The Red Baron, by Manfred von Richthofen

[rachelmanija]

My opponent fell, shot through the head, one hundred and fifty feet behind our line. His machine gun was dug out of the ground and it ornaments the entrance to my dwelling.

The memoir of the Red Baron himself, the greatest flying ace of WWI, with 80 planes shot down. He painted his plane red, and the pilots in his squadron also painted theirs, so they were known as the flying circus. (If you thought clowns were scary...) He won a ton of medals, was a celebrity at the time, ordered trophy cups to be made for himself to commemorate his victories, and collected bits of the planes he shot down to decorate his room.

He was shot in the head while flying, but returned to duty with a bandage covering a wound that exposed his skull. At the age of 25 he was shot through the heart, probably by an Australian rifleman, while chasing a very inexperienced Canadian pilot.

Von Richthofen's memoir is quite short. It recounts his early life and how he began in the cavalry and then became an observer before becoming a fighter pilot. There's some good anecdotes of funny occurrences and snapshot portraits of other pilots, plus some dog stories which remarkably do not all end tragically. He endearingly refers to another pilot's dog as "doggie" and to his own enormous hound as "my lap-dog." (Given that, he might have been more amused than offended by Snoopy's battles with the Red Baron.)

He wasn't a good pilot immediately, and struggled with it early on. He's very dismissive of acrobatics and says that courage and a cool head is much more important than being a fancy flyer or even a good shot, noting that Boelke was a terrible shot on the ground but a master in the air. The bright, individually painted planes of his circus wasn't done as a showoff or intimidation tactic (though it definitely became the latter) but because you can't camouflage a plane in the air anyway, so it made more sense for his squadron to be individually recognizable to each other as they knew each other's strengths and weaknesses, and could make use of that when fighting.

But most of the book goes basically like this: "I bagged an Englishman today. He was my 33rd. I was very happy. I ordered a silver trophy cup to commemorate it, and I took the aeroplane's serial number and put it up in my bedroom."

He was an enthusiastic hunter, and he writes about combat exactly as if he was writing about hunting animals for sport. It's especially noticeable because he enjoys hunting on his days off, so you get an account of shooting a bison and an account of shooting a man and they're identical in all but the details.

He doesn't hate his enemies, and he respects the ones who fight well. When he lands beside a plane he downed where both pilot and observer are uninjured, he's pleased to be able to talk with them. (The best hunters respect their prey and appreciate their qualities even as they stalk them.)

I've read war memoirs where people take trophies, enjoy the adrenaline rush of combat, or find war an overall good and rewarding experience--that's all pretty common--and I've read a couple, mostly by colonial-era Englishmen, who find war a tremendously fun game. But I've never read anything quite like this. It's like "The Most Dangerous Game" from the point of view of the hunters, and it takes the cake for the creepiest war memoir I have ever read.

The context for its writing is that the German government asked him to write it as propaganda. They sent him a stenographer and had him talk to her. She took down his stories, which were edited into a manuscript and apparently heavily censored. And I read it in translation. So that's already at least three layers of distance and distortion between whatever von Richthofen actually said, let alone what he actually thought, and what I read. I'd be very curious to hear from anyone who read it in the original German, because with a translation I always wonder about accuracy and tone.

If the war hadn't happened, I don't think he'd have become a serial killer; he doesn't like hunting humans more than he likes hunting animals, just equally. (For me, that made it more chilling rather than less. And also, I have read a lot of war memoirs, and this is the first one I've read where that thought even crossed my mind.) I think he'd have been your basic rich kid who spends his life hunting and playing sports, and is admired within his circle of similar friends. But the war did happen, and so his particular attributes made him ideally suited, useful, valuable, and remembered.

Von Richthofen wrote an essay about a year afterward, which is included in some editions, in which he says he regrets the "insolent" tone of his memoir and isn't finding war quite as fun anymore. I wonder how he would have felt about it all if he'd survived the war, but considering Germany's next war effort, probably it's just as well he didn't.

On the other hand, people don't change until they do. The war memoir I've read that's closest in tone to this one was Lahore to Lucknow by Arthur Lang, by an English officer in India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. It was his private diary, not intended for publication and only discovered after his death. To him, it's all a wonderful, thrilling game.

It continues in this tone right up until literally the last two pages, in which his best friend is caught in an accidental explosion and is horrifically burned but stays conscious. Lang remains with him until he dies that night. The last diary entry is a eulogy concluding by saying that his death ruined his enjoyment of the entire war. A postscript says that Lang became a public works engineer, and spent the rest of his life building roads in India.

Comments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, fascinating, thank you! Several of your last few reviews have increased my reading list by yet another book, and I can see I'll have to check this out too someday.

[rachelmanija]

There is definitely more WWI incoming.

[cefyr]

I read part of it ages ago, probably in German just to prove to myself that I could (because I was in high school). German is my third language, so I was going to say I probably missed a lot of subtle nuances, but what I recall of the tone is basically the way you describe it: "I shot an Englishman today. Very happy, ordering a trophy cup." I remember thinking it sounded very much like a report from someone who was unused to describing things, and I think you might be right that it's basically the point of view of a nobleman who likes hunting.

