The red fighter

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Front cover of the first edition of Der rote Kampfflieger

Der Rote Kampfflieger is an autobiographical work first published in 1917 by the German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen , who is now considered the most successful pilot of the First World War . In it he describes his life and his military career, which made him the fighter pilot with the most aerial victories (80 in total). In a simple style of language, the work cultivates the stereotype of a chivalrous, honorable war hero who is fundamentally superior to his opponent and who regards aerial combat as almost a sporting activity.

Creation and publication

Photography by Manfred von Richthofens, printed in the first edition of Der rote Kampfflieger

The work was created in the penultimate year of the war, 1917, when the 25-year-old von Richthofen was already being used intensively by the Supreme Army Command (OHL) for propaganda purposes due to his military successes . At this time he had already been urged by various publishers to write down his career in order to advance his stylization as a war hero. He had rejected such proposals on the grounds of a lack of interest and talent on his part. However, when the OHL finally instructed him to write an autobiographical work, he had to submit to it: On May 22nd, he began to write on his home leave in his parents' villa in Schweidnitz ; shortly afterwards, in view of the massive press on his person, he withdrew to the possessions of Prince Hans Heinrich XV. von Pless in Upper Silesia , where he continued the work until his return to the front on June 14th. The work only made further progress when von Richthofen was given a forced leave of absence on September 6, 1917 after a serious head injury and stayed with his family until October 23 (with a brief interruption). A shorthand typist from the Ullstein publishing house in Berlin was sent to Schweidnitz for the final paperwork, and the final corrections to the manuscript were dictated to her.

The resulting text was, however, revised by the journalist Erich von Salzmann, an employee of the Ullstein publishing house, at his own discretion, which was stipulated in the author's contract. This intervention also explains the simple and apparently authentic, but fluid and literarily well thought-out style of the work. The manuscript completed by Salzmann was checked and censored by the imperial news and press department . However, since the original font has not been preserved, neither the changes made by the publisher nor the censorship can be reconstructed. The publication went extremely quickly and in October “Der Rote Kampfflieger” was still on the market in paperback format as number 30 in the series “Ullstein War Books”. It became an enormous economic success and had sold 400,000 copies by 1918. The year after publication, Manfred von Richthofen was killed on the ground by an Australian machine gunner during a dogfight.

Content and structure

The red fighter pilot was supposed to be, as is customary in the “Ullstein War Books” series, an “eyewitness report” of the acts of war that was as authentic as possible and stylistically uncomplicated. In the process, however, the reality of the First World War - the industrialized mass war - was faded out and the anachronistic and transfigured image of an individually acting and virtuous combat hero was set against it. Instead of simple soldiers, naval captains and, above all, fighter pilots like von Richthofen, were particularly suitable for this stylization. In this context, Monika Szczepaniak speaks of a “(post) heroic construction of masculinity” from a gender-scientific perspective, that is, of the creation of a heroic image at a time when the war was no longer characterized by classic heroism.

The script can be characterized as an “autobiographical collection of episodes with a simple basic dramatic pattern”. The sections mostly depict a knightly fight of the pilot von Richthofen, from which he emerges as a hero figure and (more or less) victorious. The metaphors that are used play down the killing of the enemy. War thus appears as a sport in which records can be set, or as a form of hunting in which the other person is an individual, but as “game” has no personality traits. Englishmen are still seen more as equal opponents with whom a heroic duel is possible and who may even be spared after being shot down; Russians, on the other hand, are considered to be members of an underdeveloped people who are being exterminated en masse. Von Richthofen basically shows that killing is fun for him and that from a bird's eye view and the technical combat capabilities of a pilot, there is a satisfying feeling of superiority. At the beginning of the book in particular, the author also emphasizes his “fallibility”, sometimes even his youthful naivety and lack of experience in the war, in order to reduce distance from the reader.

The red fighter follows a basically chronological structure, many of the short chapters are preceded by a date. The title of the book refers to the eye-catching red machine that flew von Richthofen (and soon the rest of his squadron to confuse the enemies and protect the famous aviator). In very short chapters, the military experiences of the ancestors and episodes from Richthofen's childhood and youth are presented briefly. The main part of the book then deals with his career in the Uhlan regiment, in the infantry brigade and, above all, from 1915 as a fighter pilot. The last sections take up a few other topics, for example, dealing with the hiring of a war pilot, with Richthofen's aurochs hunt during his home leave (actually a wisent, as Richthofen also explains in the text) and with the technical development of combat aircraft.

