Everything about Manfred Von Richthofen totally explained
Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (
2 May 1892 –
21 April 1918) was a
German fighter pilot known as
"The Red Baron". He was the most successful
flying ace of
World War I, being officially credited with 80 confirmed
air combat victories.
Richthofen was a member of an
aristocratic family with
many famous relatives.
Name and nicknames
Freiherr (literally "Free Lord") isn't a given name but a German aristocratic
title, equivalent to a
Baron in other countries and the origin of Richthofen's most famous nickname: "The Red Baron". The German translation of
Red Baron is . Richthofen is sometimes known under this nickname even in Germany, although during his lifetime he was more often described in German as
Der Rote Kampfflieger, (variously translated as the
The Red Battle Flyer or
The Red Fighter Pilot). This name was used as the title of Richthofen's 1917 "autobiography".
Richthofen's other nicknames include
"le Diable Rouge" ("Red Devil") or
"Le Petit Rouge" ("Little Red") in
French, and the "Red Knight" in
English.
Early life
Richthofen was born in Kleinburg, near
Breslau,
Silesia, into a
family of old Prussian nobility. When he was nine years old, he moved with his family to nearby
Schweidnitz. The young Richthofen enjoyed riding
horses and hunting as well as gymnastics at school. In the protected game forests, he and his brothers, Lothar and Bolko, hunted wild boar, elk, birds, and deer. They collected and displayed their trophies. After both being educated at home and attending the local school at Schweidnitz, Richthofen began military training at age 11. Upon completion of cadet training in 1911, he joined the
Ulanen-Regiment Kaiser Alexanders des III. von Russland (1. Westpreußisches) Nr. 1 ("
Uhlan Regiment Emperor
Alexander III of Russia 1st Regiment,
West Prussia, Uhlan Regiment Number 1"), a
cavalry unit, and was assigned to the regiment's
3. Eskadron.
When World War I broke out, Richthofen served as a
cavalry officer on both the
Eastern and
Western Fronts. However, when traditional cavalry operations became obsolete due to
machine guns and
barbed wire, the Uhlans were used as infantry. Disappointed with not being able to participate more often in combat operations, Richthofen applied for a transfer to the
Luftstreitkräfte (literally: Aerial Combat Forces), the "Imperial German Army Air Service", forerunner of the Luftwaffe. After a while his request was granted and he joined the flying service at the end of May 1915.
Piloting career
He was initially an observer flying on reconnaissance missions over the
Eastern Front from June to August 1915, with
Fliegerabteilung 69 ("No. 69 Flying Squadron"). On being transferred to the Champagne front, he managed to shoot down a French
Farman aircraft with his observer's machine gun, but wasn't credited with the kill, as it fell behind Allied lines.
He then trained as a pilot in October 1915. In March 1916, he joined
Kampfgeschwader 2 ("No. 2 Bomber
Geschwader") flying a two-seater
Albatros C.III. Over
Verdun on
26 April 1916 he fired on a French
Nieuport downing it over
Fort Douaumont, although once again he gained no official credit. At this time he flew a
Fokker Eindecker single-seat fighter.
After a further spell flying two seaters on the Eastern Front in August 1916 he met
fighter pilot Oswald Boelcke. Boelcke, touring the East looking for candidates for his newly formed fighter unit, selected Richthofen to join a new
Jagdstaffel ("fighter squadron"),
Jasta 2. Richthofen won his first aerial combat over
Cambrai,
France, on
17 September 1916.
After his first victory, Richthofen ordered a silver cup engraved with the date of the fight and the type of enemy machine from a jeweller friend in Berlin. He continued this tradition until he'd 60 cups, by which time the supply of silver in blockaded Germany was restricted.
Rather than engage in risky tactics like his brother
Lothar (40 victories), Manfred von Richthofen strictly observed a set of flight maxims (commonly referred to as the "
Dicta Boelcke") to assure the greatest success for both squadron and individual fighter pilot. Contrary to popular imagination, he wasn't a spectacular or acrobatic pilot, as were others like his brother or the renowned
Werner Voss. However, in addition to being a fine combat tactician and squadron leader, he was recognized as a superb marksman, and in combat he philosophically viewed his aircraft as merely a platform from which to fire his guns. Typically, as was the case for most squadron leaders, he'd dive in to attack from above with the advantage of the sun behind him, and with other Jasta pilots covering his rear and flanks.