As for the creepiness, it reminds me of a book I read that was written by a bird enthusiast in I think the 1920's, where he sketched a lot of birds and talked about how beautiful they were, and it was only after a couple of chapters that I realised he hunted these birds for sport, and that was why he could describe them so well. He apparently saw no inherent contradiction in this, but to me it felt really creepy, because he didn't even hunt them to eat them or because they destroyed his crops.

[sholio]

I sometimes get hit with that last thing when I'm reading naturalist accounts from past centuries, because every now and then something will remind me that the way they obtained specimens for study was by killing them. The combination of being really, truly fascinated by, and loving, nature and the outdoors, combined with "I just saw a bird I have never seen before, I must immediately shoot it so I can sketch and study it" is very un-modern.

[sillylilly_bird]

That sounds interesting, but very creepy and I don't think I'm up for that right now.
My maternal grandfather fought in WWI and wrote a book about it [https://smile.amazon.com/Service-Record-Artilleryman-L-Jacks/dp/B000875GMC/ref=sr_1_3?crid=CUNGSR7UTKHP&keywords=l+v+jacks&qid=1675971410&sprefix=l+v+jacks%2Caps%2C143&sr=8-3
].
It's not always that pricey, but it's definitely hard to find and I checked Project Gutenberg with no luck.

He got his PhD through Catholic University and his dissertation was the first volume in their patristic studies: St Basil and Greek Literature [https://smile.amazon.com/Basil-Greek-Literature-Vincent-Jacks/dp/1296862828]. He wrote several other books including one on Xenophon which was used as a college text book.

[swan_tower]

So of course now I immediately wonder what the odds are that the stenographer's notes or the original, uncensored manuscript survive somewhere. Unfortunately, they probably approach zero.

[rachelmanija]

I looked this up and I'm seeing conflicting information over whether the uncensored manuscript doesn't exist, or whether there was an earlier, censored version and the one I read was the uncensored version.

[philomytha]

OMG. I mean, yes, it is propaganda and makes sense as such, but also OMG. Though I guess it's fair to point out that the people he was hunting were also hunting him back, but I suspect that just made it more fun for him.

I got distracted halfway through reading this, but last year I started reading someone's utterly fascinating PhD thesis on German aces and their cultural position, and he discusses the 'sport' idea of air combat a lot: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4422/

[rachelmanija]

Oh, I'm sure it was more fun that they shot back. When he forces down a plane whose guns have jammed, he doesn't shoot it up, he lands next to it and asks the pilot if he's heard of him!

Thanks for the link, that looks very interesting. Richthofen's memoir sounded really similar to a lot of English writers from public schools in the colonial eras - unsurprising that he says he likes the English best!

[sholio]

The rest of it aside (which: wow) I am fascinated by the idea of painting the airplanes different colors so they could identify exactly who was flying each one and therefore anticipate what they were likely to do due to knowing each other's style of flight. It's just so much more personal than how we think of war now, like a holdover from a rapidly vanishing age of personal dueling combat.

The more I read about very early aerial combat, the more often I'm struck by those little moments of realizing how much of the basic principles we take for granted now either hadn't been worked out yet, or were literally impossible due to the technology not being ready yet - like not having radio communication until after the war was over.

[rachelmanija]

Yeah, it's so personal. They had to signal to each other by waggling their wings or even doing hand gestures, and they could often see their opponents' faces. Boelke said he didn't shoot until he could see the chin-strap of his opponent's helmet. The WWI aces probably were the last duelists.

On a Wing and a Prayer talks a lot about the early technology or lack thereof. Something really striking is how this is literally the birth of aerial combat - it didn't exist at all before! (And aerial transport barely existed.)

[swan_tower]

I'm struck by those little moments of realizing how much of the basic principles we take for granted now either hadn't been worked out yet, or were literally impossible due to the technology not being ready yet - like not having radio communication until after the war was over.

I don't know if you read A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, but he did several posts on the trench stalemate and how profoundly everybody who goes "but why didn't they just do XYZ" does not understand the limitations of the technology at the time. Those things you want them to have used airplanes for? Or tanks? They flat-out couldn't. 1000% impossible. They didn't have the range or the speed or the firepower or whatever is crucial to your cunning plan you think everybody back then was just too stupid to come up with.

[asakiyume]

I've always thought that there must be a fair of people who didn't have any particular empathy for humans-as-humans (or for anything-as-anything, for that matter) but who don't become serial killers because they're just not moved to do that--it's not worth the trouble, it's just as satisfying to, as you say, hunt animals. The thing that's unnerving is that their reasons for not hunting people aren't what we'd like their reasons to be.

Most people, even if they don't actually learn much empathy, get the principle of empathy drilled into them, so they can talk the talk even if it doesn't mean anything to them. But some people are remarkably untrammeled. This guy, for one, sounds like.