Further editions

Numerous cuts and additions were made to the various new editions of the work after 1917. In 1920, published by Erich von Salzmann, a new edition was published under the title "Ein Heldenleben", in which the illustrations and some parts of the text were omitted. Instead, the publication includes various documents on the life of Richthofens, which come from himself, but also from family members (brother, mother), eyewitnesses and other people and make up almost two thirds of the book's content. His heroism, extraordinary physical constitution and his military worth are emphasized again, but his life as a bachelor is also ironically commented. However, the edition sold significantly worse than the first publication - only 26,000 copies were printed. In 1933 another new edition was published with additions by Manfred von Richthofen's brother Karl-Bolko and a foreword by Hermann Göring , which again had greater success (350,000 copies). The co-author was Hans Rudolf Berndorff; the original text from 1917 was part of the overall work under the heading “My Life in War”, along with supplementary documents as they were already printed in 1920. Among other things, compared to the first edition, the ancestry of the fighter pilot was no longer presented as a civil and non-warlike family, but as a traditionally military family; a report by the Canadian Captain Roy Brown about the death and burial of Richthofens should reinforce the myth of invincibility. As a result of various editorial adjustments, von Richthofen appeared as a forerunner of the National Socialists and as a soldier who devotedly made the necessary sacrifices of the war regime; the individual characteristics of Richthofens were put in the background in favor of a further emphasis on chivalry and the fulfillment of duty.

During the Third Reich, numerous other editions of the work were published by Ullstein Verlag (1933 several times, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939; after 1937 under the name "Deutscher Verlag"), by Winkler in Darmstadt (1933, 1934, 1936, 1937, 1939, 1941) and the Buchgemeinde Bonn am Rhein (1934), partly also in German shorthand . In 1977 an edition was published by the Matthes & Seitz publishing house, which initially contained the text of the first edition from 1917 and then an essay by Friedrich Wilhelm Korff , which "for the first time uses aspects of today's psychology to appreciate a certain historical situation". In this study, Korff's text can be found on the right-hand side, while supporting or illustrative contemporary documents or quotations from the earlier versions of “The Red Fighting Flyer” are on the left. In 1990 a reprint of the original publication (slightly modified contrary to the information in the imprint) with a foreword by NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner was published . Both of these conditions try to support Richthofen's image of chivalry and virtue and to make it useful for the moral ideas of their time, by emphasizing, among other things, his self-image as an honorable hunter ( woad justice ). Wörner especially goes into the 'exemplary' behavior of the fighter pilot who, contrary to the tendencies of his time, refused to kill people senselessly. In addition to these versions, various other reprints have been published by various publishers since 1977.

An English translation by James Ellis Barker appeared in 1918 under the title "The Red Battle Flyer". This was published without the necessary consent of the German rights holder, as the work clarified the tactics of German fighter pilots and was therefore relevant for the English warfare. Another translation into English by Peter Kilduff was first published in 1969.

effect

In its numerous new editions, the font established the personality cult around von Richthofen as a hero figure, which emerged after the end of the war. Based on its title, the fighter pilot became famous under the nickname "The Red Baron" (presumably going back to an English publication which translated the German nobility title Freiherr with baron ). The reception took place both in democratic forms of government ( Weimar Republic , Federal Republic of Germany ) as well as during the Third Reich , whereby the various representations sometimes diverged far from the historical personality.

Manfred von Richthofen gave the Air Force Fighter Wing 71 its name. Various street names were named after him, and he also repeatedly played a role in computer games, literary or musical works and the toy industry. The American production Manfred von Richthofen - Der Rote Baron (1971) and the German feature film Der Rote Baron (2008), in which the stereotypes that first reached a broad public in 1917 in “Rote Kampfflieger” are taken up, should be mentioned as films .

Expenses (selection)

Title page of the first edition from 1917
  • Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot (= Ullstein war books. Volume 30). Ullstein, Berlin 1917.
  • Manfred von Richthofen: The red air fighter. With preface and explanatory notes by CG Gray. The "Airplane" & General Publishing Co., London 1918.
  • Manfred von Richthofen: A hero's life. Ullstein, Berlin 1920.
  • Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot. Introduced and supplemented by Bolko Freiherr von Richthofen. With a foreword by Hermann Göring . Ullstein, Berlin 1933 (heavily abbreviated).
  • Manfred von Richthofen: The Red Baron. Translated by Peter Kilduff. Doubleday, Garden City (New York) 1969.
  • Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot: The red baron. The story of the legendary aviator ace in his own words. With a study by Friedrich Wilhelm Korff. Matthes & Seitz, Munich 1977.
  • Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot. Introduction by Manfred Wörner. Germa Press, Hamburg 1990.