On
23 November 1916, Richthofen downed his most renowned adversary, the British ace Major
Lanoe Hawker VC, described by Richthofen himself as "the British Boelcke." The victory came while Richthofen was flying an
Albatros D.II and Hawker was flying a
D.H.2. After this engagement, he was convinced he needed a fighter aircraft with more agility, though this implied a loss of speed. He switched to the
Albatros D.III in January 1917, scoring two victories before suffering a crack in the spar of the aircraft's lower wing. After this incident, Richthofen reverted to the Albatros D.II for the next five weeks. Richthofen scored one kill in the D.III on
9 March, but the D.III was temporarily grounded for the rest of the month, so Richthofen switched to the
Halberstadt D.II.
Richthofen returned to the Albatros D.III on
2 April 1917. He scored his next 22 kills in this type before switching to the
Albatros D.V in late June. From his return from convalescence in October, Richthofen was flying the celebrated
Fokker Dr.I triplane, the distinctive three-winged aircraft with which he's most commonly associated, although he probably didn't use the type exclusively until after it was reissued with strengthened wings in November. Despite the popular link between Richthofen and the Fokker Dr. I, only 20 of his 80 kills were made in this now-famous triplane. In fact, it was his Albatros D.III that was first painted bright red and in which he first earned his name and reputation.
Richthofen championed the development of the
Fokker D.VII with suggestions to overcome the deficiencies of the then current German fighter aircraft.
Richthofen was a brilliant tactician, building on Boelcke's tactics. But unlike Boelcke, he led by example and force of will rather than by inspiration. He was often described as distant, unemotional, and rather humourless, though some colleagues contend otherwise.
Incidentally, although he was now performing the duties of a lieutenant colonel, (in modern RAF terms: a wing commander) he remained a captain. The system in the British army would have been for him to have held the rank appropriate to his level of command (if only on a temporary basis) even if he hadn't been formally promoted. In the German army it wasn't unusual for a wartime officer to hold a lower rank than his duties implied, German officers being promoted according to a schedule and not by battlefield promotion. For instance,
Erwin Rommel commanded an infantry battalion as a captain in 1917 and 1918. It was also not the custom for a son to hold a higher rank than his father, and Richthofen's father was a reserve major.
Richthofen wounded in combat
On
6 July, during combat with a formation of
F.E.2d two seat fighters of
No. 20 Squadron RFC, Richthofen sustained a serious head wound that forced him to land near Wervicq and grounded him for several weeks. The air victory was credited to
Captain Donald Cunnell of No. 20, who himself was killed a few days later.
Although the Red Baron returned to combat in October 1917, his wound is thought to have caused lasting damage, as he later often suffered from post-flight nausea and headaches, as well as a change in temperament. There is even a theory linking this injury with his eventual death (see relevant section of this article).
Author and hero
It was during his convalescence that Richthofen (probably with the help of a
ghostwriter from a German propaganda unit) wrote his "autobiography",
Der rote Kampfflieger. A translation by J. Ellis Barker was published in 1918 as
The Red Battle Flyer. Although Richthofen died before a revised version could be prepared, he's on record as repudiating the book - stating that it was "too insolent" (or "arrogant") and that he was "no longer that kind of person".
In 1918, Richthofen had become such a legend that it was feared that his death would be a blow to the morale of the German people. Richthofen himself refused to accept a ground job after his wound, stating that if the average German soldier had no choice in his duties, he'd therefore continue to fly in combat. Certainly he'd become part of a cult of hero-worship, assiduously encouraged by official propaganda. German propaganda circulated various false rumours, including that the British had raised squadrons specially to hunt down Richthofen, and were offering large rewards and an automatic
Victoria Cross to any Allied pilot who shot him down. Passages from his correspondence indicate he may have at least half believed some of these stories himself.
Death
Richthofen was killed just after 11 a.m. on
21 April 1918, while flying over
Morlancourt Ridge, near the
Somme River.
At the time, the Baron had been pursuing (at very low altitude) a
Sopwith Camel piloted by a novice
Canadian pilot, Lieutenant
Wilfrid "Wop" May of
No. 209 Squadron,
Royal Air Force. In turn, the Baron was spotted and briefly attacked by a Camel piloted by a school friend (and flight Commander) of May, Canadian Captain
Arthur "Roy" Brown, who had to dive steeply at very high speed to intervene, and then had to climb steeply to avoid hitting the ground. Richthofen turned to avoid this attack, and then resumed his pursuit of May.
