Der rote Kampfflieger 1933 Archives - Meet The Red Baron

MvR eight years old

heinpoblome — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 10:27:27 +0000

“When he was eight years old, he climbed the largest apple trees on the estate, which hardly anyone else could reach. But then he didn’t let himself down from the trunk, but from the outside on the branches, grasping them with the greatest dexterity. My parents often watched him do this, but never had the feeling that anything could happen to him, so sure were all his movements. My mother was never at all anxious with us boys. She was of the opinion that children could only be really skilful and able to cope with all dangers if they were given every conceivable physical freedom of movement. Only then would they be able to judge as accurately as possible what they could trust themselves to do. Of course, this has not always been without incident, but nothing more serious has ever happened.”

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I did that myself

heinpoblome — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 11:27:04 +0000

“Because from the earliest days of his youth, Manfred had already shown samples of unusual energy. As an eight-year-old boy, my parents were expecting him one day from the railway in Wroclaw. He was to return from a long stay in the country with two large suitcases. The boy was sent to the railway station to be picked up and returned alone. Manfred was nowhere to be found. What had happened? There was no telephone back then. The excitement grew. While my parents were still discussing it, the doorbell rang and Manfred was standing safely at the door with both suitcases. ‘You must have taken a taxi?’. ‘No, I didn’t have any money.’ ‘Who carried the suitcases for you?’ ‘I did that myself.’

My parents were speechless and incredulous, because the suitcases were so heavy that Manfred would have had trouble lifting just one. But then they got the answer. ‘I was already able to lift one, I always carried it a bit and looked after the other one in the meantime, then I picked up the second one, and that’s how I gradually got there, unfortunately it took a bit of time.’

And all this with such natural calm and confidence that even then my parents could confidently leave Manfred to look after himself on the whole.”

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At that time he wanted to be a great cavalry general

heinpoblome — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 11:38:34 +0000

“That’s how Manfred got through his time as a cadet, even though this type of education and youthful treatment didn’t suit him too well. But he gritted his teeth and never complained during all the holidays he spent at his parents’ house. However, he told me, his younger brother, on several occasions: ‘If you can, do without the pleasure, it’s not nice in the pub either, but it’s still better.’ Manfred had decided very early on that he wanted to be an officer, and he had probably always been determined to achieve extraordinary things in the career he had chosen. At that time, however, he was thinking of becoming a great cavalry general. Little did he realise that he would become the first not on terra firma, but in the skies.”

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Knee injury in the cadet corps

heinpoblome — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 10:37:53 +0000

“Manfred only caused my parents serious concern once. He had suffered a serious knee injury in the cadet corps. A piece of cartilage in his knee had torn loose during a fall squat without assistance. This piece occasionally became wedged between the kneecap, causing the leg to fold to one side without any willpower. Massages and all kinds of cures didn’t help; years and days went by and the leg wouldn’t get better. When my parents were once again discussing what to do, and my mother in particular was very depressed, Manfred wanted to comfort her and said: ‘If I can no longer walk on my legs, I’ll walk on my hands!’. And like a completely healthy person, he stretched both legs into the air and walked around the room on his hands. In the end, however, the decision was made to operate. Fortunately, this was successful and restored him to full health within a few weeks.”

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Manfred was extremely truthful

heinpoblome — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 13:55:33 +0000

“Manfred was extremely truthful. Even today, my mother cannot praise the extent to which my parents could always rely on him. He gave precise and clear answers to every question, regardless of what the consequences might be for him. As a twelve-year-old boy, he was once unable to curb his passion for hunting on his grandmother’s estate. When he couldn’t find any wild ducks on the Weistritz, he shot some tame ones, which were then missing from his grandmother’s duck pen. Manfred was put under strict interrogation, but it only lasted half a minute. It didn’t occur to him to deny or even gloss over what he had done. And the good grandmother gladly forgave her grandson, who could not lie. Manfred’s first ‘hunting trophies’, three drake feathers, still hang in his parlour in Schweidnitz today. Visitors will not be able to look at them without emotion. Manfred’s mother summarised these feelings and this conviction of Manfred’s nature in the short words: ‘He stood firm, wherever he was placed.’ This belief in his own ability, coupled with inner nobility and self-evident modesty, enabled my brother, I believe, to be a real leader. His Uhlans, when he was a lieutenant, and later all his subordinates in the Richthofen fighter squadron could trust him implicitly. He did not flatter them, but he protected them and kept his word, and serving under him was made easier by the cheerfulness and cheerfulness, indeed often by the exuberance with which he showed himself equal to even the most difficult tasks. For in one thing he was a perhaps unparalleled example to all who had to follow him in war: in the bravery of his spirit, in the absolute lack of any fear, indeed in the complete impossibility of being able to imagine any process or impending event that could be associated with any feeling of fear for him.”

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The manor house is haunted

heinpoblome — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 14:08:57 +0000

“He didn’t underestimate the danger, but it didn’t play a role in his life. That was the case from an early age. The girls claimed that the manor house was haunted. A servant had once hanged himself on the floor upstairs and it had been haunted ever since, so they said in the servants’ parlour. Thirteen-year-old Manfred wanted to experience this haunting. He asked to be shown the exact spot on the floor where the accident had happened and had his bed carried to the spot to sleep. My mother knew Manfred’s fearlessness, but she decided to put him to the test. She crept upstairs with my sister and gradually began to roll chestnuts along the floor. At first Manfred slept soundly. But the thumping increased. Then he suddenly woke up, jumped up, grabbed a truncheon and lunged at the troublemakers. My mum had to switch on the light quickly, otherwise she would have had a bad time. But there was no sign of fear in Manfred. And that didn’t change until his last flight, from which he was never to return alive to his squadron and his own.”

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Passion for equestrian sports

heinpoblome — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 10:58:12 +0000

“When Manfred was commissioned as a junior officer in the Ulan Regiment No. 1, Emperor Alexander III, he became even more passionate about equestrian sports than before. After he had received his officer’s licence, our father bought him a very beautiful mare. Manfred often praised this horse to me as a true marvel and indestructible. She walked like a lamb in front of his train and jumped at least one metre sixty.”

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Kaiserpreisritt

heinpoblome — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 11:02:39 +0000

“Manfred has won many great prizes in show jumping competitions and cross-country rides. Most recently in the Kaiserpreisritt in 1913.”

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No racing, instead war

heinpoblome — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 11:09:52 +0000

“His ambition was to ride in big races in Breslau and in the capital of the Reich. For this purpose he had acquired a thoroughbred named Antithesis. But on the same day that the first race was to be run with his horse, he rode it across the Russian border. He would certainly have ridden many a horse to victory in many a race.”

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I want to become a pilot

heinpoblome — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 13:33:16 +0000

“When he joined the air force in May 1915, he literally answered my question as to why he had decided to do so: ‘I don’t want to be just an observer, I want to be an aeroplane pilot and, if I succeed, the best of them all! And his blue eyes shone, bearing witness to the firmness of his resolve.”

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