Manfred von Richthofen

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Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen (1917)
Manfred von Richthofen Signature.svg

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (* 2. May 1892 in Breslau suburb Kleinburg , † 21st April 1918 at Vaux-sur-Somme , Somme ) was a German officer and fighter pilot in the First World War . As a single pilot, he achieved the highest number of aerial victories in this war . Richthofen became one of the most famous pilots worldwide, remembered by films, books and other media to this day. Nicknames such as Red Baron can be traced back to the red signal paint on his aircraft.

Life

Brief overview of the transport vita

The von Richthofen family: father Albrecht sitting in the middle; standing from left to right Manfred, the mother Kunigunde and the siblings Lothar, Bolko and Ilse.

Manfred von Richthofen came from the aristocratic Richthofen family . He was the second of four children of the cavalry officer Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (1859–1920) and his wife Kunigunde, born von Schickfus and Neudorff (1868–1962), and a descendant of the Prussian field marshal Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau and the general and secret agent War Councilor Johann Philipp von Beust . He got his first name after his great uncle, the general and adjutant of his Majesty Manfred von Richthofen (1855-1939) Haus Barzdorf. His siblings were Lothar (1894–1922), also a fighter pilot, Bolko (1903–1971) and Elisabeth (1890–1963), called Ilse.

He spent the first years of his life on his grandfather's estate, Schloss Romberg , which, however, had to be leased and finally sold because of economic difficulties. He received private tuition until he was 9 years old. Then his family moved to Schweidnitz in a villa in the suburbs. Here he attended school in Schweidnitz for a year. As a boy he was very interested in hunting and horse riding . At the age of eleven he took part in large hunting parties. He was very daring and loved looking for a challenge together with his playmates. At his father's request, he attended the Wahlstatt cadet institute from 1903 to 1908 . He wasn't particularly motivated to learn, but he was an enthusiastic athlete who ambitiously tackled tasks that required enormous efforts even from the instructors. During this time he intensively cultivated his hobby, equestrian sport. He took part in horse shows and traveled a lot with horses with his closest friends. From 1909 to 1911 he attended the Hauptkadettenanstalt Lichterfelde and joined in spring 1911 as an ensign in the Lancers Regiment "Emperor Alexander III. von Russland ”(West Prussian) No. 1 in Militsch . There he was appointed lieutenant after attending the war school on November 19, 1912 and assigned to the 3rd squadron in Ostrowo .

War effort

Richthofen's Albatros D.Va after a crash landing

At the beginning of the First World War, Richthofen and his regiment were deployed on the Russian border and after a few days transferred to the western front. From Diedenhofen his regiment crossed the border to Luxembourg and then marched through Belgium . During this time he undertook increased patrol rides for reconnaissance behind the enemy lines. On September 1, 1914, he was transferred as an intelligence officer to the 4th Army , which was located at Verdun after the border battles . In order to escape the monotony of positional warfare, Richthofen applied for his transfer on January 1, 1915. He was assigned to the 18th Infantry Brigade as an orderly officer on January 15 . Since this activity mostly took place in the rear area behind the front , he had time to pursue his passion as a hunter. Here too he felt under-challenged.

His thirst for action finally prompted him to be transferred to the air force. On May 30, 1915, he began his training as an observer at a course in Aviation Replacement Department 7 in Cologne , completed a 30-day course there and then a 14-day practical course in Grossenhain near Dresden . On June 21, 1915, Richthofen was assigned to Feldflieger -teilung 69, which was deployed on the Eastern Front near Lemberg and was tasked with carrying out reconnaissance flights over Russian troop movements in Russian Poland and Galicia . During the reconnaissance flights Richthofen fought several Russian frontline soldiers in their positions.

In August 1915 he was relocated from the Eastern to the Western Front and was assigned to the Ostend carrier pigeon department . This unit had a camouflage designation and was actually the first combat squadron of the OHL , the purpose of which was to fly bombing raids against England. Since the range of the available AEG G bombers was not sufficient, one had to be content with operations in the canal and in the French hinterland. In September 1915, Richthofen applied to be transferred to the Metz carrier pigeon department. On the train ride to Metz , he met Oswald Boelcke in the dining car .