It was almost certainly during this final stage in Richthofen's pursuit of May that he was hit by a single
.303 bullet, which caused such severe damage to his heart and lungs that it must have produced a very speedy death. In the last seconds of his life, he managed to make a hasty but controlled landing in a field on a hill near the Bray-Corbie road, just north of the village of
Vaux-sur-Somme, in a sector controlled by the
Australian Imperial Force (AIF). One witness, Gunner George Ridgway, stated that when he and other Australian soldiers reached the aircraft, Richthofen was still alive but died moments later.
His Fokker wasn't badly damaged by the landing, but it was soon taken apart by souvenir hunters.
No. 3 Squadron,
Australian Flying Corps, as the nearest Allied air unit, assumed responsibility for the Baron's remains.
Who fired the fatal shot?
After ninety years of controversy and contradictory
hypotheses, exactly who fired the fatal shot remains uncertain.
The
RAF credited Brown with shooting down the Red Baron. However, Richthofen died following an extremely serious and inevitably fatal chest wound from a single bullet, penetrating from the right armpit and resurfacing next to the left nipple. If this was from Brown's guns, Richthofen simply couldn't have continued his pursuit of May for as long as he did. The wound through his body indicated that it had been caused by a bullet moving in an upward motion, from the right side, and more importantly, that it was probably received some time after Brown's attack. Buie, who died in 1964, has never been officially recognised in any other way.
The commanding officer of No. 3 Squadron AFC, Major
David Blake suggested initially that Richthofen had been killed by the crew of one of his squadron's
R.E.8s, which had also fought Richthofen's unit that afternoon. However, this was quickly disproved, and, following an
autopsy that he witnessed, Blake became a strong proponent of the view that an AA machine gunner had killed Richthofen.
Theories about Richthofen's last combat
Richthofen was a highly experienced and skilled fighter pilot — fully aware of the risk from ground fire. Furthermore he was fully in accord with his late mentor
Boelcke's rules of air fighting, which were strongly against taking foolish risks. In view of all this, it's universally accepted that Richthofen's judgement during his last combat was uncharacteristically unsound in several respects. Several theories have been propounded to account for this behaviour - some of which are detailed below.
In 1999, a German medical researcher, Dr. Henning Allmers, published an article in British medical journal
The Lancet, suggesting that it was likely brain damage from the head wound suffered by Richthofen in June 1917 (see above) played a part in the Baron's death. This theory was supported by a 2004 paper from researchers at the
University of Texas. Richthofen's behaviour after his injury was noted as consistent with
brain-injured patients, and such an injury may account for his perceived lack of judgment on his final flight: flying too low over enemy territory and suffering
target fixation.
There is also a possibility that Richthofen was suffering from
cumulative combat stress, which made him fail to observe some of his usual precautions. It is remarkable that one of the leading British air aces, Major
Edward "Mick" Mannock, was also killed by ground fire on
26 July 1918 while crossing the lines at low level, an action against which he'd always cautioned his younger pilots. And the most popular of all French air aces,
Georges Guynemer, went missing on
11 September 1917, probably while attacking a two-seater without realizing some Fokkers were escorting it.
Perhaps more relevant is the suggestion in Franks and Bennett's 2007 book, that on the day of Richthofen's death, the prevailing wind was about 25 mph (40 km/h) easterly, rather than the usual westerly. This meant that Richthofen, heading generally westward at an airspeed of about 100 mph (160 km/h), was travelling over the ground at 125 mph (200 km/h) rather than the more typical ground speed of 75 mph (120 km/h). This was 50 mph (80 km/h) or 60% faster than normal and thus he could easily have strayed over enemy lines without realizing it, especially since he was struggling with one jammed gun and another that was only firing short bursts before needing re-cocking.
On the other hand, in assessing all these factors the circumstances of the time have to be borne in mind. At the time of Richthofen's death the front was in a highly fluid state, following the initial success of the
German offensive of March-April 1918. The Baron must have been acutely aware that the battle he was engaged in was part of Germany's last real chance to win the war — in the face of Allied air superiority, the German air service was having great difficulty in acquiring vital reconnaissance information, such as the positions of batteries, and could do little to prevent Allied squadrons from completing very effective reconnaissance and close support of their armies. In this situation, foolhardiness and extreme bravery may be unusually hard to distinguish.