Nadine Seidel has put together a complete overview of all issues (as of 2015).

Web links

Commons : The red fighter pilot  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Jörg Bernig : Anachronistic war image, self-staging and posthumous heroization. Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot (1917). In: Thomas F. Schneider, Hans Wagener : From Richthofen to Remarque. German-language prose on World War I (= Amsterdam contributions to modern German studies. Volume 53). Rodopi, Amsterdam / New York 2003, ISBN 90-420-0955-1 , pp. 97-111.
  • Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , especially p. 148 f. (to the history of origin).
  • René Schilling: war heroes. Patterns of interpretation of heroic masculinity in Germany, 1813–1945 (= War in History. Volume 15). Schöningh, Paderborn 2002, ISBN 978-3-506-74483-8 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University 2000).
  • Thomas Schneider: From the editorial mythization of a hero. The three editions of Richthofen's Der rote Kampfflieger 1917, 1920, 1933. In: June. Magazine for politics and literature. Volume 24, 1996, pp. 156-177.
  • Nadine Seidel: “Not 'Schießer', but Weidmann” - How a misunderstood ethical construct made Manfred von Richthofen a hero. In: Gislinde Seybert, Thomas Stauder (Hrsg.): Heroisches Elend. The First World War in the intellectual, literary and visual memory of European cultures. Part 1, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-63662-6 , pp. 741-762.
  • Nadine Seidel: How to edit heroes. A comparison of expenditure by Manfred von Richthofen's Der Rote Kampfflieger . In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Poetry and Truth. Literary war processing from the 17th to the 20th century (= War and Literature / War and Literature Jahrbuch / Yearbook. Volume 21). Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8471-0487-2 , pp. 67–90.
  • Monika Szczepaniak: "Knight of the Skies". The fighter pilot as a (post) heroic construction of masculinity. In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Truth machines (= War and Literature / War and Literature Yearbook / Yearbook. Volume 15). Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-89971-590-3 , pp. 241–252, especially pp. 244–247.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ First World War: The Deadly Secret of the Red Baron - WELT. Retrieved March 30, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 148 f.
  3. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , pp. 184-187.
  4. ↑ Nadine Seidel: How to edit heroes. A comparison of expenditure by Manfred von Richthofen's Der Rote Kampfflieger . In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Poetry and Truth. Literary war processing from the 17th to the 20th century. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8471-0487-2 , p. 67-90, here p. 69 f.
  5. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 187.
  6. ↑ Nadine Seidel: “Not 'Schießer', but Weidmann” - How a misunderstood ethical construct made Manfred von Richthofen a hero. In: Gislinde Seybert, Thomas Stauder (Hrsg.): Heroisches Elend. The First World War in the intellectual, literary and visual memory of European cultures. Part 1, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-63662-6 , pp. 741–762, here p. 743.
  7. ↑ Monika Szczepaniak: "Knight of the Skies". The fighter pilot as a (post) heroic construction of masculinity. In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Truth machines. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-89971-590-3 , pp. 241-252.
  8. ↑ Jörg Bernig : Anachronistic war image, self-staging and posthumous heroization. Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot (1917). In: Thomas F. Schneider, Hans Wagener : From Richthofen to Remarque. German-language prose on World War I. Rodopi, Amsterdam / New York 2003, ISBN 90-420-0955-1 , pp. 97–111, here pp. 103 f.
  9. ↑ Nadine Seidel: “Not 'Schießer', but Weidmann” - How a misunderstood ethical construct made Manfred von Richthofen a hero. In: Gislinde Seybert, Thomas Stauder (Hrsg.): Heroisches Elend. The First World War in the intellectual, literary and visual memory of European cultures. Part 1, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-63662-6 , pp. 741–762, here pp. 744–748.
  10. ↑ Jörg Bernig : Anachronistic war image, self-staging and posthumous heroization. Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot (1917). In: Thomas F. Schneider, Hans Wagener : From Richthofen to Remarque. German-language prose on World War I. Rodopi, Amsterdam / New York 2003, ISBN 90-420-0955-1 , pp. 97–111, here pp. 101 and 105 f.
