In the final part of this three-part mini-series, we'll explore the fascinating life of Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron.
From aristocratic cavalry officer to legendary fighter pilot, his story is one of bravery, strategy, and the harsh realities of war.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is part three of our three-part mini-series on unusual characters from World War I.
[00:00:29] In case you missed them, part one was on Lawrence of Arabia, the British archaeologist and military officer who fought alongside nomadic tribes in the Arabian desert.
[00:00:41] Part two was on Mata Hari, the Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was tried and shot on charges of being a spy.
[00:00:50] And in today’s episode, part three, we are going to talk about Manfred von Richthofen, the man better known as The Red Baron.
[00:01:01] He is perhaps the best-known fighter pilot in the world, with 80 confirmed planes shot down, and his story is one of chivalry, strategy, bravery, propaganda, and the bloody reality behind the supposed glories of war.
[00:01:19] It’s also an interesting story from the point of view of understanding the evolving military role of the aeroplane, so let’s not waste a minute, and get right into it.
[00:01:32] When war broke out in Europe on the 28th of July 1914, Manfred von Richthofen was 22 years old.
[00:01:42] He had already spent a couple of years training as a cavalry officer, a soldier who sits on top of a horse and charges at the enemy.
[00:01:52] For this young man, joining the cavalry was something of an inevitability.
[00:01:59] He came from an aristocratic Prussian family. His father was in the cavalry, as was his uncle.
[00:02:06] Generations of von Richthofens had served the Prussian king as cavalry officers, so naturally, Manfred and his brothers followed in their footsteps.
[00:02:19] The problem was that it soon became clear that cavalry was not very useful in modern warfare.
[00:02:27] Up against machine guns, and charging through muddy fields, men riding on horses are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
[00:02:39] Soon enough, both on the Allied and the German side, cavalry regiments were disbanded or reassigned, the men who would previously charge valiantly towards the enemy on horseback now relegated to less glorious positions.
[00:02:58] In the case of Manfred von Richthofen, he was sent to work far behind the front line, working on communications and supply operations.
[00:03:09] For a young man eager to serve his country, and who felt like this chance had been snatched from him, he was desperate to find a way to get closer to the action.
[00:03:21] The answer seemed to be in the skies above him.
[00:03:27] He had seen aeroplanes taking off from far behind the front line, sent on reconnaissance missions to observe the enemy. This was what he wanted to be doing, he thought. It was a chance to do something more useful, and he wrote a letter to his superior officer requesting a transfer.
[00:03:48] It said, so the legend goes, "I have not gone to war in order to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose."
[00:03:58] The request was granted, and in May of 1915, he was transferred to the German air service.
[00:04:08] Now, the Wright Brothers had invented the first aeroplane in 1903, and both the German and the Allied armies used aeroplanes, primarily for reconnaissance, to fly up in the sky and observe the positions and movements of the enemy.
[00:04:28] To state the obvious, planes are a very effective way of doing this, and at least for the first couple of years of the war, these reconnaissance missions were fairly safe.
[00:04:41] If the planes flew high enough, they would be out of range of gunfire from the ground.
[00:04:47] And they didn’t need to worry too much about enemy planes because they weren’t much of a threat.
[00:04:55] These planes were relatively basic; just one pilot in the front and another man in the back who was responsible for taking photographs.
[00:05:06] The pilot and his wingman would normally carry a weapon, a pistol or a rifle. They might shoot at an enemy aircraft if they got too close, and some planes had guns mounted to the side.
[00:05:21] But it was rare for a plane to be shot down by another plane because it was so difficult to do so.
[00:05:29] These planes had open cockpits, they would be flying at 150 kilometres per hour, often in difficult weather conditions.
[00:05:39] In the early days of the war, the air was a relatively safe place, and there were even reports of enemy pilots waving at each other in the air, a show of solidarity.
[00:05:52] This was the state of the war of the air when von Richthofen joined the air service.
[00:05:59] And when he joined, he was not the one piloting the plane, he was not the driver.
[00:06:05] He came from an aristocratic family, he was used to having chauffeurs who would drive him around, so it seemed natural that the piloting of the aircraft would be done by someone of a suitable, lower social class, and the supposedly more skillful navigation work would be done by von Richthofen.
[00:06:28] After a few weeks of training, he was ready for his first flight.
[00:06:33] For several months, he worked on reconnaissance, and he even saw some action, shooting down a French plane with his machine gun.
[00:06:43] Now, he wasn’t credited with this kill, or “victory” as it’s technically called.
[00:06:49] This was because the French plane came down behind French lines, and therefore couldn’t be confirmed, but it seems that this was the first time von Richthofen successfully downed an enemy fighter.
[00:07:04] It was also an important realisation for him.
[00:07:08] He was the reconnaissance officer, sitting behind the pilot.
[00:07:14] To successfully shoot down an enemy plane, he would have to practically pull up alongside it and, therefore, put himself in grave danger, or at least, give himself no positional advantage over his target.
[00:07:30] Plus, having one person pulling the trigger and another piloting the aeroplane was kind of inefficient.
[00:07:38] Split-second decisions needed to be made, and it would be far more efficient if the pilot was also the one pulling the trigger.
[00:07:48] And if there was a way for the machine gun to be pointing forward, not out from the side, this would give the attacking aeroplane a great advantage. You could point your aeroplane at your target and fire rather than point your aeroplane in one direction but have your gun pointing in a different one.
[00:08:10] Now, on both the German and the Allied side, this was a problem that engineers were rushing to fix.
[00:08:19] The problem was that the propellers of the aircraft were at the front of the plane, and if you put a machine gun behind the propeller, well the bullets would hit the propeller and you’d damage your own aircraft, perhaps irreparably.
[00:08:35] There needed to be some way of synchronising the spinning of the propeller with the firing of the gun. But this was very complicated. Propellers spin very fast and at irregular speeds, and machine guns were not yet precise enough to fire at exactly the right moment.
[00:08:58] Fortunately, for the Germans at least, by mid-1915, such a technique was invented. A Dutch engineer called Anthony Fokker, who was working for the Germans, refined an existing French system that allowed a pilot to fire a machine gun forward without hitting the propeller.
[00:09:20] It was such an important discovery that German pilots were told not to fly over enemy territory, lest they were shot down and the secret discovered.
[00:09:31] But the Allies were almost there too, and by early 1916, British and French planes were also capable of firing forwards.
[00:09:43] Now, while this was all happening, von Richthofen had a chance meeting that would change the course of his life.