[davidgillon]

but who don't become serial killers because they're just not moved to do that

It's easier and lower risk to become a politician ;)

[rachelmanija]

The flip side of this is that I suspect that if von Richthofen had grown up in a non-hunting culture and WWI hadn't happened, he'd probably have happily played sports and ridden horses and that would have been it. He seems to be a sportsman more than anything else--more than anything else is the key point there, which can go in all sorts of directions.

[copperfyre]

That sounds... fascinating, in a... weird and distressing way? Huh.

[yhlee]

Oh - it's available in the German at Project Gutenberg; I can't speak as to edition or censoring and I'm not fluent in the language so I can't tell you anything else.

[genarti]

Oh, wow. This sounds fascinating and disconcerting and very disquieting.

And a deeply unmodern way to write about war, too, even aside from the chilling individual weirdness. Which makes sense, given how unmodern WWI dogfighting was in many ways (the bright red for practicality!), but it's still fascinating to encounter something like that unexpectedly -- all the different ways a cultural gulf can crop up.

[hyarrowen]

His attitudes are weird to us, for sure, but he was born 130 years ago and he'd probably be horrified at some of the things we take for granted. And let's face it, he was doing his duty in shooting down all those Allied pilots, just as they were doing theirs in shooting down Central Powers pilots. They were all risking their lives several times a day to do that duty.

I saw a re-enacted WW1 dogfight at the Melbourne air show in 2015, with a dozen or so planes taking part. What surprised me more than anything else is the sheer slowness of the machines. Could they take pilots plus parachutes plus machine guns plus bombs plus passengers into the sky? No, most of them couldn't. They're basically flying lawnmowers. So much for breaking the Western Front stalemate by air power! (In fact they did break the stalemate by air power, but it was through reconnaissance, photographing the Front twice a day every day...)

[rachelmanija]

He was absolutely doing his duty, and doing it very well. He does sound different from other WWI memoirists/diarists I've read, though. But this is the only full memoir by a German pilot I've read - maybe that was just their culture.

You're so lucky to have seen air show!

[snowynight]

It made you think how hunting was often seen as training for war before the age of professional army, and the link between combative sports and wars. For example, the CSKA Moscow (a sports club) was a military and political apparatus for Soviet soldiers and officers alik

[rachelmanija]

Oh, that's very interesting.

British Raj officers often drew a link between war and school sports.

[anna_wing]

That sounds absolutely fascinating. The past is a different country, indeed.

There's a difference between illegally killing people for fun, and having fun killing specific kinds of people in specific circumstances where it is legitimate to do so.

From the descriptions of how he treated surviving opponents, I don't think it's exactly that he regarded his opponents as being on the same level as animals to be hunted. His opponents were his peer-competitors, to use a modern phrase, in a competition that happened to have lethal outcomes. Given his youth and background, he might simply have lacked the inclination and the vocabulary to tease out distinctions.

[mildred_of_midgard]

There's a difference between illegally killing people for fun, and having fun killing specific kinds of people in specific circumstances where it is legitimate to do so.

I agree with this completely.

I don't think it's exactly that he regarded his opponents as being on the same level as animals to be hunted. His opponents were his peer-competitors

Without having read much about the Baron in particular, but being familiar with the pyschological type...yes, this is a type. For some people, it's not "people = animals and I want to kill them both", it's "a skill = a skill and I'm *very* good."

[jesuswasbatman]

I agree with everyone who says that this is just the European aristocratic ethos - you were brought up right from the start to know that a big part of your social role would be killing people in wars and risking being killed yourself.

There's an interesting fictional analogy as well in some of Leslie Charteris's inter-war books about Simon Templar - he's absolutely ready to kill his enemies on a one-to-one level, and absolutely glorifies the warrior ethos, but he's horrified by 20th-century mechanised war because of the idea of masses of conscripts killing people who they don't know and whose faces they've never seen, for reasons they don't truly understand.

[rachelmanija]

He's got a point.

[sovay]

But the war did happen, and so his particular attributes made him ideally suited, useful, valuable, and remembered.

I have not written about it because my life has been nothing but plumbing lately, but the British noir/woman's picture Cage of Gold (1950) asks a similar, provocative question about its antagonist, which it is intelligent enough not to answer but just leave uncomfortably hanging: did this decorated wing commander become a crook after the war because it damaged him too badly to fit back into civilian life or was he so successful as a flyer because even then he was an amoral adrenaline junkie (and does it matter when the results either way are this gorgeous, destructive, at once worldly and immature man)? Airmen are so heroized in films made during the war itself, it was fascinating to see any kind of problematizing so soon after the fact.

[rachelmanija]

Oh, that sounds fascinating!

[plinythemammaler]

Oh wow, that sounds absolutely fascinating and chilling at the same time! It's weird to think of the Baron von Richthofen as a real person, too. And, yeah - the idea that the setting of the war just shapes something in him into a totally new way, and welcomes and celebrates it - it's so strange. The colonial era memoir also sounds really interesting/horrifying...

[sartorias]

The memoirs by the real Stalky of Kipling's Stalky and Co have that tone, too.

[rachelmanija]

I think they must have taught it in the public schools.