  11. ↑ Monika Szczepaniak: "Knight of the Skies". The fighter pilot as a (post) heroic construction of masculinity. In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Truth machines. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-89971-590-3 , pp. 241–252, here p. 246 and p. 251 with note 29.
  12. ↑ Nadine Seidel: How to edit heroes. A comparison of expenditure by Manfred von Richthofen's Der Rote Kampfflieger . In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Poetry and Truth. Literary war processing from the 17th to the 20th century. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8471-0487-2 , pp. 67–90, here pp. 70–73.
  13. ↑ Monika Szczepaniak: "Knight of the Skies". The fighter pilot as a (post) heroic construction of masculinity. In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Truth machines. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-89971-590-3 , pp. 241–252, here pp. 244–246.
  14. ↑ Nadine Seidel: “Not 'Schießer', but Weidmann” - How a misunderstood ethical construct made Manfred von Richthofen a hero. In: Gislinde Seybert, Thomas Stauder (Hrsg.): Heroisches Elend. The First World War in the intellectual, literary and visual memory of European cultures. Part 1, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-63662-6 , pp. 741–762, here p. 749 f.
  15. ↑ Jörg Bernig : Anachronistic war image, self-staging and posthumous heroization. Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot (1917). In: Thomas F. Schneider, Hans Wagener : From Richthofen to Remarque. German-language prose on World War I. Rodopi, Amsterdam / New York 2003, ISBN 90-420-0955-1 , pp. 97–111, here p. 101.
  16. ↑ Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot (= Ullstein war books. Volume 30). Ullstein, Berlin 1917, p. 174 f. (Chapter “Lothar a“ shooter ”and not a Weidmann“), pp. 176–179 (Chapter “The Aurochs”), pp. 183–185 (Chapter “Our aircraft”).
  17. ↑ On the circulation figures Nadine Seidel: How to edit heroes. A comparison of expenditure by Manfred von Richthofen's Der Rote Kampfflieger . In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Poetry and Truth. Literary war processing from the 17th to the 20th century. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8471-0487-2 , pp. 67–90, here p. 88, note 18.
  18. ↑ Jörg Bernig : Anachronistic war image, self-staging and posthumous heroization. Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot (1917). In: Thomas F. Schneider, Hans Wagener : From Richthofen to Remarque. German-language prose on World War I. Rodopi, Amsterdam / New York 2003, ISBN 90-420-0955-1 , pp. 97–111, here pp. 99 f. and p. 102.
  19. ↑ Nadine Seidel: How to edit heroes. A comparison of expenditure by Manfred von Richthofen's Der Rote Kampfflieger . In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Poetry and Truth. Literary war processing from the 17th to the 20th century. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8471-0487-2 , pp. 67–90, here pp. 76–79.
  20. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Euler : Manfred v. Richthofen and his siblings. Ancestry. In: Archives for kin research. 45th year, issue 73, February 1979, pp. 1–33, here p. 1.
  21. ↑ On these two editions Nadine Seidel: How to edit heroes. A comparison of expenditure by Manfred von Richthofen's Der Rote Kampfflieger . In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Poetry and Truth. Literary war processing from the 17th to the 20th century. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8471-0487-2 , pp. 67–90, here pp. 79–83.
  22. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 328, note 26.
  23. ↑ Jörg Bernig : Anachronistic war image, self-staging and posthumous heroization. Manfred von Richthofen: The red fighter pilot (1917). In: Thomas F. Schneider, Hans Wagener : From Richthofen to Remarque. German-language prose on World War I. Rodopi, Amsterdam / New York 2003, ISBN 90-420-0955-1 , pp. 97–111, here p. 98.
  24. ↑ Nadine Seidel: How to edit heroes. A comparison of expenditure by Manfred von Richthofen's Der Rote Kampfflieger . In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Poetry and Truth. Literary war processing from the 17th to the 20th century. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8471-0487-2 , p. 67–90, here p. 67 and p. 87 (note 2-4).
  25. ↑ Nadine Seidel: How to edit heroes. A comparison of expenditure by Manfred von Richthofen's Der Rote Kampfflieger . In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Poetry and Truth. Literary war processing from the 17th to the 20th century. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück at V&R Unipress, Osnabrück / Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8471-0487-2 , p. 67-90, here p. 85 f.