 Nowotny scored his 69th to 72nd victory on 16 March . He reached the century mark on 5 June 1943 , on his 344th combat mission . He was the 42nd Luftwaffe pilot to achieve the century mark . By 24 June , he would accumulate a further 24 victories increasing his total to 124 . On 21 August , Nowotny was made Gruppenkommandeur of I. / JG 54 . In August alone , he shot down 49 aircraft – a number matched exactly by Jagdgeschwader 52 's ( JG 52 ) Erich Hartmann – bringing Nowotny 's total to 161 victories . On 1 September , he scored ten victories in two sorties , which took his tally to 183 . Seventy @-@ two hours later , that number had risen to 189 , earning him the Knight 's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves ( Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub ) on 8 September . The award was to be personally presented by the Führer , Adolf Hitler , on 22 September 1943 . However , by this date Nowotny had claimed his double century ( 200 ) on 8 September , and , on 15 September , his 215th victory , making him the highest @-@ scoring pilot in the Luftwaffe to that time . Two Lavochkin La @-@ 5s and a Yakovlev Yak @-@ 9 on 17 September brought his score to 218 victories , earning him Knight 's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords ( Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern ) on 22 September 1943 . The planned " Oakleaves " ( Eichenlaub ) presentation thus became a Swords ( Schwerter ) ceremony . 
