested action be initiated to create a meritorious service medal, and provide designs in the event the decoration was established. Proposed designs prepared by Bailey, Banks, and Biddle, and the Office of the Quartermaster General were provided to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel (Colonel Heard) by the QMG on January 5, 1942.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The Assistant Chief of Staff (G-1), Brigadier General John H. Hilldring, in a response to the QMG on April 3, 1942, indicated the Secretary of War had approved the design recommended by the QMG. The design of the Legion of Merit (change of name) would be ready for issue immediately after legislation authorizing it was enacted into law. (A separate medal called the Meritorious Service Medal was established in 1969.)


title: Legion of Merit

text: An act of Congress (Public Law 671, 77th Congress, Chapter 508, 2d Session) on July 20, 1942, established the Legion of Merit and provided that the medal "shall have suitable appurtenances and devices and not more than four degrees, and which the President, under such rules and regulations as he shall prescribe, may award to


title: Legion of Merit

text: The medal was announced in War Department Bulletin No. 40, dated August 5, 1942. Executive Order 9260, dated October 29, 1942, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, established the rules for the Legion of Merit, and required the President's approval for the award.


title: Legion of Merit

text: Following the invasion of North Africa in November 1942, a number of United States officers were awarded the Legion of Merit in the degree of Officer. One of the recipients was future Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer. Soon after, regulations for the award of the Legion of Merit were revised so that it would not be awarded in the degrees above Legionnaire to United States military personnel.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The Legion of Merit is similar to the French Legion of Honor in both its design, a five-armed cross, and in that it is awarded in multiple degrees. Unlike the Legion of Honor, however, the Legion of Merit is only awarded to military personnel. In addition, it is the only award in the world with multiple degrees of which the higher degrees cannot be awarded to citizens of the country of the award's origin.


title: Legion of Merit

text: In October 1942, Brazilian Army Brigadier General Amaro Soares Bittencourt became the first person awarded the Legion of Merit (Commander) and a week later, Lieutenant, junior grade Ann A. Bernatitus, a U.S. Navy Nurse Corps officer, became the first member of the United States Armed Forces and the first woman to receive the Legion of Merit. She received the award for her service during the defense of the Philippines. LTJG Bernatitus was also the first recipient of the Legion of Merit authorized to wear a Combat "V" with the medal.


title: Legion of Merit

text: General Dwight D. Eisenhower was presented the Legion of Merit by President Roosevelt while he was en route to the Tehran Conference, in Cairo, Egypt, on November 26, 1943.


title: Legion of Merit

text: In 1943, at the request of the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, approval authority for U.S. personnel was delegated to the Department of War. Executive Order 10600, dated March 15, 1955, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, again revised approval authority. Current provisions are contained in Title 10, United States Code 1121. As a result, awarding authority for the Legion of Merit resides with general officers/flag officers at the Lieutenant General / Vice Admiral level or higher.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, unlike the Army and later the Air Force, provided for the Legion of Merit to be awarded with a "V" device indicating awards for participation in combat operations.


title: Legion of Merit

text: From 1942 to 1944, the Legion of Merit was awarded for a fairly wide range of achievements. This was because it was, until the establishment of the Bronze Star Medal in 1944, the only decoration below the Silver Star which could be awarded for combat valor, and the only decoration below the Distinguished Service Medal which could be awarded for meritorious noncombat service.


title: Legion of Merit

text: After the establishment of the Bronze Star Medal (BSM) in February 1944, the Legion of Merit was awarded almost exclusively to senior officers in the rank of lieutenant colonel (Army, Marine Corps and Air Force) or commander (Navy and Coast Guard) (O-5), and above. Beginning in the 1980s, the Legion of Merit began to be awarded more frequently to senior-ranking warrant officers (W-4 and W-5), as well as to senior enlisted service members (E-8 and E-9), usually as a retirement award. When not awarded as a retirement award, it is most commonly awarded to officers in pay grade O-6 and higher.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The Meritorious Service Medal (MSM) was established in 1969 as a "junior" version of the Legion of Merit and prior to 2003 was only awarded for non-combat service. The MSM is awarded more frequently, and to more lower-ranking military personnel, than the Legion of Merit. Recipients of the MSM are usually in pay grades E-7 thru E-9, W-3 thru W-5 (Army Only), and O-4 thru O-6 for the Army, Air Force, and Space Force; for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard the MSM is usually presented to those in pay grades E-9, W-4, W-5, O-5 and O-6.


title: Legion of Merit

text: The ribbon for all of the decorations is wide and consists of the following stripes: white; center crimson; and white. The reverse of all of the medals has the motto taken from the Great Seal of the United States, "" ("He [God] has favored our undertakings") and the date "" (1782), which is the date of America's first decoration, the Badge of Military Merit, now known as the Purple Heart. The ribbon design also follows the pattern of the Purple Heart ribbon.