Burial
In common with most Allied air officers, Major Blake, who was responsible for Richthofen's remains, regarded the Red Baron with great respect, and he organised a full
military funeral, to be conducted by the personnel of No. 3 Squadron AFC.
Richthofen was buried in the cemetery at the village of
Bertangles, near
Amiens, on
22 April 1918. Six airmen with the rank of Captain — the same rank as Richthofen — served as pallbearers, and a guard of honour from the squadron's other ranks fired a salute. Other Allied squadrons presented memorial wreaths.
Richthofen's aircraft was dismembered by souvenir hunters. Its engine was donated to the
Imperial War Museum in
London, where it's still on display. The
Royal Canadian Military Institute in
Toronto,
Ontario Canada owns the seat in which he died. The Institute also displays a side panel from the aircraft - signed by the pilots of Brown's squadron.
In 1925, Manfred von Richthofen's youngest brother, Bolko, recovered the body and took it home. The family's first intention was to lay Manfred's coffin down at the Schweidnitz cemetery, beside the graves of his father (died in 1920) and his brother, who had been killed in a post-war air crash in 1922. But German authorities expressed a wish that the final place of rest for the body to be interred at the
Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery in
Berlin, where many German military heroes and leaders were buried. The family agreed, and Richthofen's grave remained in Berlin until 1975, when his body was exhumed and buried in his family’s tomb at the Südfriedhof in
Wiesbaden.
Number of victories
For decades after World War I, some authors questioned whether Richthofen achieved 80 victories, insisting that his record was exaggerated for propaganda purposes. Some claimed that he took credit for aircraft downed by his squadron or wing. However, in the 1990s, resurgence in Great War scholarship resulted in detailed investigation of many facets of air combat. A study conducted by British historian
Norman Franks with two colleagues, published in
Under the Guns of the Red Baron in 1998, concluded that at least 73 of Richthofen's claimed victories were accurate, with documented identities of the Allied airmen whom Richthofen had fought and defeated. There were also unconfirmed victories that could put his actual total as high as 100. The highest scoring Allied ace was Frenchman
René Fonck, with 75 victories and the highest scoring
British Empire fighter pilots were Mick Mannock with 65–73 kills and Canadian
Billy Bishop, with 72.
It is also significant that while Richthofen's early victories and the establishment of his reputation coincided with a period of German
air superiority, the majority of his successes were achieved against a numerically superior enemy, who were flying
fighter aircraft that were on the whole better than his own.
Tributes and honours
At various times, several different
Luftwaffe geschwadern have been named after the Baron:
A
Kriegsmarine (German navy)
seaplane tender launched in 1941 was also named
Richthofen.
Decorations and awards
Prussian Pour le Mérite Order: 12 January 1917 (in recognition of his 16th aerial victory).
Prussian Red Eagle Order, 3rd Class with Crown and Swords: 6 April 1918 (in recognition of his 70th aerial victory).
Prussian Royal Hohenzollern House Order, Knight’s Cross with Swords: 11 November 1916.
Prussian Iron Cross, 1st Class (1914)
Prussian Iron Cross, 2nd Class (1914): 12 September 1914.
Bavarian Military Merit Order, 4th Class with Swords: 29 April 1917.
Saxon Military St. Henry Order, Knight’s Cross: 16 April 1917.
Württemberg Military Merit Order, Knight’s Cross: 13 April 1917.
Saxe-Ernestine Ducal House Order, Knight 1st Class with Swords (issued by the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha): 9 May 1917.
Hesse General Honour Decoration, “for Bravery”
Lippe War Honour Cross for Heroic Deeds: 13 October 1917.
Schaumburg-Lippe Cross for Faithful Service: 10 October 1917.
Bremen Hanseatic Cross: 25 September 1917.
Lübeck Hanseatic Cross: 22 September 1917.
Austrian Order of the Iron Crown, 3rd Class with War Decoration: 8 August 1917.
Austrian Military Merit Cross, 3rd Class with War Decoration
Bulgarian Bravery Order, 4th Class (1st Grade): June 1917.
Turkish Imtiaz Medal in Silver with Sabres
Turkish Liakat Medal in Silver with Sabres
Turkish War Medal (“Iron Crescent”): 4 November 1917.
German Army Pilot’s Badge
German Army Observer’s Badge
Austrian Field Pilot’s Badge (Franz Joseph pattern)Further Information
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