[00:09:51] On a railway carriage, he noticed an otherwise unremarkable young man, but recognised him as Oswald Boelcke, an aircraft officer whose legendary stories of shooting down French and British planes had been published in German newspapers.
[00:10:09] Von Richthofen engaged him in conversation, which only strengthened his resolve to move from the back seat to the pilot seat.
[00:10:19] In October of 1915, he started training as a pilot.
[00:10:24] And despite the legendary career that he would go on to have, by all accounts, he was not a naturally talented pilot.
[00:10:34] To some pilots, holding the joystick, manoeuvring the plane, this came almost naturally, and they soon felt at one with the plane.
[00:10:45] Not von Richthofen. He even crashed his plane the first time he was given full control.
[00:10:52] Fortunately, he was a quick learner.
[00:10:56] He shot down his first enemy plane in April the following year, but again this was an “unofficial” victory.
[00:11:05] Like the one he did from the back seat in 1915, the plane came down in French territory, so it couldn’t be confirmed. For a victory to be confirmed, there had to be real, physical evidence, not just the word of the pilot.
[00:11:21] This will be important when it comes to some of von Richthofen’s actions later on.
[00:11:27] He met Oswald Boelcke again later in 1916, and by this time, Boelcke had become something of a German propaganda icon.
[00:11:38] He had 18 confirmed victories under his belt, he had become the youngest captain in German military history, and was the most successful aircraft officer in the German army.
[00:11:51] He was all over the newspapers and received a constant influx of fan mail.
[00:11:56] He had outlined and written up guidelines and rules for successful aircraft combat operations, essentially writing the playbook for how to win in the air.
[00:12:09] And he had been tasked with setting up a new, elite, flying squadron.
[00:12:16] Von Richthofen was chosen to be one of this elite group of 8 ace pilots.
[00:12:23] An “ace”, by the way, is the term given to a pilot once they shoot down five enemy aeroplanes.
[00:12:30] And this squadron proved to be deadly.
[00:12:34] In its first month in the skies, Boelcke alone shot down 10 British planes.
[00:12:41] Von Richthofen got his first confirmed victory on the 17th of September 1916.
[00:12:48] And this was just the start.
[00:12:50] The squadron would go on to be one of the most successful German aircraft squadrons in history, with 336 victories and only 44 casualties, of whom 31 were killed, nine were wounded, two were taken as prisoners of war, and another two were killed in accidents.
[00:13:13] One of those killed in accidents was the ace leader of the squadron, Oswald Boelcke, who died in an accidental collision with another plane from his squadron.
[00:13:25] At the time of his death, in October of 1916, he had 40 confirmed victories, to von Richthofen’s four.
[00:13:34] Boelcke was only a year older than von Richthofen, but he was something of a hero and mentor. He had literally written the guidebook on how to be a fighter pilot, and was by far and away the most deadly officer in the German airforce.
[00:13:54] It seemed like von Richtofen was determined to live up to his memory.
[00:14:00] And his kills, or “victories”, started to creep up.
[00:14:06] In January of 1917, he announced his 16th confirmed kill, for which he was awarded the prestigious Pour le Mérite medal, otherwise known as the “Blue Max”.
[00:14:20] As a result, von Richthofen was given command of his own squadron.
[00:14:26] He was fast becoming a deadly fighter pilot, but he had also become known for his chivalry and honour.
[00:14:34] He would have a silver cup made every time he had a confirmed kill, and he would honour his fallen enemy by writing their name and the details of their aircraft.
[00:14:47] If he shot and damaged an aeroplane, and it was heading towards the ground, he wouldn’t follow it and try to kill the pilot.
[00:14:55] He knew they would be taken prisoner by the German forces on the ground.
[00:15:00] And when that happened, he was even known for going and shaking his enemy’s hand, and offering to dine with them that evening before they would be sent off to a prisoner of war camp.
[00:15:13] As he put it, he was a sportsman, not a butcher.
[00:15:18] And if you are wondering quite how he was so successful, historians seem to suggest that it was principally a question of strategy and technique.
[00:15:30] He wasn’t some kind of thrill-seeking and risky “Maverick” type figure in Top Gun. He didn’t engage in spectacular acrobatics or anything like that.
[00:15:41] He was very calm under pressure; he followed the guidebook as set out by Oswald Boelcke.
[00:15:48] He positioned his plane, making it difficult for the enemy to see him, he only fired when he was sure he would hit the target, and he retreated when it made sense.
[00:15:59] He did everything right.
[00:16:01] He was also a very good squadron leader, and knew how to motivate and instruct his men to work together when it made sense, and to split up when the conditions demanded it.
[00:16:15] By April of 1917, he surpassed his mentor’s total of 40 victories and became the most successful pilot in German military history.
[00:16:28] By this time, he had also taken the decision to paint his plane red, which had earned him the nickname of Der Rote Kampfflieger, or "the Red Fighter Pilot".
[00:16:39] Or, as he is now better known, “The Red Baron”.
[00:16:44] It’s not completely clear why he did this, but it’s been suggested by historians that it might have been similar to the way a medieval knight wore a particular kind of armour, as a way of singling him out on the battlefield.
[00:16:59] By this time, he was extremely confident of his own abilities, his name and his reputation were known to every Allied pilot, so perhaps this decision was a way of striking fear into the hearts of his enemies.
[00:17:14] If they saw a red plane coming up behind them, well, they knew what they were up against.
[00:17:21] And it wasn’t just The Red Baron who painted his plane. Several other members of his squadron did so too, and they earned the nickname “The Flying Circus” after their colourfully-painted planes and the fact that they would regularly be sent from place to place, as required.
[00:17:40] Von Richthofen was the leader of this legendary squadron, and was always up there in the skies, fighting alongside his men.
[00:17:50] But he was not invincible.
[00:17:53] In July of 1917, he was shot in the head during a fight with a British plane. He became dizzy and couldn’t see properly, and he lost control of his plane.
[00:18:05] It hurtled towards the ground, but fortunately, he regained his composure and managed to crash-land.
[00:18:13] Luckily, he was behind German lines.
[00:18:17] He was taken to hospital to recover, and after multiple operations, he declared that he was ready to return to action.
[00:18:26] The doctors said he was not. The injury had most likely caused lasting damage, but von Richthofen was having none of it.
[00:18:36] He returned to active service less than three weeks after the injury, but something had changed. He had nausea and headaches and just didn’t feel the same.
[00:18:49] He took leave to recover and took this opportunity to write his biography, which he called Der rote Kampfflieger, or "The Red Fighter Pilot".