In Metz, Richthofen completed his pilot training , which he passed on the third attempt. On December 24, 1915 he received the license to fly . As a member of the 8th Combat Squadron of the 2nd Combat Squadron, Richthofen was back in action off Verdun from March 1, 1916 . In September 1916 he joined the Jagdstaffel (Jasta) 2 , which was under the command of Oswald Boelcke. He scored his first kill on September 17, 1916 over Cambrai . To commemorate their baptism of fire , Boelcke presented each of his successful pilots with an honorary goblet as a recognition gift . Richthofen bought a small silver cup after every victory in the air; He had a well-known Berlin jeweler deliver the cups with the date of launch and the type of aircraft engraved.

Richthofen was a skilful tactician who carefully observed the principles set out by his teacher Boelcke ( Dicta Boelcke ) and usually brought all the advantages on his side before a dogfight. Boelcke died on October 28, 1916 during a combat mission after he had touched the airplane of his comrade Erwin Böhme during an evasive maneuver and damaged a wing. His plane spun and crashed. On November 23, 1916, Richthofen flew another mission with other pilots. The Jasta 2 met the squadron of the well-known British pilot Lanoe Hawker via Le Sars . In the course of the fight, a curve fight developed between Richthofen, who was flying an Albatros D.II biplane , and Hawker in his Airco DH2 . The west wind drove the two over German territory, which is why Hawker broke off the fight and tried to return in a zigzag flight over Allied territory. Richthofen shot down Hawker's plane (which was slower than his Albatros); Hawker died.

After his 16th victory in the air, Richthofen received the order Pour le Mérite on January 12, 1917 , the highest award in Prussia for bravery.

In January 1917, Richthofen was given command of Jagdstaffel 11 . He asked his brother Lothar, whom he had already moved to become a military pilot in 1915, to join Jagdstaffel 11. On March 24th he flew the first joint combat mission with him. On March 22, 1917, Richthofen was promoted to lieutenant and on April 6, 1917 to Rittmeister . Both promotions took place faster than usual due to his special merits.

Richthofen Squadron 1917; Richthofen on the plane

After the deaths of Max Immelmann on June 18, 1916 and Oswald Boelcke on October 28, 1916, Richthofen was by far the most successful German fighter pilot. It is controversial whether the British gave the aviator that shot down or captured Richthofen the Victoria Cross , a promotion, a plane of his own as a gift, £ 5,000 and a special award from the aircraft factory whose plane he used as a reward assured. It is still unclear whether the German or British propaganda was responsible for the invention of an “anti-Richthofen squadron”, which officially never existed.

In the months in which Richthofen led the Jasta 11, it developed into an elite unit. He himself shot down over 20 British planes, and his men also had very high numbers of kills. This season played a major role in the British calling April 1917 “ bloody april ” (German: “ Bloody April ”). The average life expectancy of a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service had fallen from 295 hours in service to 92 hours. On the occasion of his 50th enemy shooting down, Richthofen was received and congratulated by Kaiser Wilhelm II . He was very popular among the German civilian population. During this time, however, he was increasingly instrumentalized and glorified by war propaganda.

In June 1917, Jagdgeschwader 1 was formed from Fighter Squadrons 4, 6, 10 and 11 . All four squadrons operated under Richthofen's command. In July 1917, he was seriously wounded in the head during an air battle and had to make an emergency landing, temporarily blinded. He did not fully recover from this wound. During the recovery period, Richthofen's autobiography Der rote Kampfflieger was published by Ullsteinverlag Berlin . Doctors advised him to take it easy and only get completely healthy again.

DV Richthofen's red Albatros as Kommodore JG 1

Together with his brother Lothar von Richthofen, he was summoned to Brest-Litovsk on December 26, 1917 as an observer to the peace negotiations . Since the negotiations were broken off prematurely, the Commander in Chief East allowed the brothers to hunt in the forests of Białowieża , the most exclusive hunting ground of the former Russian tsarist house. After negotiations were resumed, both remained in Brest-Litovsk until mid-January 1918. Manfred von Richthofen was then ordered back to Berlin to examine new prototypes at the aircraft maintenance facility's testing facility. He then took part in some propaganda events in Berlin armaments factories.

