Posted on 04/01/2008 3:16:51 PM PDT by wolf78
After decades of war-related silence and shame, Germany proudly celebrated a military hero last night, rolling out the red carpet for "Red" Baron von Richthofen.
The new attitude was on display as stars and celebrities, including British actor Joseph Fiennes, were due to gather for the Berlin premiere of a new film about the Baron.
It is set to mark a new departure for German war films, which usually reflect on the extremism, suffering and even lunacy of the Nazi era if they get made at all.
The Red Baron in contrast, portrays a brilliant and honourable military figure whose life and early death in combat Germans can celebrate without blush.
The film, which at £14 million is one of Germany's most expensive productions, stars Matthias Schweighoefer as the renowned pilot thought to have shot down about 80 Allied airmen in World War One.
It is based on a biography of the pilot published last year, which opens with him engaged in a dogfight only to pull out when he sees his adversary's gun jammed.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I am of German descent and have a German surname.
But I am American. First. Last. Always.
There were some test and a LOT of eye witnesses. It is thought that the bullet that killed him came from the ground. The Aussies were firing at him with a ground mounted machine gun and getting hits on his plane.
However, it looks better for propaganda purposes to say he was shot down by another aircraft.
roughly quoting Mark Twain. “The problem with some is not what they don’t know; its what they do know, that just ain’t so.”
Das stimmt, so.
Well they might have been a democracy, but the were an empire too...
Lieutenant George: “The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire- building.”
Captain Blackadder: “George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganiki. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.”
Why I love Freerepublic
“The PBS documentary said it was a .303 round”
It has been definetly established by this thread that
the German Ace was not killed by one of the four million .303 rounds in the hold of the Lusitania.
Especially because the rounds never reached England, they reached the bottom of the Atlantic along with the Lusitania. Also they would have needed a time machine to get back to WWI to shoot down the Red Baron. ;)
Yep.
I haven’t seen anything about Richtofen that indicates he would have filled Goering’s role in the Nazi government if he had lived. ............. Iffy history. We could say the same about Udet and Goering had they died in WW I. If a Richthoffen lead the Condor Legion, who knows what Manfred would have done. Iffy History.
self ping for later
Some people are combat pilots and that's what they are...Hartmann is a good example, a guy who served Hitler and NATO. Goering was not just a pilot.
You know what the funny thing is? PBS could survive as a basic cable channel like A&E or Dicovery if they were cut loose from government funds. In a 500 channel universe where you can watch anything from porn to live Catholic mass, they would have no problem finding a niche. Heck, if PBS didn’t exist, NOVA would be on the Discovery Channel.
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