[00:19:00] Now, he seems to have been instructed to write this by his superiors as a propaganda tool.
[00:19:07] This was in September of 1917; the United States had joined the war earlier that year, and things were not going Germany’s way.
[00:19:18] Von Richthofen was Germany’s most famous fighter pilot, so what better way to boost morale than for the public to read about his heroic battles in the air?
[00:19:31] German high command even made efforts to stop him from going back into combat, fearing that if he was killed, this would be a great blow to national morale.
[00:19:43] Although von Richthofen had by this point spent two years in the air, and seen friends and colleagues die on an almost daily basis, he refused.
[00:19:55] It was his duty, he said; he would get back into the cockpit and take to the skies.
[00:20:02] And so he did, and his kill count continued to rise.
[00:20:07] 60, 70, and on the 20th of April 1918, he recorded his 79th and 80th confirmed kills, more than doubling his mentor’s tally.
[00:20:21] Then, on the 21st of April, his luck ran out.
[00:20:27] He was flying with his squadron in Northern France.
[00:20:31] New to the squadron was Wolfram von Richthofen, his cousin. Wolfram was three years younger, and was an inexperienced fighter.
[00:20:43] Manfred, the squadron leader, had instructed his cousin to pull back if they encountered any enemy planes, and observe the action from above.
[00:20:56] Sure enough, the squadron came across a group of British fighter planes and engaged them.
[00:21:03] As he’d been told, Wolfram pulled his plane up and started to circle, observing the fight from up high.
[00:21:12] It just so happened that a young and inexperienced Canadian pilot, fighting on the Allied side, had been told exactly the same thing by his squadron leader.
[00:21:25] This Canadian, a man named Wilfrid May, saw the German plane in the air and decided to engage it.
[00:21:35] When Manfred looked up and saw his cousin in danger, he pulled his plane up and raced to the rescue.
[00:21:43] He managed to chase the Canadian plane away, but for some unknown reason, The Red Baron kept going.
[00:21:51] He followed May deep into Allied territory and came dangerously close to the ground.
[00:21:57] This was one of the things his mentor, Oswald Boelcke, had specifically detailed that a fighter pilot should not do.
[00:22:06] You should keep your composure, never put yourself in unjustified danger, and always have a clear path to return home. Von Richthofen, the most successful fighter pilot in the German military, was breaking all the rules he lived by.
[00:22:26] As von Richthofen continued in pursuit, his plane suddenly stalled and tumbled to the ground, deep into Allied territory.
[00:22:37] The Allied forces rushed to the wreckage, and there they found a dead Manfred von Richthofen.
[00:22:45] He had been killed by a single bullet wound to the chest.
[00:22:50] To this day, it’s not clear exactly who killed him.
[00:22:55] It was first believed that this came from an enemy fighter plane, but it’s now believed to have come from ground fire, either an anti-aircraft gun or a machine gun pointed to the sky.
[00:23:10] Whoever was ultimately responsible, the Red Baron was dead.
[00:23:15] He was the most deadly fighter in the German airforce, responsible for dozens of Allied deaths, but in death, he was treated with respect and dignity by his enemies.
[00:23:28] He was given a full military funeral, with the men he had been chasing down just hours before carrying his coffin.
[00:23:37] Ever since, historians have been puzzling over the details of his death.
[00:23:43] His decision to chase this enemy plane low over enemy territory went against everything he had been taught, and that he had drilled into the men in his squadron.
[00:23:55] Was it because he simply didn’t know that this was enemy territory?
[00:23:59] This was a period of flux during the war, and a combination of high winds and moving territorial boundaries might have meant he had gone much further than he thought and crossed into territory he thought was still under German control, but was not.
[00:24:18] Or was he simply not thinking straight?
[00:24:22] Had the head injury from the previous year impacted his judgment to such an extent that the composure and rationality that had kept him alive for so long was gone?
[00:24:34] We will never know, but his name is inscribed in legend.
[00:24:39] Loved by his colleagues, feared and respected by his enemies.
[00:24:44] His victory record has now been surpassed, but history will only remember one Red Baron.
[00:24:53] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Manfred von Richtofen.
[00:24:58] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you’ve learned a little bit more about the man behind the title.
[00:25:04] As a quick reminder, in case you haven’t listened to them already, this was part three of our three-part mini-series on unusual characters from World War I.
[00:25:13] Part one was on Lawrence of Arabia, and part two was on Mata Hari. You can, of course, listen to them independently, but I hope that they make for a nice little trio.
[00:25:23] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:25:29] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is part three of our three-part mini-series on unusual characters from World War I.
[00:00:29] In case you missed them, part one was on Lawrence of Arabia, the British archaeologist and military officer who fought alongside nomadic tribes in the Arabian desert.
[00:00:41] Part two was on Mata Hari, the Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was tried and shot on charges of being a spy.
[00:00:50] And in today’s episode, part three, we are going to talk about Manfred von Richthofen, the man better known as The Red Baron.
[00:01:01] He is perhaps the best-known fighter pilot in the world, with 80 confirmed planes shot down, and his story is one of chivalry, strategy, bravery, propaganda, and the bloody reality behind the supposed glories of war.
[00:01:19] It’s also an interesting story from the point of view of understanding the evolving military role of the aeroplane, so let’s not waste a minute, and get right into it.
[00:01:32] When war broke out in Europe on the 28th of July 1914, Manfred von Richthofen was 22 years old.
[00:01:42] He had already spent a couple of years training as a cavalry officer, a soldier who sits on top of a horse and charges at the enemy.
[00:01:52] For this young man, joining the cavalry was something of an inevitability.
[00:01:59] He came from an aristocratic Prussian family. His father was in the cavalry, as was his uncle.
[00:02:06] Generations of von Richthofens had served the Prussian king as cavalry officers, so naturally, Manfred and his brothers followed in their footsteps.
[00:02:19] The problem was that it soon became clear that cavalry was not very useful in modern warfare.
[00:02:27] Up against machine guns, and charging through muddy fields, men riding on horses are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
[00:02:39] Soon enough, both on the Allied and the German side, cavalry regiments were disbanded or reassigned, the men who would previously charge valiantly towards the enemy on horseback now relegated to less glorious positions.
[00:02:58] In the case of Manfred von Richthofen, he was sent to work far behind the front line, working on communications and supply operations.
[00:03:09] For a young man eager to serve his country, and who felt like this chance had been snatched from him, he was desperate to find a way to get closer to the action.
[00:03:21] The answer seemed to be in the skies above him.
