The Red Baron

A surprisingly enjoyable memoir. It does have that "does this make the fatherland look good" get it past the censors feel often found in pre-Vietnam works of all armed forces across the globe. As it was written at the time of an ongoing war minute details are conspicuously absent.What comes across the most is his love of flying and the hunt. Atleast till somewhere around 30-40 kills. I did not realize how much of a bad mooter scooter his brother Lothar was with 40 kills. And they flew together often.

The Red Battle Flyer is supposedly a piece of wartime propaganda, edited by the German war department and published in 1917 based on interviews only about 7 months after his first kill - but it reads surprisingly well, giving a sense of men in their early 20s as they create out of thin air a new form of fighting with "flying machines"; and an outline of the Red Baron's meteoric career from nobody to international renown in a few short months. In 1918, Richthofen supposedly said he thought the piece "arrogant" and he was no longer "that kind of person", but one has to take in account the general attitude changes towards the war by its end, people were sick of killing and preparing for peacetime. Well worth the listen and not too long. show more Listened via Tom Weiss' excellent narration on LibriVox. show less

not a bad book to read, although a lot of it is common knowledge now so not too many new facts. but being written (and censored minimally) by the man himself it gave a great viewpoint to his life up to about a year from his death (had about 50 kills at this point). full of arrogance and even at times naieve, he must have been a fascinating person to know. certainly bordering genius, and fearless as well.
good read, but the english notes seem just as 'propagandist' as do the german censros!
the appendix on his kills and planes makes for interesting reading in itself.

Table of Contents:
Manfred von Richthofen 1
The red baron in popular culture 16
Von Richthofen and Brown 24
The Red Baron Movie 2008 27
PREFACE 36
MY FAMILY 47
THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR 56
BOREDOM BEFORE VERDUN 72
IN THE AIR 75
MY FIRST SOLO FLIGHT 93
FLY IN A THUNDERSTORM 100
BOMBING IN RUSSIA 105
MY FIRST ENGLISH VICTIM 112
GET THE ORDRE POUR LE Mérite 124
A FLYING MANùS ADVENTURE 137
MY RECORD DAY 142
SCHAFER LANDS BETWEEN LINES 151
MY BROTHER 160

Interessant - obgleich es schwerig ist zu wissen, was die echten Ansichten des Freiherrn sind, und was um die Zensoren froh zu halten da ist.