Manfred von Richthofen

Manfred Albrecht, Baron von Richthofen (Breslau, May 2nd 1892 - Be worth-on-Nap, April 21st 1918) was a German Aviateur more known under the pseudonyms Petit Red , the Red Diable and the Baron Rouge . There remained a legend of the aviation of the First World War.

With 80 confirmed victories, it is the ace of the aces of the Great War. Hauptmann in famous the Jasta 11, it flew in its Fokker Triplan Dr1 bright red, which was worth its nickname to him. He travelled from city downtown with what he called his circus stealing .

A brilliant career

He excels in the tactics and the aerial combat. Before the end of 1916, it controls a Albatros D.II. During the summer 1916, for its 18th success, it receives the medal Ordre For the Merit, the highest distinction in the German army at the time. It is only in September 1916 that it changes apparatus to pass on the triplane one which will return it celebrates, the Fokker Triplan Dr1. November 23rd, 1916, it kills the British ace, Lanoe Hawker. During the only month of April 1917, it cuts down 20 British planes carrying its total with 52 enemy apparatuses. In July of the same year, it is severely touched with the head. This wound leaves him after-effects, its behavior changes and he suffers from nauseas and headaches.

In 1918, Richthofen became a legend. The German leaders fear that its death, to some extent inevitable if it continues to control, a harmful effect on moral troops and German population does not produce. In spite of the pressures, he refuses to leave to the retirement whereas others fall on the battle field.

Its last mission

The April 21st 1918, after having taken off of the ground of Cappy with nine others pilot whose his/her cousin Wolfram von Richthofen, of which it was one of the first missions, his flotilla met the Sopwith Camel of flotilla 209 of the Royal Air Force. The young Canadian lieutenant Wilfrid May saw that Wolfram von Richthofen remained, like him, with the variation of the battle, and took it in hunting. Seeing his/her threatened cousin, Manfred von Richthofen continued in its turn Wilfrid May, whose machine-gun had been stopped and who sought in his turn to move away. It was generally the usual technique of Richthofen to seek the aircraft in distress then to take them in hunting. However it took also care, since years, not to go above the enemy lines, which it however did this day. It is supposed that it was tired perhaps more than usually, or although the air battle had imperceptibly moved towards the west, above the allied lines. Seeing the triplane one of Manfred von Richthofen attacking May, the captain Arthur Roy Brown, other controls Canadian, decided to continue it in its turn, and soon the three planes were at very low altitude right in the west of the zone died between the two faces. Richthofen ceased its continuation then, but it seems that he then badly evaluated his exact position, because when he made half-turn to return towards the German zone, he flew over one of the portions best defended of the Sum.

The triplane one was posed intact. Certain witnesses affirmed that Richthofen had died in the orders, others say that the pilot was still alive and succumbed to his wounds several minutes afterwards, not without to have sighed Kaputt (foutu) by indicating its plane. All these facts are called in question and the true circumstances remain fuzzy. The Baron Rouge could have been cut down by the anti-aircraft batteries of which that of Cedric Popkin or by the Australian soldiers who made fire on the triplane one of the German. Although the shooting which was fatal for him was ever allotted officially, Arthur Roy Brown and the Australian riflemen located on the ground asserted this victory.

The officer in load, Major David Blake, suggested that the baron had been killed by an anti-aircraft battery within sight of the wounds noted at the time of the autopsy. With the agreement of the military high authorities, Blake then prepared complete funeral by respect for the ace. Manfred von Richthofen was buried with the cemetery of the village of Bertangles close to Amiens, with the same military honors as the combined pilots, the April 22nd 1918, near the place where its plane had landed. After the end of the war, its skin was buried with the cemetery of Wiesbaden, in Germany, where other members of its family rest.

The first falls from von Richthofen was thus located immediately on the right at the entry of the cemetery of Bertangles. But in 1919 the coffin of Von Richtofen is transferred to the German Military Cemetery from Fricourt, always in the Sum. In 1925 the Richtofen family entrusts to her young brother, Bolko, the mission of making repatriate the coffin in Germany. After the authorization of France, its coffin passes the Rhine on November 16th, 1925 and is accommodated by a crowd collected with Kehl. The coffin is then led to Invalidenfriedhof, the equivalent of the Hôtel of the Invalids to Berlin. But it is found then in the sector Is old capital of Reich and fearing that fall it is not more maintained the son Bolko, Hartmann, approaches steps the authorities of East Germany. To spring 1975 the authorization is finally given for the transfer of the burial and Von Richtofen is buried in Wiesbaden in the family vault near his/her mother and of her large mother.

uvres influenced by the Baron Rouge

Fiction

The Baron Rouge appears in one of the short stories which form the album " Celtiques" in the series Corto Maltese of Hugo Pratt. Its death is described there as being the fact of a gunner in a state of intoxication. The film of Roger Corman " The Red Baron " (1971) also its history recalls.

The Baron Rouge is also a character “set of themes” regularly incarnated by Snoopy, celebrates it beagles white imagined by the American author of cartoons Schulz it niche with the red roof of Snoopy making office of famous triplane Fokker of the Baron. At other times, Snoopy quite simply incarnates “the ace of the First World War”, and pilot a Sopwith Camel.

In Star Wars, the best Imperial fighter pilot is the Baron Soontir Fel. Chief of the 181ème squadron, the apparatuses of this squadron are dissociated by the red bands painted on the wings of their TIE-Interceptor. It is without any doubt a wink with Manfred Von Richthofen.

Video game

Red Baron is the name of a series of plays of aviation of the First World War.

Manfred von Richthofen is one of the Heroes of Empire Earth

Music

Red Baron is the title of a piece of Jazz of Billy Cobham, in its album Spectrum .
Red Baron is the title of a piece of Heavy Metal of the group Iced Earth, in their album The Glorious Burden .

Bonds

Internal bonds

Werner Voss

External bonds

entirety of the newspaper of the Baron Rouge
'' last flight of the Baron Rouge '': Historical counter-enquiry on the circumstances of its

death

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Simple: Manfred von Richthofen

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