[00:03:27] He had seen aeroplanes taking off from far behind the front line, sent on reconnaissance missions to observe the enemy. This was what he wanted to be doing, he thought. It was a chance to do something more useful, and he wrote a letter to his superior officer requesting a transfer.
[00:03:48] It said, so the legend goes, "I have not gone to war in order to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose."
[00:03:58] The request was granted, and in May of 1915, he was transferred to the German air service.
[00:04:08] Now, the Wright Brothers had invented the first aeroplane in 1903, and both the German and the Allied armies used aeroplanes, primarily for reconnaissance, to fly up in the sky and observe the positions and movements of the enemy.
[00:04:28] To state the obvious, planes are a very effective way of doing this, and at least for the first couple of years of the war, these reconnaissance missions were fairly safe.
[00:04:41] If the planes flew high enough, they would be out of range of gunfire from the ground.
[00:04:47] And they didn’t need to worry too much about enemy planes because they weren’t much of a threat.
[00:04:55] These planes were relatively basic; just one pilot in the front and another man in the back who was responsible for taking photographs.
[00:05:06] The pilot and his wingman would normally carry a weapon, a pistol or a rifle. They might shoot at an enemy aircraft if they got too close, and some planes had guns mounted to the side.
[00:05:21] But it was rare for a plane to be shot down by another plane because it was so difficult to do so.
[00:05:29] These planes had open cockpits, they would be flying at 150 kilometres per hour, often in difficult weather conditions.
[00:05:39] In the early days of the war, the air was a relatively safe place, and there were even reports of enemy pilots waving at each other in the air, a show of solidarity.
[00:05:52] This was the state of the war of the air when von Richthofen joined the air service.
[00:05:59] And when he joined, he was not the one piloting the plane, he was not the driver.
[00:06:05] He came from an aristocratic family, he was used to having chauffeurs who would drive him around, so it seemed natural that the piloting of the aircraft would be done by someone of a suitable, lower social class, and the supposedly more skillful navigation work would be done by von Richthofen.
[00:06:28] After a few weeks of training, he was ready for his first flight.
[00:06:33] For several months, he worked on reconnaissance, and he even saw some action, shooting down a French plane with his machine gun.
[00:06:43] Now, he wasn’t credited with this kill, or “victory” as it’s technically called.
[00:06:49] This was because the French plane came down behind French lines, and therefore couldn’t be confirmed, but it seems that this was the first time von Richthofen successfully downed an enemy fighter.
[00:07:04] It was also an important realisation for him.
[00:07:08] He was the reconnaissance officer, sitting behind the pilot.
[00:07:14] To successfully shoot down an enemy plane, he would have to practically pull up alongside it and, therefore, put himself in grave danger, or at least, give himself no positional advantage over his target.
[00:07:30] Plus, having one person pulling the trigger and another piloting the aeroplane was kind of inefficient.
[00:07:38] Split-second decisions needed to be made, and it would be far more efficient if the pilot was also the one pulling the trigger.
[00:07:48] And if there was a way for the machine gun to be pointing forward, not out from the side, this would give the attacking aeroplane a great advantage. You could point your aeroplane at your target and fire rather than point your aeroplane in one direction but have your gun pointing in a different one.
[00:08:10] Now, on both the German and the Allied side, this was a problem that engineers were rushing to fix.
[00:08:19] The problem was that the propellers of the aircraft were at the front of the plane, and if you put a machine gun behind the propeller, well the bullets would hit the propeller and you’d damage your own aircraft, perhaps irreparably.
[00:08:35] There needed to be some way of synchronising the spinning of the propeller with the firing of the gun. But this was very complicated. Propellers spin very fast and at irregular speeds, and machine guns were not yet precise enough to fire at exactly the right moment.
[00:08:58] Fortunately, for the Germans at least, by mid-1915, such a technique was invented. A Dutch engineer called Anthony Fokker, who was working for the Germans, refined an existing French system that allowed a pilot to fire a machine gun forward without hitting the propeller.
[00:09:20] It was such an important discovery that German pilots were told not to fly over enemy territory, lest they were shot down and the secret discovered.
[00:09:31] But the Allies were almost there too, and by early 1916, British and French planes were also capable of firing forwards.
[00:09:43] Now, while this was all happening, von Richthofen had a chance meeting that would change the course of his life.
[00:09:51] On a railway carriage, he noticed an otherwise unremarkable young man, but recognised him as Oswald Boelcke, an aircraft officer whose legendary stories of shooting down French and British planes had been published in German newspapers.
[00:10:09] Von Richthofen engaged him in conversation, which only strengthened his resolve to move from the back seat to the pilot seat.
[00:10:19] In October of 1915, he started training as a pilot.
[00:10:24] And despite the legendary career that he would go on to have, by all accounts, he was not a naturally talented pilot.
[00:10:34] To some pilots, holding the joystick, manoeuvring the plane, this came almost naturally, and they soon felt at one with the plane.
[00:10:45] Not von Richthofen. He even crashed his plane the first time he was given full control.
[00:10:52] Fortunately, he was a quick learner.
[00:10:56] He shot down his first enemy plane in April the following year, but again this was an “unofficial” victory.
[00:11:05] Like the one he did from the back seat in 1915, the plane came down in French territory, so it couldn’t be confirmed. For a victory to be confirmed, there had to be real, physical evidence, not just the word of the pilot.
[00:11:21] This will be important when it comes to some of von Richthofen’s actions later on.
[00:11:27] He met Oswald Boelcke again later in 1916, and by this time, Boelcke had become something of a German propaganda icon.
[00:11:38] He had 18 confirmed victories under his belt, he had become the youngest captain in German military history, and was the most successful aircraft officer in the German army.
[00:11:51] He was all over the newspapers and received a constant influx of fan mail.
[00:11:56] He had outlined and written up guidelines and rules for successful aircraft combat operations, essentially writing the playbook for how to win in the air.
[00:12:09] And he had been tasked with setting up a new, elite, flying squadron.
[00:12:16] Von Richthofen was chosen to be one of this elite group of 8 ace pilots.
[00:12:23] An “ace”, by the way, is the term given to a pilot once they shoot down five enemy aeroplanes.
[00:12:30] And this squadron proved to be deadly.
[00:12:34] In its first month in the skies, Boelcke alone shot down 10 British planes.
[00:12:41] Von Richthofen got his first confirmed victory on the 17th of September 1916.
[00:12:48] And this was just the start.
[00:12:50] The squadron would go on to be one of the most successful German aircraft squadrons in history, with 336 victories and only 44 casualties, of whom 31 were killed, nine were wounded, two were taken as prisoners of war, and another two were killed in accidents.