title: Legion of Merit

text: Additional awards of the Legion of Merit are denoted by oak leaf clusters (in the Army, Air Force, and Space Force), and by gold stars (in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard). Until 2017, the sea services (the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard) awarded the Combat "V" for wear on the LOM. The Army, Air Force, and Space Force do not authorize the "V" device for the Legion of Merit.


title: WeChat

text: WeChat () is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has been described as China's "app for everything" and a super-app because of its wide range of functions. WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing.


title: WeChat

text: User activity on WeChat is analyzed, tracked and shared with Chinese authorities upon request as part of the mass surveillance network in China. WeChat censors politically sensitive topics in China. Data transmitted by accounts registered outside China is surveilled, analyzed and used to build up censorship algorithms in China.


title: WeChat

text: In response to a border dispute between India and China, WeChat was banned in India in June 2020 along with several other Chinese apps. U.S. President Donald Trump sought to ban U.S. "transactions" with WeChat through an but was blocked by a preliminary injunction issued in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in September 2020.


title: WeChat

text: By 2010, Tencent had already attained a massive user base with their desktop messenger app QQ. Recognizing smart phones were likely to disrupt this status quo, CEO Pony Ma sought to proactively invest in alternatives to their own QQ messenger app.


title: WeChat

text: WeChat began as a project at Tencent Guangzhou Research and Project center in October 2010. The original version of the app was created by Allen Zhang and named "Weixin" () by Pony Ma and launched in 2011. User adoption of WeChat was initially very slow, with users wondering why key features were missing; however, after the release of the Walkie-talkie-like voice messaging feature in May of that year, growth surged. By 2012, when the number of users reached 100 million, Weixin was re-branded "WeChat" for the international market.


title: WeChat

text: During a period of government support of e-commerce development—for example in the 12th five-year plan (2011–2015)—WeChat also saw new features enabling payments and commerce in 2013, which saw massive adoption after their virtual Red envelope promotion for Chinese New Year 2014.


title: WeChat

text: WeChat had over 889 million monthly active users by 2016, and as of 2019 WeChat's monthly active users had risen to an estimate of one billion. As of January 2022, it was reported that WeChat has more than 1.2 billion users. After the launch of WeChat payment in 2013, its users reached 400 million the next year, 90 percent of whom were in China. By comparison, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp had about one billion monthly active users in 2016 but did not offer most of the other services available on WeChat. For example, in Q2 2017, WeChat's revenues from social media advertising were about US$0.9 billion (RMB6 billion) compared with Facebook's total revenues of US$9.3 billion, 98% of which were from social media advertising. WeChat's revenues from its value-added services were US$5.5 billion.


title: WeChat

text: WeChat provides many features similar to Snapchat such as text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video calls and conferencing, video games, photograph and video sharing, as well as location sharing. WeChat also allows users to exchange contacts with people nearby via Bluetooth, as well as providing various features for contacting people at random if desired (if people are open to it). It can also integrate with other social networking services such as Facebook and Tencent QQ. Photographs may also be embellished with filters and captions, and automatic translation service is available.


title: WeChat

text: WeChat supports different instant messaging methods, including text messages, voice messages, walkie talkie, and stickers. Users can send previously saved or live pictures and videos, profiles of other users, coupons, lucky money packages, or current GPS locations with friends either individually or in a group chat. WeChat's character stickers, such as Tuzki, resemble and compete with those of LINE, a Japanese-South Korean messaging application.


title: WeChat

text: WeChat also provides a message recall feature to allow users to recall and withdraw information (e.g. Images, documents) that are sent within 2 minutes in a conversation. To use this feature, users can select the message or file to be recalled by long pressing. In the menu that appears select 'recall' and 'ok' to complete the withdrawal process. Eventually, the selected messages or files will be removed from the WeChat chatting box on both the sender's and recipient's phones.


title: WeChat

text: WeChat users can register as a public account (), which enables them to push feeds to subscribers, interact with subscribers and provide them with services. Users can also create an official account, which fall under service, subscription, or enterprise accounts. Once users as individuals or organizations set up a type of account, they cannot change it to another type. By the end of 2014, the number of WeChat official accounts had reached 8 million. Official accounts of organizations can apply to be verified (cost 300 RMB or about US$45). Official accounts can be used as a platform for services such as hospital pre-registrations, visa renewal or credit card service. To create an official account, the applicant must register with Chinese authorities, which discourages "foreign companies". In April 2022, WeChat announced that it will start displaying the location of users in China everytime they post on a public account. Meanwhile, overseas users on public accounts will also display the country based on their IP address. In the official version of iOS WeChat 8.0.27 , which was released in 23/08/2022. The new feature shows that when browsing the official account article in the new version of WeChat or opening a webpage in WeChat, there will be an option “Save the whole page as a picture” in the lower right corner after the screenshot. Once users clicked, the system automatically takes a screenshot of the entire page, which provides a convenient option for users who like to bookmark their account posts.


