Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen

[West-Front]

Manfred von Richthofen was Germany's greatest First World War hero. But a biopic of the ace fighter pilot is causing unease in a country where, since the defeat of Nazism, film has avoided the glorification of war, reports Tony PatersonA British schoolboy would recognise it instantly: the plane that nowadays sits tucked away in the corner of a former Royal Air Force hangar on the western outskirts of Berlin is a life-sized replica of a fighter from the First World War. It has primitive solid rubber wheels, is painted a shocking shade of red and sports large black and white Iron crosses on its fuselage and triple-decked wings.

The model is a copy of the 1918 Fokker triplane piloted by Germany's legendary flying ace, Manfred von Richthofen, alias the Red Baron. It sits in one of Germany's few museums devoted to the painful subject of wartime aviation but still rates as one of the most famous aircraft in the world. Yet it is doubtful whether a German schoolboy would recognise it.

Ninety years after von Richthofen's death, Germany is about to change all that. A film about the heroic Prussian pilot who shot down a record 80 British, Canadian and Australian airmen during the First World War, will be shown at cinemas across the country next month. It will be the first time since the Nazi era that Germany will portray one of its own military figures in film as a national hero.

In Germany, The Red Baron, which has cost a record €18m (£14m) to produce, is almost predestined to provoke a wave of anguished criticism, a batch of dreadful reviews and a prolonged bout of soul searching about the rights and wrongs of using German battlefield bravery and heroism as the subject for a popular feature film.

The movie comes at a moment in which Germany finds itself seriously at odds over military matters. The country is facing constant criticism from its Nato allies over its reluctance to deploy troops in war-torn southern Afghanistan.

Yet domestic opposition to Germany's military role abroad is growing – as reflected by a dramatic rise in support for the country's vehemently anti-war Left Party. At the same time the country's politicians were recently immersed in a debate about resurrecting Germany's controversial Iron Cross military award for bravery.

Yet there is no doubt the film will break an entrenched taboo: since 1945, German war films have portrayed German soldiers either as jackbooted fanatics, rueful pacifists or reluctant, conscience-stricken victims of the Nazi regime.

The British can take credit for keeping the memory of the Red Baron alive since 1945. In Germany there has been little room for any German wartime heroics in the cinema. The award-winning 1981 film, Das Boot, was all about German U-boat submariners being terrified and depth charged; 2004's Downfall was a blow-by-blow account of Hitler's last days in his Berlin bunker. Even the latest film from the Hollywood actor, Tom Cruise, about Claus von Stauffenberg, the German army officer turned resistance hero, is the story of a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler.

The Red Baron is set to break completely with that trend. It will depict its chief protagonists as a latter-day knight of the battlefield. Von Richthofen is played by the young German actor, Matthias Schweighöfer, who, at least in the first half of the film, portrays a youthful and brilliant officer pilot.

Enthralled and bitten by the flying bug, he turns out to be a fantastic shot, yet a leader with the human touch: one scene shows him leaping out of a Field Marshal's staff car to buy a harmonica for a friend.

To von Richthofen and his fellow airmen, the war in the air is treated like sport. Shooting down an enemy plane is like bagging a pheasant at a shoot on a country estate.

Not surprisingly, the Red Baron's quickly gained a reputation as a flying ace and national hero turns him into a swaggering braggart oblivious to the horrors of the trench warfare conducted on the ground. But after suffering a head wound in action, von Richthofen falls in love with the German nurse Käte Otersdorf, played by the British actress, Lena Headey, although it is not known whether von Richthofen really did have a romantic liaison with her.

Stung by the realisation that he is simply being used as a pawn by Kaiser Wilhelm II's wartime propaganda machine, he becomes disillusioned and disgusted by war. But out of duty to his comrades, he nevertheless sets out to fly again.

Nikolai Müllerschön, the director of the film, admits that the production will be controversial. "There are strong voices in Germany saying we are not allowed to do this: make a film about a German war hero," he said last week. However, he added: "The film also makes a very clear statement against war. Richthofen says that his world has been turned into a slaughterhouse and that the war cannot be won. He says he's not going to be the immortal god that Berlin wants him to be; he knew millions had been lured into the trenches with such propaganda. He had been turned into one of the first pop stars in history."

Whether the film does justice to the character of Manfred von Richthofen is also certain to be a subject of widespread debate in Germany. The director admits that the aim of the film is not complete historical accuracy. "A meticulous reconstruction of the Baron's life and the historical setting was not uppermost in my mind. It is more important to see what is relevant for people today," he said. "I saw no sense in making the film like a well-researched documentary."