[00:13:13] One of those killed in accidents was the ace leader of the squadron, Oswald Boelcke, who died in an accidental collision with another plane from his squadron.
[00:13:25] At the time of his death, in October of 1916, he had 40 confirmed victories, to von Richthofen’s four.
[00:13:34] Boelcke was only a year older than von Richthofen, but he was something of a hero and mentor. He had literally written the guidebook on how to be a fighter pilot, and was by far and away the most deadly officer in the German airforce.
[00:13:54] It seemed like von Richtofen was determined to live up to his memory.
[00:14:00] And his kills, or “victories”, started to creep up.
[00:14:06] In January of 1917, he announced his 16th confirmed kill, for which he was awarded the prestigious Pour le Mérite medal, otherwise known as the “Blue Max”.
[00:14:20] As a result, von Richthofen was given command of his own squadron.
[00:14:26] He was fast becoming a deadly fighter pilot, but he had also become known for his chivalry and honour.
[00:14:34] He would have a silver cup made every time he had a confirmed kill, and he would honour his fallen enemy by writing their name and the details of their aircraft.
[00:14:47] If he shot and damaged an aeroplane, and it was heading towards the ground, he wouldn’t follow it and try to kill the pilot.
[00:14:55] He knew they would be taken prisoner by the German forces on the ground.
[00:15:00] And when that happened, he was even known for going and shaking his enemy’s hand, and offering to dine with them that evening before they would be sent off to a prisoner of war camp.
[00:15:13] As he put it, he was a sportsman, not a butcher.
[00:15:18] And if you are wondering quite how he was so successful, historians seem to suggest that it was principally a question of strategy and technique.
[00:15:30] He wasn’t some kind of thrill-seeking and risky “Maverick” type figure in Top Gun. He didn’t engage in spectacular acrobatics or anything like that.
[00:15:41] He was very calm under pressure; he followed the guidebook as set out by Oswald Boelcke.
[00:15:48] He positioned his plane, making it difficult for the enemy to see him, he only fired when he was sure he would hit the target, and he retreated when it made sense.
[00:15:59] He did everything right.
[00:16:01] He was also a very good squadron leader, and knew how to motivate and instruct his men to work together when it made sense, and to split up when the conditions demanded it.
[00:16:15] By April of 1917, he surpassed his mentor’s total of 40 victories and became the most successful pilot in German military history.
[00:16:28] By this time, he had also taken the decision to paint his plane red, which had earned him the nickname of Der Rote Kampfflieger, or "the Red Fighter Pilot".
[00:16:39] Or, as he is now better known, “The Red Baron”.
[00:16:44] It’s not completely clear why he did this, but it’s been suggested by historians that it might have been similar to the way a medieval knight wore a particular kind of armour, as a way of singling him out on the battlefield.
[00:16:59] By this time, he was extremely confident of his own abilities, his name and his reputation were known to every Allied pilot, so perhaps this decision was a way of striking fear into the hearts of his enemies.
[00:17:14] If they saw a red plane coming up behind them, well, they knew what they were up against.
[00:17:21] And it wasn’t just The Red Baron who painted his plane. Several other members of his squadron did so too, and they earned the nickname “The Flying Circus” after their colourfully-painted planes and the fact that they would regularly be sent from place to place, as required.
[00:17:40] Von Richthofen was the leader of this legendary squadron, and was always up there in the skies, fighting alongside his men.
[00:17:50] But he was not invincible.
[00:17:53] In July of 1917, he was shot in the head during a fight with a British plane. He became dizzy and couldn’t see properly, and he lost control of his plane.
[00:18:05] It hurtled towards the ground, but fortunately, he regained his composure and managed to crash-land.
[00:18:13] Luckily, he was behind German lines.
[00:18:17] He was taken to hospital to recover, and after multiple operations, he declared that he was ready to return to action.
[00:18:26] The doctors said he was not. The injury had most likely caused lasting damage, but von Richthofen was having none of it.
[00:18:36] He returned to active service less than three weeks after the injury, but something had changed. He had nausea and headaches and just didn’t feel the same.
[00:18:49] He took leave to recover and took this opportunity to write his biography, which he called Der rote Kampfflieger, or "The Red Fighter Pilot".
[00:19:00] Now, he seems to have been instructed to write this by his superiors as a propaganda tool.
[00:19:07] This was in September of 1917; the United States had joined the war earlier that year, and things were not going Germany’s way.
[00:19:18] Von Richthofen was Germany’s most famous fighter pilot, so what better way to boost morale than for the public to read about his heroic battles in the air?
[00:19:31] German high command even made efforts to stop him from going back into combat, fearing that if he was killed, this would be a great blow to national morale.
[00:19:43] Although von Richthofen had by this point spent two years in the air, and seen friends and colleagues die on an almost daily basis, he refused.
[00:19:55] It was his duty, he said; he would get back into the cockpit and take to the skies.
[00:20:02] And so he did, and his kill count continued to rise.
[00:20:07] 60, 70, and on the 20th of April 1918, he recorded his 79th and 80th confirmed kills, more than doubling his mentor’s tally.
[00:20:21] Then, on the 21st of April, his luck ran out.
[00:20:27] He was flying with his squadron in Northern France.
[00:20:31] New to the squadron was Wolfram von Richthofen, his cousin. Wolfram was three years younger, and was an inexperienced fighter.
[00:20:43] Manfred, the squadron leader, had instructed his cousin to pull back if they encountered any enemy planes, and observe the action from above.
[00:20:56] Sure enough, the squadron came across a group of British fighter planes and engaged them.
[00:21:03] As he’d been told, Wolfram pulled his plane up and started to circle, observing the fight from up high.
[00:21:12] It just so happened that a young and inexperienced Canadian pilot, fighting on the Allied side, had been told exactly the same thing by his squadron leader.
[00:21:25] This Canadian, a man named Wilfrid May, saw the German plane in the air and decided to engage it.
[00:21:35] When Manfred looked up and saw his cousin in danger, he pulled his plane up and raced to the rescue.
[00:21:43] He managed to chase the Canadian plane away, but for some unknown reason, The Red Baron kept going.
[00:21:51] He followed May deep into Allied territory and came dangerously close to the ground.
[00:21:57] This was one of the things his mentor, Oswald Boelcke, had specifically detailed that a fighter pilot should not do.
[00:22:06] You should keep your composure, never put yourself in unjustified danger, and always have a clear path to return home. Von Richthofen, the most successful fighter pilot in the German military, was breaking all the rules he lived by.
