Joachim Castan. Der Rote Baron: Die ganze Geschichte des Manfred von Richthofen. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2007. 360 S. EUR 24.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-608-94461-7.
Reviewed by Richard Byers (Department of History, North Georgia College and State University)
Published on H-German (July, 2008) " De-mythologizing the Red Baron.."
"....Few figures of aviation history rank higher in popular consciousness than Manfred von Richthofen, the greatest air ace of the First World War, forever immortalized in Western culture as the "Red Baron." Historian and documentary producer Joachim Castan, with assistance from Richthofen's surviving descendants, has written a new biography of the air ace due to the need, in the author's view, to confront the mythological memory of the Red Baron, replete with "gross exaggerations, vulgar clichés, wishful thinking, pure fantasy, beloved legends and bright shining lies" (p. 15), with the "complete" history of his short but illustrious life. The work that results from this approach is a richly-detailed, more nuanced assessment of Richthofen than earlier works, which Castan rightly asserts based their arguments on popular mythological assumptions rather than documentary evidence. Castan's access to Richthofen's personal papers and family archival holdings, cited extensively throughout his account, reinforce his theses and provide a wealth of information for interested scholars and non-scholars, particularly into the family relationships of the Richthofen clan from the beginning of the twentieth century into the First World War and beyond.
Many aspects of this work warrant praise. Castan's documentary background makes him keenly aware of the importance of the role played by the German government and media in transforming Manfred von Richtofen from an unknown airman into a national celebrity. With the death of the previous air "idol," Oswald Boelcke, in late 1916, German military officials embraced and cultivated Richtofen as Boelcke's heir and successor. As a result, Richtofen's meetings with higher officials and the Kaiser were carefully choreographed to maximize their potential as propaganda, both for internal and external consumption. Castan is at his best here, as he narrates the growth of the Red Baron's fame and transformation, by 1917, into wartime Germany's most recognized hero. Additionally, Castan's concluding chapter on the use of Richtofen by the Nazis, and the development of the "Cult of the Red Baron" during their reign, is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the air ace's posthumous legacy, and will be of interest to scholars of the propaganda and mythology of the Third Reich. When he moves into contemporary discussions of Richtofen's utility as an example for the Bundeswehr and NATO, however, he is on less solid ground.
More problematic, though, are Castan's attempts to analyze the Red Baron psychologically, a theme that recurs throughout the work. Correctly confronting the partisan nature of previous literature, which uncritically accepted wartime representations of Richtofen as a paragon of Prussian and German chivalry and honor, Castan draws from Richtofen's 1917 autobiography and unpublished family documents to paint a different picture of the air ace as a cold, amoral aerial predator who sought to hunt and kill his opponents in a manner reminiscent of a game hunter. In Castan's view, Richtofen never viewed his enemies as human; instead, he viewed them as "targets" to be shot, and their aircraft debris as trophies to be displayed at the squadron mess hall, like the preserved heads of vanquished game. Castan repeatedly attempts to explain these realities by resorting to psychological analysis of Richtofen's childhood, adolescence, and family relationships. This process does yield some interesting insights, such as the recognition that Richtofen never developed a normal maternal bond with his mother, but in my opinion Castan's approach never materializes into a convincing case that helps explain Richtofen's actions and motivations. As many readers will recognize, psycho-historical approaches are useful as a tool to help explain the actions of historical actors, but they rarely achieve this aim in isolation from other methodologies. Castan's approach is no exception. At times these sections become repetitive, lessening the impact of the overall narrative, and they tend to minimize the importance of the brutal wartime environment on Richtofen and his contemporaries. Castan correctly points out that Richtofen's perspective on aerial combat was hardly unique; nearly all of the most successful "air aces" of the war possessed the same detached, perhaps pathological attitude toward their actions.
Despite these criticisms, however, this important work furthers our understanding of the First World War's most recognizable figure. It also encourages scholars of German military history to consider a re-evaluation of the conflict and its protagonists, in line with recent research on the conduct and motives of combatants in the Second World War, and to take the ideological atmosphere of the First World War seriously. More similarities may be found between the two conflicts in these terms than previous scholarship has suggested. Additionally, his astute analysis of the problematic nature of German military heroism, and its legacy for present and future generations of German military personnel, is worth serious consideration...."
