LvR's comments about EL strike a chord w/me, FWIW. After flying/shooting/working with a like-minded partner, you can in fact develop the next thing to ESP, recognizing his likely moves before they occur. With one of my frequent flying buds, when he squirmed in his cockpit, I knew he was about to depart the formation rawther abruptly. (Half-snap to inverted and split-S out was typical.) Of course, open cockpits lend themselves to such aeronautical interpretations moreso than later designs.
Reading betwixt the lines, I believe that after losing Manfred, Lothar was in search of someone else he could trust. That resonates because it recalls the relationship with my best-ever best friend. But that wasn't in combat, so we may only try to imagine what it meant to Lother in 1918.