[00:22:26] As von Richthofen continued in pursuit, his plane suddenly stalled and tumbled to the ground, deep into Allied territory.
[00:22:37] The Allied forces rushed to the wreckage, and there they found a dead Manfred von Richthofen.
[00:22:45] He had been killed by a single bullet wound to the chest.
[00:22:50] To this day, it’s not clear exactly who killed him.
[00:22:55] It was first believed that this came from an enemy fighter plane, but it’s now believed to have come from ground fire, either an anti-aircraft gun or a machine gun pointed to the sky.
[00:23:10] Whoever was ultimately responsible, the Red Baron was dead.
[00:23:15] He was the most deadly fighter in the German airforce, responsible for dozens of Allied deaths, but in death, he was treated with respect and dignity by his enemies.
[00:23:28] He was given a full military funeral, with the men he had been chasing down just hours before carrying his coffin.
[00:23:37] Ever since, historians have been puzzling over the details of his death.
[00:23:43] His decision to chase this enemy plane low over enemy territory went against everything he had been taught, and that he had drilled into the men in his squadron.
[00:23:55] Was it because he simply didn’t know that this was enemy territory?
[00:23:59] This was a period of flux during the war, and a combination of high winds and moving territorial boundaries might have meant he had gone much further than he thought and crossed into territory he thought was still under German control, but was not.
[00:24:18] Or was he simply not thinking straight?
[00:24:22] Had the head injury from the previous year impacted his judgment to such an extent that the composure and rationality that had kept him alive for so long was gone?
[00:24:34] We will never know, but his name is inscribed in legend.
[00:24:39] Loved by his colleagues, feared and respected by his enemies.
[00:24:44] His victory record has now been surpassed, but history will only remember one Red Baron.
[00:24:53] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Manfred von Richtofen.
[00:24:58] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you’ve learned a little bit more about the man behind the title.
[00:25:04] As a quick reminder, in case you haven’t listened to them already, this was part three of our three-part mini-series on unusual characters from World War I.
[00:25:13] Part one was on Lawrence of Arabia, and part two was on Mata Hari. You can, of course, listen to them independently, but I hope that they make for a nice little trio.
[00:25:23] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:25:29] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is part three of our three-part mini-series on unusual characters from World War I.
[00:00:29] In case you missed them, part one was on Lawrence of Arabia, the British archaeologist and military officer who fought alongside nomadic tribes in the Arabian desert.
[00:00:41] Part two was on Mata Hari, the Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was tried and shot on charges of being a spy.
[00:00:50] And in today’s episode, part three, we are going to talk about Manfred von Richthofen, the man better known as The Red Baron.
[00:01:01] He is perhaps the best-known fighter pilot in the world, with 80 confirmed planes shot down, and his story is one of chivalry, strategy, bravery, propaganda, and the bloody reality behind the supposed glories of war.
[00:01:19] It’s also an interesting story from the point of view of understanding the evolving military role of the aeroplane, so let’s not waste a minute, and get right into it.
[00:01:32] When war broke out in Europe on the 28th of July 1914, Manfred von Richthofen was 22 years old.
[00:01:42] He had already spent a couple of years training as a cavalry officer, a soldier who sits on top of a horse and charges at the enemy.
[00:01:52] For this young man, joining the cavalry was something of an inevitability.
[00:01:59] He came from an aristocratic Prussian family. His father was in the cavalry, as was his uncle.
[00:02:06] Generations of von Richthofens had served the Prussian king as cavalry officers, so naturally, Manfred and his brothers followed in their footsteps.
[00:02:19] The problem was that it soon became clear that cavalry was not very useful in modern warfare.
[00:02:27] Up against machine guns, and charging through muddy fields, men riding on horses are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
[00:02:39] Soon enough, both on the Allied and the German side, cavalry regiments were disbanded or reassigned, the men who would previously charge valiantly towards the enemy on horseback now relegated to less glorious positions.
[00:02:58] In the case of Manfred von Richthofen, he was sent to work far behind the front line, working on communications and supply operations.
[00:03:09] For a young man eager to serve his country, and who felt like this chance had been snatched from him, he was desperate to find a way to get closer to the action.
[00:03:21] The answer seemed to be in the skies above him.
[00:03:27] He had seen aeroplanes taking off from far behind the front line, sent on reconnaissance missions to observe the enemy. This was what he wanted to be doing, he thought. It was a chance to do something more useful, and he wrote a letter to his superior officer requesting a transfer.
[00:03:48] It said, so the legend goes, "I have not gone to war in order to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose."
[00:03:58] The request was granted, and in May of 1915, he was transferred to the German air service.
[00:04:08] Now, the Wright Brothers had invented the first aeroplane in 1903, and both the German and the Allied armies used aeroplanes, primarily for reconnaissance, to fly up in the sky and observe the positions and movements of the enemy.
[00:04:28] To state the obvious, planes are a very effective way of doing this, and at least for the first couple of years of the war, these reconnaissance missions were fairly safe.
[00:04:41] If the planes flew high enough, they would be out of range of gunfire from the ground.
[00:04:47] And they didn’t need to worry too much about enemy planes because they weren’t much of a threat.
[00:04:55] These planes were relatively basic; just one pilot in the front and another man in the back who was responsible for taking photographs.
[00:05:06] The pilot and his wingman would normally carry a weapon, a pistol or a rifle. They might shoot at an enemy aircraft if they got too close, and some planes had guns mounted to the side.
[00:05:21] But it was rare for a plane to be shot down by another plane because it was so difficult to do so.
[00:05:29] These planes had open cockpits, they would be flying at 150 kilometres per hour, often in difficult weather conditions.
[00:05:39] In the early days of the war, the air was a relatively safe place, and there were even reports of enemy pilots waving at each other in the air, a show of solidarity.
[00:05:52] This was the state of the war of the air when von Richthofen joined the air service.
[00:05:59] And when he joined, he was not the one piloting the plane, he was not the driver.
[00:06:05] He came from an aristocratic family, he was used to having chauffeurs who would drive him around, so it seemed natural that the piloting of the aircraft would be done by someone of a suitable, lower social class, and the supposedly more skillful navigation work would be done by von Richthofen.
[00:06:28] After a few weeks of training, he was ready for his first flight.
[00:06:33] For several months, he worked on reconnaissance, and he even saw some action, shooting down a French plane with his machine gun.
[00:06:43] Now, he wasn’t credited with this kill, or “victory” as it’s technically called.
