Hi,
Personally, I wouldn't get too excited about Peter's caption which says this Halberstadt was D.III 129/16. If you'll check page 20 of the same book, photos 42 and 43, there are two halftone photos of a D.III with 129/16 painted visibly (for some unknown reason) on the fuselage. These appear to have been lifted from some old book. It is THESE photos that formed the basis for Ray Rimell's somewhat speculative color profile on page 49. It's obvious comparing those two photos with the Halberstadt in the MvR and Gerstenberg photo, that they are NOT the same aircraft (IMHO). I don't know how Pete got the mention of 129/16 into the MvR photo, but I would GUESS that it was a simple slip-up of the kind that can happen when you're writing dozens of captions and trying to keep things straight. That's not a criticism of Pete - it's happened to me lots of times! When Ed Ferko used this same photo in his book on Richthofen, he didn't mention the serial number - and he would have if it could be read from the photo in any way possible.
Nor do I think this is probably the Halberstadt that MvR flew in combat. Ferko says only, "In the background is seen a Halberstadt which may have been flown by Richthofen in the homeland." Ferko suggests the photo may have been taken at Breslau, Grosz says Adlershof possibly in May 1917. We know that Richthofen did fly a Halberstadt in the homeland. According to Lothar, when MvR was making a flight to FEA 11 in Breslau in mid-May 1917, MvR's Halberstadt D type suddenly flipped on its back - he was saved by his seatbelt. The sturdy hangars in the background of the photo suggest a well-established airfield somewhere in Germany, not at the front. There is another photo of the same scene, showing MvR, Gerstenberg, and an Albatros D.III. Should we immediately leap to the conclusion that MvR flew the Albatros D.III as well? Or that Gerstenberg flew the Halberstadt, since he appears in both photos? In the back of Ferko's "Richthofen" book, there is a listing of Halberstadts assigned to Jasta 11 up to 30 October 1916 (five D.Vs and one D.II) and another list of a/c supplied up to December 31, 1916 (1 D.II, four Hannover-built D.IIs, one D.III, 12 D.Vs) and eighteen different Halberstadts used up to February 28, 1917. I presume these serials came from AFP 6 records, since Ed was a very careful historian. D.III 129/16 is not listed among them anywhere.
As much as we might wish for a nice photograph of the Halberstadt that MvR flew in combat, I doubt that one exists. But, stranger things have happened.
Greg