title: WeChat

text: "Moments" () is WeChat's brand name for its social feed of friends' updates. "Moments" is an interactive platform that allows users to post images, text, and short videos taken by users. It also allows users to share articles and music (associated with QQ Music or other web-based music services). Friends in the contact list can give thumbs up to the content and leave comments. Moments can be linked to Facebook and Twitter accounts, and can automatically post Moments content directly on these two platforms.


title: WeChat

text: Privacy in WeChat works by groups of friends: only the friends from the user's contact are able to view their Moments' contents and comments. The friends of the user will only be able to see the likes and comments from other users only if they are in a mutual friend group. For example, friends from high school are not able to see the comments and likes from friends from a university. When users post their moments, they can separate their friends into a few groups, and they can decide whether this Moment can be seen by particular groups of people. Contents posted can be set to "Private", and then only the user can view it. Unlike Sina Weibo or Instagram, these are only shared to the users friends. These are unlikey to go viral.


title: WeChat

text: Users who have provided bank account information may use the app to pay bills, order goods and services, transfer money to other users, and pay in stores if the stores have a WeChat payment option. Vetted third parties, known as "official accounts", offer these services by developing lightweight "apps within the app". Users can link their Chinese bank accounts, as well as Visa, MasterCard and JCB.


title: WeChat

text: WeChat Pay () is a digital wallet service incorporated into WeChat, which allows users to perform mobile payments and send money between contacts.


title: WeChat

text: Although users receive immediate notification of the transaction, the WeChat Pay system is not an instant payment instrument, because the funds transfer between counterparts is not immediate. The settlement time depends on the payment method chosen by the customer.


title: WeChat

text: All WeChat users have their own WeChat Payment accounts. Users can acquire a balance by linking their WeChat account to their debit cards, or by receiving money from other users. For non-Chinese users of WeChat Pay, an additional identity verification process of providing a photo of a valid ID is required before certain functions of WeChat Pay become available. Users who link their credit card can only make payments to vendors, and cannot use this to top up WeChat balances. WeChat Pay can be used for digital payments, as well as payments from participating vendors. As of March 2016, WeChat Pay had over 300 million users.


title: WeChat

text: WeChat Pay's main competitor in China and the market leader in online payments is Alibaba Group's Alipay. Alibaba company founder Jack Ma considered WeChat's red envelope feature to be a "Pearl Harbor moment", as it began to erode Alipay's historic dominance in the online payments industry in China, especially in peer-to-peer money transfer. The success prompted Alibaba to launch its own version of virtual red envelopes in its competing Laiwang service. Other competitors, Baidu Wallet and Sina Weibo, also launched similar features.


title: WeChat

text: In 2019 it was reported that WeChat had overtaken Alibaba with 800 million active WeChat mobile payment users versus 520 million for Alibaba's Alipay. However Alibaba had a 54 per cent share of the Chinese mobile online payments market in 2017 compared to WeChat's 37 per cent share. In the same year, Tencent introduced "WeChat Pay HK", a payment service for users in Hong Kong. Transactions are carried out with the Hong Kong dollar. In 2019 it was reported that Chinese users can use WeChat Pay in 25 countries outside China, including, Italy, South Africa and the UK.


title: WeChat

text: For work purposes, companies and business communication, a special version of WeChat called Enterprise WeChat (or Qiye Weixin) was launched in 2016. The app was meant to help employees separate work from private life. In addition to the usual chat features, the program let companies and their employees keep track of annual leave days and expenses that need to be reimbursed, employees could ask for time off or clock in to show they were at work.


title: WeChat

text: In 2017, WeChat launched a feature called "Mini Programs" (). A mini program is an app within an app. Business owners can create mini apps in the WeChat system, implemented using JavaScript plus a proprietary API. Users may install these inside the WeChat app. In January 2018, WeChat announced a record of 580,000 mini programs. With one Mini Program, consumers could scan the Quick Response code using their mobile phone at a supermarket counter and pay the bill through the user's WeChat mobile wallet. WeChat Games have received huge popularity, with its "Jump Jump" game attracting 400 million players in less than 3 days and attaining 100 million daily active users in just two weeks after its launch, as of January 2018. Ever since WeChat Mini Program's Launch, daily active user (DAU) of WeChat Mini Programs are increasing dramatically. In 2017, there was only 160 million DAU, however, the number reached 450 million at 2021.