[00:06:49] This was because the French plane came down behind French lines, and therefore couldn’t be confirmed, but it seems that this was the first time von Richthofen successfully downed an enemy fighter.
[00:07:04] It was also an important realisation for him.
[00:07:08] He was the reconnaissance officer, sitting behind the pilot.
[00:07:14] To successfully shoot down an enemy plane, he would have to practically pull up alongside it and, therefore, put himself in grave danger, or at least, give himself no positional advantage over his target.
[00:07:30] Plus, having one person pulling the trigger and another piloting the aeroplane was kind of inefficient.
[00:07:38] Split-second decisions needed to be made, and it would be far more efficient if the pilot was also the one pulling the trigger.
[00:07:48] And if there was a way for the machine gun to be pointing forward, not out from the side, this would give the attacking aeroplane a great advantage. You could point your aeroplane at your target and fire rather than point your aeroplane in one direction but have your gun pointing in a different one.
[00:08:10] Now, on both the German and the Allied side, this was a problem that engineers were rushing to fix.
[00:08:19] The problem was that the propellers of the aircraft were at the front of the plane, and if you put a machine gun behind the propeller, well the bullets would hit the propeller and you’d damage your own aircraft, perhaps irreparably.
[00:08:35] There needed to be some way of synchronising the spinning of the propeller with the firing of the gun. But this was very complicated. Propellers spin very fast and at irregular speeds, and machine guns were not yet precise enough to fire at exactly the right moment.
[00:08:58] Fortunately, for the Germans at least, by mid-1915, such a technique was invented. A Dutch engineer called Anthony Fokker, who was working for the Germans, refined an existing French system that allowed a pilot to fire a machine gun forward without hitting the propeller.
[00:09:20] It was such an important discovery that German pilots were told not to fly over enemy territory, lest they were shot down and the secret discovered.
[00:09:31] But the Allies were almost there too, and by early 1916, British and French planes were also capable of firing forwards.
[00:09:43] Now, while this was all happening, von Richthofen had a chance meeting that would change the course of his life.
[00:09:51] On a railway carriage, he noticed an otherwise unremarkable young man, but recognised him as Oswald Boelcke, an aircraft officer whose legendary stories of shooting down French and British planes had been published in German newspapers.
[00:10:09] Von Richthofen engaged him in conversation, which only strengthened his resolve to move from the back seat to the pilot seat.
[00:10:19] In October of 1915, he started training as a pilot.
[00:10:24] And despite the legendary career that he would go on to have, by all accounts, he was not a naturally talented pilot.
[00:10:34] To some pilots, holding the joystick, manoeuvring the plane, this came almost naturally, and they soon felt at one with the plane.
[00:10:45] Not von Richthofen. He even crashed his plane the first time he was given full control.
[00:10:52] Fortunately, he was a quick learner.
[00:10:56] He shot down his first enemy plane in April the following year, but again this was an “unofficial” victory.
[00:11:05] Like the one he did from the back seat in 1915, the plane came down in French territory, so it couldn’t be confirmed. For a victory to be confirmed, there had to be real, physical evidence, not just the word of the pilot.
[00:11:21] This will be important when it comes to some of von Richthofen’s actions later on.
[00:11:27] He met Oswald Boelcke again later in 1916, and by this time, Boelcke had become something of a German propaganda icon.
[00:11:38] He had 18 confirmed victories under his belt, he had become the youngest captain in German military history, and was the most successful aircraft officer in the German army.
[00:11:51] He was all over the newspapers and received a constant influx of fan mail.
[00:11:56] He had outlined and written up guidelines and rules for successful aircraft combat operations, essentially writing the playbook for how to win in the air.
[00:12:09] And he had been tasked with setting up a new, elite, flying squadron.
[00:12:16] Von Richthofen was chosen to be one of this elite group of 8 ace pilots.
[00:12:23] An “ace”, by the way, is the term given to a pilot once they shoot down five enemy aeroplanes.
[00:12:30] And this squadron proved to be deadly.
[00:12:34] In its first month in the skies, Boelcke alone shot down 10 British planes.
[00:12:41] Von Richthofen got his first confirmed victory on the 17th of September 1916.
[00:12:48] And this was just the start.
[00:12:50] The squadron would go on to be one of the most successful German aircraft squadrons in history, with 336 victories and only 44 casualties, of whom 31 were killed, nine were wounded, two were taken as prisoners of war, and another two were killed in accidents.
[00:13:13] One of those killed in accidents was the ace leader of the squadron, Oswald Boelcke, who died in an accidental collision with another plane from his squadron.
[00:13:25] At the time of his death, in October of 1916, he had 40 confirmed victories, to von Richthofen’s four.
[00:13:34] Boelcke was only a year older than von Richthofen, but he was something of a hero and mentor. He had literally written the guidebook on how to be a fighter pilot, and was by far and away the most deadly officer in the German airforce.
[00:13:54] It seemed like von Richtofen was determined to live up to his memory.
[00:14:00] And his kills, or “victories”, started to creep up.
[00:14:06] In January of 1917, he announced his 16th confirmed kill, for which he was awarded the prestigious Pour le Mérite medal, otherwise known as the “Blue Max”.
[00:14:20] As a result, von Richthofen was given command of his own squadron.
[00:14:26] He was fast becoming a deadly fighter pilot, but he had also become known for his chivalry and honour.
[00:14:34] He would have a silver cup made every time he had a confirmed kill, and he would honour his fallen enemy by writing their name and the details of their aircraft.
[00:14:47] If he shot and damaged an aeroplane, and it was heading towards the ground, he wouldn’t follow it and try to kill the pilot.
[00:14:55] He knew they would be taken prisoner by the German forces on the ground.
[00:15:00] And when that happened, he was even known for going and shaking his enemy’s hand, and offering to dine with them that evening before they would be sent off to a prisoner of war camp.
[00:15:13] As he put it, he was a sportsman, not a butcher.
[00:15:18] And if you are wondering quite how he was so successful, historians seem to suggest that it was principally a question of strategy and technique.
[00:15:30] He wasn’t some kind of thrill-seeking and risky “Maverick” type figure in Top Gun. He didn’t engage in spectacular acrobatics or anything like that.
[00:15:41] He was very calm under pressure; he followed the guidebook as set out by Oswald Boelcke.
[00:15:48] He positioned his plane, making it difficult for the enemy to see him, he only fired when he was sure he would hit the target, and he retreated when it made sense.
[00:15:59] He did everything right.
[00:16:01] He was also a very good squadron leader, and knew how to motivate and instruct his men to work together when it made sense, and to split up when the conditions demanded it.