Flying circus

Because of the numerical inferiority of the German air force (ratio 1: 3), Richthofen developed a combat tactic in the spring of 1918, which the English called “ Flying Circus ” (German: “Flying Circus”) went down in military history. This statement was based on three aspects. Richthofen's squadron consisted of the elite of the air force and was regularly deployed at focal points of the ground fighting. The unit had now become completely mobile and could therefore change location quickly. For this purpose, the aircraft were dismantled and loaded onto trucks together with the required material. Like a traveling circus, the squadron could be relocated to the appropriate operational areas within a very short time, most of which were in the immediate vicinity of the front. Since the Allies were aware of this tactic and precisely registered the appearance of the squadron, the Germans renounced the otherwise common camouflage color on the aircraft and instead painted them brightly. The precision with which the planes were controlled made the dogfights look like acrobatic feats under a big top from a distance. His nickname “Red Baron” probably goes back to an English post-war book that translated his title “ Freiherr ”, which does not exist in English, with “ Baron ”. During the First World War, Richthofen was called “ le petit rouge  ” (German: “The little red one”) or “  Diable Rouge  ” (German: “Red Devil”) on the French side  .

Richthofen's death

Reconstruction of a Fokker Dr. I at the ILA 2004. The color scheme does not correspond to that of Richthofen's last machine flown.
Australian soldiers on the remains of Richthofen's triplane after being cannibalized by souvenir hunters

On April 21, 1918, Richthofen took off from Cappy airfield with a Fokker-Dr.I -Dreidecker and nine other pilots . The group got involved in a dogfight with the Sopwith Camels of No. 209 Squadron RAF, led by the Canadian Arthur Roy Brown . When the young Canadian lieutenant Wilfrid May left the action, Richthofen chased after him. Brown saw that May was in trouble, took a dive behind Richthofen and shot several bursts of fire from a great distance, which most likely went wrong. While Richthofen was chasing May over the British lines, he was shot at by three Australian machine guns. Hit by a bullet that had penetrated his upper body from the lower right, Richthofen landed near the Australian position, not far from the French community of Corbie . The position is under the coordinates ' "49 ° 55 50.9  N , 29.9 2 ° 32" "  O to find. He died shortly after the Australian soldiers arrived. His famous three-decker, hardly damaged, was dismantled by souvenir hunters.

Manfred von Richthofen had achieved 80 confirmed aerial victories in his career with the air force. He was buried with full military honors by British soldiers on April 22nd. The Missing Man Formation was probably flown for the first time.

His squadron learned of Richthofen's death on April 23, 1918 by a Royal Air Force fighter plane that flew over the base and dropped the following message and some photos:

“To the German Flying Corps. Rittmeister Baron Manfred von Richthofen was killed in aerial combat on April 21st 1918. He was buried with full military honors. ”

“To the German Air Corps. Rittmeister Baron Manfred von Richthofen was killed in an aerial battle on April 21, 1918 . He was buried with all military honors. "

American neuropsychologists suspect that Richthofen suffered post-traumatic syndrome from the head injury he suffered on July 6, 1917 . Against medical advice, he was back in action after just 40 days of illness. The damage to the anterior cerebral lobe caused a "fixing behavior" which could have led to the "hunter" not letting go of his "prey", contrary to his own earlier rule of conduct, even though it had already fled deep behind his own front.

Captain Wilhelm Reinhard (* 1891) was Richthofen's successor; after his death on July 3, 1918, Hermann Göring followed .

Controversy over the shooter of the deadly bullet

The fatal bullet had penetrated Richthofen's upper body from the right. She had injured her liver, lungs, and heart until she was eventually twisted on the left side with a large wound. The projectile got stuck in Richthofen's flight vest. It is therefore certain that Richthofen, flying at low altitude, immediately had to make an emergency landing and died a little later.

The British Royal Air Force attributed the shooting down of Richthofens to the Canadian pilot Brown. Since German aviators saw the undamaged machine on the ground, it was assumed that Richthofen landed alive and either captured or shot on the ground.