There is strong evidence that, at least at the beginning of his wartime flying career, von Richthofen did everything to suit German wartime propaganda. Whether he was aware of it or not, he cast himself as the epitome of a Boy's Own hero. Here he is in his 1917 autobiography, The Red Air Fighter, describing his first "kill" involving a British plane he shot down over the Western Front.

"At last a favourable moment arrived," he wrote. "My opponent had apparently lost sight of me. Instead of twisting and turning, he flew straight along. In a fraction of a second I was at his back with my excellent machine.

"I gave a short burst with my machine gun. I had gone so close that I was afraid I might dash into the Englishman. Suddenly I nearly yelled with joy, for the propeller of the enemy machine had stopped turning. Hurrah! I had shot his engine to pieces."

At times, the Red Baron's memoirs read like a grotesque parody of a Prussian officer lifted from some hilarious comedy about the war: "When I have shot down an Englishman, my hunting passion is satisfied for a quarter of an hour," he wrote. "Therefore I do not succeed in shooting two Englishmen in succession. If one of them comes down, I have the feeling of complete satisfaction."

Von Richthofen, who was born into a typical German aristocrat's family, went to a Prussian army cadet school and afterwards joined the 1st Regiment of Uhlans. He was 22 when the First World War broke out and was posted to a quiet section of the Western Front. He soon grew bored and applied to join Germany's Imperial Flying Services and afterwards flew as an air observer on the Russian front.

By the autumn of 1916, he was flying over the Western Front and claiming the first of his 80 victims. By the summer of the next year, he was leading Jagdgeschwader 1, a German squadron of fighter planes in his famous bright red triplane.

Both the Germans and the British nicknamed his unit "The Flying Circus" because of its penchant for living in tents and flying garishly coloured flying machines. After shooting down a total of 22 enemy aircraft, he was awarded First World War Germany's highest military accolade, "The Blue Max".

Members of von Richthofen's squadron did not salute other officers because they considered themselves too superior to do so. The mess of his Flying Circus was decorated with the debris of his victims' downed, bullet-ridden planes.

He disliked French airmen, describing them as "French tricksters" but admired and almost revered the British, which goes some way to explain why his reputation was kept alive in Britain for so long. He described them as "those daring fellows". Like other Great War pilots, von Richthofen considered the airborne fighting of the era as something precious and unique: he described it as "the last vestige of knightly individual combat".

Germany's propaganda machine was quick to develop this theme and the Red Baron's heroism soon became a feature of popular folklore. But by the closing stages of the war, air combat had degenerated into calculated, cold-blooded killing. Even von Richthofen made sure he was protected by other planes in his squadron to avoid being ambushed. He sustained only one injury before his death in April 1918 when his Fokker triplane was shot down and crashed into a field on the Somme.

Historians are still arguing about who was responsible for his death. The Canadian pilot, Roy Brown, played in the film by Joseph Fiennes, who had been in a dogfight with the Red Baron and was shooting at him at the time, was the first to claim von Richthofen as a trophy. Subsequent research suggests that his death was caused by the Australian machine gunner, Sgt Cedric Popkin who was firing at the plane as it descended. A third German theory claims that the Red Baron climbed out of his plane after the crash only to be stabbed to death by "British colonial troops".

Von Richthofen's body was picked up and taken to an airfield where his corpse was laid out on a corrugated iron sheet. That night, soldiers and airmen came and rifled the 25-year-old's pockets for souvenirs.One person in Germany has no qualms about seeing the Red Baron as the first German war hero on film since 1945. He is von Richthofen's 74-year-old nephew, Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen.

"I hope that the film will do justice to my uncle," he said yesterday. "He was a leader and the great military hero of the First World War. He was a pop star before the word even existed.

"If I don't like the film I will say so loudly and clearly. I owe that to my uncle," he insisted.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europ ... 96865.html

[Steinmetz]

I can't wait for this film. Just hope that it is done well and accurate.

[Pirkka]

Accuracy might be difficult. I remember an article in an aviation magazine about Von Richthofen that suggested he was something of a sod, not uncommon amongst high-scoring air aces it must be said. It may be hardto portray him accurately in a sympathetic light.
I'm still looking forward to the film, though, if not to the agonised liberal hand-wringing that's going to accompany it.

[Steinmetz]

Yeah, I read something like that too. Reminds me of Blackadder - "I don't care how many times they go up diddly up, they're still gits!"