[00:16:15] By April of 1917, he surpassed his mentor’s total of 40 victories and became the most successful pilot in German military history.
[00:16:28] By this time, he had also taken the decision to paint his plane red, which had earned him the nickname of Der Rote Kampfflieger, or "the Red Fighter Pilot".
[00:16:39] Or, as he is now better known, “The Red Baron”.
[00:16:44] It’s not completely clear why he did this, but it’s been suggested by historians that it might have been similar to the way a medieval knight wore a particular kind of armour, as a way of singling him out on the battlefield.
[00:16:59] By this time, he was extremely confident of his own abilities, his name and his reputation were known to every Allied pilot, so perhaps this decision was a way of striking fear into the hearts of his enemies.
[00:17:14] If they saw a red plane coming up behind them, well, they knew what they were up against.
[00:17:21] And it wasn’t just The Red Baron who painted his plane. Several other members of his squadron did so too, and they earned the nickname “The Flying Circus” after their colourfully-painted planes and the fact that they would regularly be sent from place to place, as required.
[00:17:40] Von Richthofen was the leader of this legendary squadron, and was always up there in the skies, fighting alongside his men.
[00:17:50] But he was not invincible.
[00:17:53] In July of 1917, he was shot in the head during a fight with a British plane. He became dizzy and couldn’t see properly, and he lost control of his plane.
[00:18:05] It hurtled towards the ground, but fortunately, he regained his composure and managed to crash-land.
[00:18:13] Luckily, he was behind German lines.
[00:18:17] He was taken to hospital to recover, and after multiple operations, he declared that he was ready to return to action.
[00:18:26] The doctors said he was not. The injury had most likely caused lasting damage, but von Richthofen was having none of it.
[00:18:36] He returned to active service less than three weeks after the injury, but something had changed. He had nausea and headaches and just didn’t feel the same.
[00:18:49] He took leave to recover and took this opportunity to write his biography, which he called Der rote Kampfflieger, or "The Red Fighter Pilot".
[00:19:00] Now, he seems to have been instructed to write this by his superiors as a propaganda tool.
[00:19:07] This was in September of 1917; the United States had joined the war earlier that year, and things were not going Germany’s way.
[00:19:18] Von Richthofen was Germany’s most famous fighter pilot, so what better way to boost morale than for the public to read about his heroic battles in the air?
[00:19:31] German high command even made efforts to stop him from going back into combat, fearing that if he was killed, this would be a great blow to national morale.
[00:19:43] Although von Richthofen had by this point spent two years in the air, and seen friends and colleagues die on an almost daily basis, he refused.
[00:19:55] It was his duty, he said; he would get back into the cockpit and take to the skies.
[00:20:02] And so he did, and his kill count continued to rise.
[00:20:07] 60, 70, and on the 20th of April 1918, he recorded his 79th and 80th confirmed kills, more than doubling his mentor’s tally.
[00:20:21] Then, on the 21st of April, his luck ran out.
[00:20:27] He was flying with his squadron in Northern France.
[00:20:31] New to the squadron was Wolfram von Richthofen, his cousin. Wolfram was three years younger, and was an inexperienced fighter.
[00:20:43] Manfred, the squadron leader, had instructed his cousin to pull back if they encountered any enemy planes, and observe the action from above.
[00:20:56] Sure enough, the squadron came across a group of British fighter planes and engaged them.
[00:21:03] As he’d been told, Wolfram pulled his plane up and started to circle, observing the fight from up high.
[00:21:12] It just so happened that a young and inexperienced Canadian pilot, fighting on the Allied side, had been told exactly the same thing by his squadron leader.
[00:21:25] This Canadian, a man named Wilfrid May, saw the German plane in the air and decided to engage it.
[00:21:35] When Manfred looked up and saw his cousin in danger, he pulled his plane up and raced to the rescue.
[00:21:43] He managed to chase the Canadian plane away, but for some unknown reason, The Red Baron kept going.
[00:21:51] He followed May deep into Allied territory and came dangerously close to the ground.
[00:21:57] This was one of the things his mentor, Oswald Boelcke, had specifically detailed that a fighter pilot should not do.
[00:22:06] You should keep your composure, never put yourself in unjustified danger, and always have a clear path to return home. Von Richthofen, the most successful fighter pilot in the German military, was breaking all the rules he lived by.
[00:22:26] As von Richthofen continued in pursuit, his plane suddenly stalled and tumbled to the ground, deep into Allied territory.
[00:22:37] The Allied forces rushed to the wreckage, and there they found a dead Manfred von Richthofen.
[00:22:45] He had been killed by a single bullet wound to the chest.
[00:22:50] To this day, it’s not clear exactly who killed him.
[00:22:55] It was first believed that this came from an enemy fighter plane, but it’s now believed to have come from ground fire, either an anti-aircraft gun or a machine gun pointed to the sky.
[00:23:10] Whoever was ultimately responsible, the Red Baron was dead.
[00:23:15] He was the most deadly fighter in the German airforce, responsible for dozens of Allied deaths, but in death, he was treated with respect and dignity by his enemies.
[00:23:28] He was given a full military funeral, with the men he had been chasing down just hours before carrying his coffin.
[00:23:37] Ever since, historians have been puzzling over the details of his death.
[00:23:43] His decision to chase this enemy plane low over enemy territory went against everything he had been taught, and that he had drilled into the men in his squadron.
[00:23:55] Was it because he simply didn’t know that this was enemy territory?
[00:23:59] This was a period of flux during the war, and a combination of high winds and moving territorial boundaries might have meant he had gone much further than he thought and crossed into territory he thought was still under German control, but was not.
[00:24:18] Or was he simply not thinking straight?
[00:24:22] Had the head injury from the previous year impacted his judgment to such an extent that the composure and rationality that had kept him alive for so long was gone?
[00:24:34] We will never know, but his name is inscribed in legend.
[00:24:39] Loved by his colleagues, feared and respected by his enemies.
[00:24:44] His victory record has now been surpassed, but history will only remember one Red Baron.
[00:24:53] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Manfred von Richtofen.
[00:24:58] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you’ve learned a little bit more about the man behind the title.
[00:25:04] As a quick reminder, in case you haven’t listened to them already, this was part three of our three-part mini-series on unusual characters from World War I.
[00:25:13] Part one was on Lawrence of Arabia, and part two was on Mata Hari. You can, of course, listen to them independently, but I hope that they make for a nice little trio.
[00:25:23] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:25:29] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