Due to later knowledge about the type of injury and the ballistics of the fatal bullet, it can be assumed with certainty that the bullet was fired by one of the machine gunmen on the ground shortly before the emergency landing and not by a pilot in a dogfight. There is no certainty who fired the fatal shots. In general, three people are named in this context:

  • Sergeant Cedric Popkin had described himself as the likely shooter and was accordingly for decades the one who shot down the Red Baron.
  • Robert Buie and William John "Snowy" Evans opened fire on the red triplane when it came straight towards them. Buie testified in 1956 that he had seen a hit in his visor, on which the triplane landed.
The engine of Richthofen's Fokker Dr.1 in the Imperial War Museum in London

In 2001/2002, a team of experts, consisting of two software developers for flight simulators, a ballistics specialist, a forensic scientist, a laser technician, a sniper and a historian, examined the events and came to the conclusion that the shooters known by name included both Snowy Evans and Cedric Popkin could have fired the shot from the right angle. However, Popkin wrote in a handwritten note that he met the Red Baron when he was flying straight at him, so Evans was the likely shooter who shot the Red Baron after his U-turn. Another investigation came to the conclusion that Buie and Evans could not have shot Richthofen due to the bullet wound on their right side. Since only Cedric Popkin turned his machine gun and then shot the red triplane from a suitable angle, he is probably the shooter who shot Richthofen.

Succession

After Richthofen's death, Wilhelm Reinhard led the squadron until July. After he died in a crash, Hermann Göring was entrusted with the command of the commanding general of the air force (order no. 178654) .

Resting place

Richthofen was carried to the grave on April 22, 1918 in Bertangles by English flight officers and buried with military honors. The following night, the resting place was violated by French villagers when they tried in vain to dig up the body and make it disappear. After the news of the death of the aviator stylized as a national hero became known to the public, the Vice President of the Reichstag read the following statement before the General Assembly:

“Our flying king, Rittmeister Freiherr von Richthofen, has not returned from his last combat flight. You all know that although he was only a quarter of a century old, he had become a national hero, a role model for his troops, an example of what a capable man can achieve in the field. "

- Hermann Paasche

The central memorial service took place on May 2, 1918 in the presence of Empress Auguste Viktoria and the highest military personnel in the old garrison church of Berlin. Five years later, at the instigation of the French military authorities, he was reburied in the German military cemetery in Fricourt .

Since the family wanted to bring the bones back home, they turned this request to the Ministry of Defense . The ministry then entered into negotiations with the French and was finally able to convince the family not to bury the body in the cemetery in Schweidnitz , where his father and younger brother Lothar were already lying, but to agree to a burial in the invalids cemetery in Berlin. On November 20, 1925, the body that his brother Karl-Bolko had transferred from France was brought to Germany for a state act . After a short celebration in the Gnadenkirche in the presence of President Paul von Hindenburg and numerous members of the government, including Reich Chancellor Hans Luther and Reich Defense Minister Otto Geßler , he was buried in a grave of honor in the cemetery of the disabled after a funeral procession by hundreds of soldiers and officers with great sympathy from Berliners . On October 28, 1926, the Ring der Flieger e.V. V. solemnly placed a capstone on the grave. The National Socialists , who misused Richthofen for their ideology, had the grave made more representative in 1937. She also received an upright tombstone, which only bore Richthofen's name in Latin capital letters.

From 1961 the Invalidenfriedhof was in the immediate hinterland of the Berlin Wall and was no longer open to the public. The gradual expansion of the border fortifications in 1975 included the leveling of the Richthofen grave. His family was allowed to move the grave. Richthofen's remains have been lying next to those of his brother Karl-Bolko and his sister Elisabeth in the family grave at the Wiesbaden Südfriedhof . The family donated the tombstone to Jagdgeschwader 71 “Richthofen” of the Luftwaffe on March 12, 1975 . In 2009 a memorial stone was inaugurated on the site of the former grave in the Invalidenfriedhof Berlin. The gravestone, moved in 1975, returned to the Invalidenfriedhof in 2017.

  • Graves and burial

  • Richthofen's funeral, film (1918)

  • Burial in Bertangles (1918)

  • Grave in Bertangles (1918)

  • Grave in the Invalidenfriedhof (1931)

  • Memorial stone on the Invalidenfriedhof (2009)

  • Family grave at the Südfriedhof Wiesbaden (2013)

  • Manfred von Richthofen's grave slab on family grave in Wiesbaden (2016)

  • The reconstructed gravestone from 1937 on the Invalidenfriedhof (2017)

Honors

Monument in Świdnica (Schweidnitz):
In this house lived the best aviator of
the First World War, the "Red Baron"
born on May 2, 1892
, Manfred von Richthofen, killed in action
on April 21, 1918

The Red Baron has received numerous in its term orders and medals , including the prestigious was the Pour le Mérite . After his 70th victory in the air, General Ludendorff applied for the oak leaves for the Pour le Mérite. However, the military cabinet refused to grant the award. It was said that this high honor could only be awarded for a battle won. Instead, Richthofen received the Order of the Red Eagle III on April 2, 1918 . Class with crown and swords. The exclusivity of this award is, however, to be rated higher than the oak leaves for the Pour le Mérite, as the order was only awarded six times in this combination until the end of the monarchy.