title: WeChat

text: In 2020, WeChat Channels was launched, which is a short video platform within WeChat that allows users to create and share short video clips and photos to their own WeChat Channel. Users of Channels can also discover content posted to other Channels by others via the in-built feed. Each post can include hashtags, a location tag, a short description, and a link to an WeChat official account article. In September 2021, it was reported that WeChat Channels began allowing users to upload hour-long videos, twice of the duration limit previously imposed on all WeChat Channels videos. Comparisons are often drawn between WeChat Channels and TikTok (or Douyin) for their similarity in features.


title: WeChat

text: In January 2022, there were reports that WeChat is set to diversify further and place more emphasis on new products and services like WeChat Channels, amid new regulatory restrictions imposed in China.


title: WeChat

text: By June 2021, WeChat Channels had accumulated over 200 million users. More than 27 million people had used the platform to watch Irish boy band Westlife's online concert in 2021, and 15 million users also viewed the Shenzhou 12 spaceflight launch using the app service.


title: WeChat

text: In September 2021, WeChat introduced a brand-new feature on its platform called Easy Mode. It was mainly designed for elderly people with higher readability by providing a larger font size, sharper colours, and bigger buttons. Another feature provided in this update was the ability to listen to text messages. Easy Mode was released in version 8.0.14 for both iOS and Android.


title: WeChat

text: In 2015, WeChat offered a heat map feature that showed crowd density. Quartz columnist Josh Horwitz alleged the feature is being used by the Chinese government to track irregular assemblies of people to determine unlawful assembly.


title: WeChat

text: In January 2016, Tencent launched WeChat Out, a VOIP service allowing users to call mobile phones and landlines around the world. The feature allowed purchasing credit within the app using a credit card. WeChat Out was originally only available in the United States, India, and Hong Kong, but later coverage was expanded to Thailand, Macau, Laos, and Italy.


title: WeChat

text: In March 2017, Tencent released WeChat Index. By inserting a search term in the WeChat Index page, users could check the popularity of this term in the past 7, 30, or 90 days. The data was mined from data in official WeChat accounts and metrics such as social sharing, likes and reads were used in the evaluation.


title: WeChat

text: In May 2017, Tencent started news feed and search functions for its WeChat app. The "Financial Times" reported this was a "direct challenge to Chinese search engine Baidu".


title: WeChat

text: WeChat allowed people to add friends by a variety of methods, including searching by username or phone number, adding from phone or email contacts, playing a "message in a bottle" game, or viewing nearby people who are also using the same service. In 2015 WeChat added a "friend radar" function.


title: WeChat

text: In 2017, WeChat was reported to be developing an augmented reality (AR) platform as part of its service offering. Its artificial intelligence team was working on a 3D rendering engine to create a realistic appearance of detailed objects in smartphone-based AR apps. They were also developing a simultaneous localization and mapping technology, which would help calculate the position of virtual objects relative to their environment, enabling AR interactions without the need for markers, such as Quick Response codes or special images.


title: WeChat

text: In late 2019, WeChat released dark theme for Android users. It was released later in early 2020 for iOS amidst rumors that WeChat would be removed from the Apple store if they do not release dark theme.


title: WeChat

text: In spring 2020, WeChat users are now able to change their WeChat ID more than once, being allowed to change their username only once per year. Prior to this, a WeChat ID could not be changed more than once.


title: WeChat

text: On 17 June 2020, WeChat released a new add-on called "WeChat Nudge". The feature was first introduced in MSN Messenger 7.0, in 2005. The feature was called Buzz in Yahoo! Messenger and the feature had interoperability with MSN Messenger's Nudge. Similar to Messenger and Yahoo, users can access WeChat Nudge by double-clicking on other users' profiles in the chat. This virtually shakes user's profile photo and sends a vibration notification. Both users must have the latest Wechat update(7.0.13). If a user does not have the latest update they can't nudge another user but can still receive nudges. A user can only nudge another user if they have previous conversations. Newly added friends without previous messages cannot nudge each other.


title: WeChat

text: On January 21, 2021, WeChat released its iOS Version 8.0. WeChat has added the function of animated emoji, such as the emojis of Bomb, Fireworks, and Celebration. When sending or receiving them from the chat box, an explosion animation will pop up .


title: WeChat

text: On March 30, 2022, According to the relevant laws and regulations of China, in order to prevent the risk of publicity stunt in virtual currency transactions, the Wechat public platform has recently standardized the official account and mini program of secondary sales of digital collections。