On April 21, 1918, Manfred von Richthofen, the infamous Red Baron, was shot down near the Morlancourt Ridge in northern France. Having racked up an impressive 80 aerial kills over the course of the war, Richthofen became one of Germany's greatest heroes of World War I.
Born in Kleinburg near Breslau in Lower Silesia, Germany, in 1892, Richthofen was the son of a Prussian aristocratic family and his father was an officer in the German army. In his childhood, he loved the outdoors and hunting on his family's estates. He began attending Berlin's elite Wahlstatt Military School at 11, though he proved a rambunctious student who preferred climbing trees to his studies. At 17, he transferred to the Lichterfelde school near Berlin (later to be an SS barracks under Hitler, an American army base during the Cold War and the site of the German Federal Archives today).
In 1910, he entered the War Academy, the breeding ground for Prussia's officer class, and his first assignment upon graduating was with a regiment of Uhlans, a light cavalry unit. A young lieutenant when the war clouds massed in August 1914, Richthofen was stationed near the border with Russian-Poland. He fought against the Russians before being transferred to the Western Front, but it soon became apparent that horses were just as susceptible to machine-gun bullets and heavy artillery as were men.
Transferred to a signal corps, Richthofen didn't care for simply setting up telephone lines and working on questions of logistics and supplies. Enamored with the increasingly prominent role of aircraft in the war, he requested a transfer to Germany's fledgling air service.
He wrote later during the war in an autobiography created for German propaganda: “It never occurred to me to be a pilot. I was anxious to get into the air at the front as quickly as possible. I began to fear that I might get there too late; that the World War would be over before I could really get into it. To become a pilot would have required three months' training, and by that time peace might have been concluded.”
Richthofen was soon employed in reconnaissance missions over enemy territory, and he proved quite adept at aerial combat. He quickly followed in the path of figures such as Oswald Boelcke and Hans Imelmann, Germany's early war air aces. From these flyers, Richthofen learned invaluable skills that made him an effective combat pilot and a natural leader. Still, he would not claim his first kill until September 1916. By the following January, Richthofen had amassed 16 confirmed kills and received the coveted Pour le Mérite, a German military award for heroism known commonly as “The Blue Max.”
In early 1917, Richthofen was given his own squadron to command, and, always the eccentric, he decided to paint his Fokker triplane bright red. Other members of this unit included Richthofen's younger brother Lothar, future Luftwaffe general Ernst Udet and Hitler's future second-in-command Hermann Goering. The unit was soon nicknamed “Richthofen's Flying Circus,” and the commander himself soon bore the moniker “The Red Baron.”
Richthofen's kill count continued to rise. In April 1917 alone, he received credit for 22 enemy aircraft. In July, however, he received a head injury and was forced to ditch his craft in friendly territory. Several surgeries and a long period of convalescence followed.
With the Treaty of Brest-Litvosk signed in March 1918, Germany had effectively won the war against Russia in the east and turned the bulk of its strength against the French and British. Beginning that same month, Germany launched a series of offensives along the Western Front designed to take Paris and crush Allied strength once and for all. Sometimes known as the Ludendorff Offensives, after General Erich Ludendorff, who designed them, the attacks saw Germany gaining much ground but losing men at an astonishing rate.
On April 20, 1918, Richthofen downed his 79th and 80th enemy aircraft. They were to be his last. The next day, Richthofen and his men were engaging Sopwith Camels from Britain's No. 209 Squadron commanded by Canadian Roy Brown. Brown had ordered one of his subordinates, Wilfred “Wop” May, to keep clear of the action and watch for additional German planes from above. Seeing an opportunity, however, May took his plane down in the hopes of making an easy kill. May's guns soon jammed, however, and the hunter soon found himself hunted by none other than the Red Baron.
In his dramatically written 1927 biography of the German flyer, “The Red Knight of Germany: The Story of Baron von Richthofen,” Floyd Gibbons wrote: “The open cockpit of May's Camel comes within the wire-crossed circle of Richthofen's sights. The pressure of a steady finger on the trigger — two jets of lead — short burst — spout from the gun barrels. Bullets snap through the air close by May's ears. Splinters fly from the struts before him. He is defenseless from the rear. He can only shoot forward. Richthofen keeps behind him.”
From above, Brown saw his comrade’s frantic maneuvering and dove to help. The three planes fought a desperate struggle only 200 feet above the ground, perhaps Richthofen initially unaware of his own pursuer. Then, after expending considerable ammunition against the red Fokker, Brown noticed the plane waver before it started its sharp glide/descent to the earth.
In his book “The First World War: A Complete History,” historian Martin Gilbert wrote: “(Richthofen) managed to land his plane alongside the Bray-Corbie road, but when nearby Australian troops reached it, he was dead. A hero had died, and a legend was born.”
The Red Baron had been struck by an enemy bullet and died soon after landing his plane. Brown was credited with the kill, though almost immediately a controversy arose over who actually brought down Germany's greatest air ace. For many who witnessed the dogfight from the ground, credit belonged not to Brown, but to Cedric Bassett Popkin and Rupert F. Weston, gunners in the 24th Machine-Gun Company, 4th Australian Division.
This issue remains controversial to this day, with many in Britain's Royal Air Force insisting that the kill was Brown's while many Australians loudly support Popkin and Weston's claim. Those invested in the legend and the mystique of The Red Baron often side with the Australians, insisting that no flyer could shoot down Germany's greatest ace. This controversy proves that history itself is often a battlefield.
In his book “No Man's Land: 1918, The Last Year of the Great War,” historian John Toland wrote: “The following afternoon, Richthofen was buried with military honors. Wreaths were placed around the plain wooden coffin. One read: 'To our gallant and worthy foe.' At the cemetery, a chaplain of the Church of England preceded six captains carrying the coffin. After prayers and a eulogy, it was lowered. Then a 14-man squad fired three volleys.”
The next day, a British plane dropped a metal container over Richthofen's air base. A photograph of the funeral accompanied a message that he had been buried with full military honors. His was perhaps the most famous and shocking death in a war that would ultimately claim around 11 million lives. Toland noted that “(Richthofen's) mother received messages of condolence from the Kaiser and (General) Hindenburg.”
Cody K. Carlson holds an MA in history from the University of Utah and teaches at Salt Lake Community College. An avid player of board games, his blog is at thediscriminatinggamer.com. Email: ckcarlson76@gmail.com