Orders and decorations

German Empire / Federal States

Austria-Hungary

Bulgaria

Ottoman Empire

Posthumous honors and aftermath

In 1935 Göring introduced the “Day of Honor for the German Air Force”, which was celebrated on the day Richthofen died until the end of National Socialism in 1945. As early as March 14, 1935, Hitler had issued a decree stipulating that a fighter squadron called "Jagdgeschwader Richthofen" should be set up. The Fighter Wing 2 of the Air Force conducted from May 1, 1939 to May 7, 1945 the honorary title "Richthofen".

One of the traditional associations of the Federal German Air Force has also been named after Manfred von Richthofen since 1961: today's Tactical Air Force Wing 71 "Richthofen" in Wittmund in East Frisia , which also has a Richthofen barracks. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of death, an honoring ceremony with serenade was held here in April 2018.

In the Berlin district of Tempelhof-Schöneberg , in the “ Fliegerviertel ” near Tempelhof Airport , there has been Manfred-von-Richthofen-Strasse, named after him, since 1936. On the site of the former air base in Detmold , which was used as a barracks by the British until the 1990s, there is also Richthofenstraße and other cities, including Augsburg , Bremen , Günzburg , Landau in der Pfalz , Kiel-Holtenau and on Norderney . In Münster from 1971 to 2010 the air transport command , former air district or air district command, was located on Manfred-von-Richthofen-Straße. There is also a Richthofenstraße in Ingolstadt in the so-called Fliegerviertel , in which all streets are named after famous pilots. Furthermore, today's Friedrich-Engels-Gymnasium , in Berlin-Reinickendorf, was named after Richthofen from 1939 to 1945. The Richthofensiedlung in Mülheim an der Ruhr is named after Manfred von Richthofen.

Every year the officers of all air force units play the “Red Barons Cup” in football in his honor.

Movies and Pop Culture

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Manfred von Richthofen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ incorporated in 1897; Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 314.
  2. ^ 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. 4.
  3. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 55.
  4. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 88.
  5. ↑ The blood-red baron. Retrieved June 16, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Luftfahrtgeschichte.com June 2007 ( Memento from July 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ detailed list in Castan: Der Rote Baron (2007), pp. 310-312.
  8. ^ History of the Missing Man Formation ( Memento from June 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 3-608-94461-3 , p. 158.
  10. ↑ a b net.lib.byu.edu from September 16, 2001
  11. ↑ NOVA | Who Killed the Red Baron? | Explore Competing Theories | PBS. Retrieved June 16, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Riddles of History: Who Killed the Red Baron? (Original: Unsolved History: Death of the Red Baron , 2002, Discovery Channel )
  13. ^ Dogfight. How did the Red Baron die? TV documentary on arte from November 22, 2011; UK, 2009, Peter Nicholson (see also: Guide Program ( Memento of 18 April 2013 Web archive archive.today ) Dogfight. Archived from the original on April 18, 2013 , accessed on June 16, 2019 . )
  14. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 259.
  15. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 285.
  16. ^ Website of the Invalidenfriedhof Förderverein ( Memento from September 29, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) under the year 2017
  17. ↑ a b c Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 93.
  18. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 49.
  19. ↑ Joachim Castan: The Red Baron. The whole story of Manfred von Richthofen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7 , p. 149.
  20. ^ Manfred-von-Richthofen-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  21. ↑ Hans-G. Hilscher, Dietrich Bleihöfer: Richthofenstrasse. In: Kiel Street Lexicon. Continued since 2005 by the Office for Building Regulations, Surveying and Geoinformation of the State Capital Kiel, as of February 2017 ( kiel.de ).
  22. ↑ The Red Baron - Manfred von Richthofen. In: Programm.ARD.de. March 1, 2016, accessed April 29, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Richthofen, Manfred von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Richthofen, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German fighter pilot in the First World War
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1918
Place of death near Vaux-sur-Somme , Somme department