german TV-documentation on Phoenix

[Der Ostwind]

Phoenix, Samstag, 06.06., 21:45 - 22:30 Uhr

Der rote Baron
Die WAHRE Geschichte (2008)
Moderation: GUIDO KNOPP

Er war der erfolgreichste Jagdpilot des Ersten Weltkriegs. Kaiser Wilhelm II. überhäufte ihn mit Orden und sorgte dafür, dass der Mythos Richthofen schon zu Lebzeiten die Wirklichkeit überstrahlte.
In seinen meist rot gestrichenen Flugzeugen erwies sich Manfred von Richthofen zwar als außerordentlich begabter Pilot, doch schon seine angeblich 'ritterliche' Form des Luftkampfes entpuppt sich als Legende. Tatsächlich spielte es für den gebürtigen Schlesier keine Rolle, das Leben seiner Gegner im Gefecht zu schonen. Im Gegenteil: Richthofen war in der Luft ein Fanatiker. Wenn ein feindliches Flugzeug abgeschossen wurde, ohne in Brand zu geraten, galt das für ihn nur als 'Luftsieg zweiter Klasse'. ZDF-History rekonstruiert das kurze Leben eines militärischen Draufgängers, der nach seinem Tod zum Inbegriff der Illusion einer ritterlichen Luftwaffe wurde.

[womenfly2]

??????????? Ich spreche nicht Deutsches. ......

WF2

[crankcase]

...about the "RED BARON: The True Story" (aren't they always "true" or "whole"?).
In the blurb, Richthofen is described as a "fanatic" and a "daredevil" in the air.
The moderator, Guido Knopp, is a competent TV documentary historian who does a lot of WWII stuff.
My only bone to pick with him is a description I saw of Goering (in a caption to a photo in a book by Knopp) as MvR's successor. This is a frequent occurrence which implies DIRECT successor. It is an ambiguity that a historian of Knopp's calibre should be able to avoid (with a little bit of help by anyone on this Forum)!
marc

[Sagittarius]

Another 'true story' about MvR... I don't think it's gonna be something indispensable.
Guido Knopp is well known as one of german TV's standard documentarian and because it seems they're through with WWII it's time to exploit other historical eras...
Generally spoken his works have the tendency for oversimplifying historical events (and the causes which led to them). So i don't expect something really new. Rather a mix of clichees as already seen in the blurb.
So the documentation might be interesting for someone who have never heard of MvR. For the average Aerodrome-user it would probably be a waste of time

[Sagittarius]

I've made a quick translation. I kept it as closely as possible on the german original:

"He was the most successful fighter pilot of ww1. Emperor Wilhelm II. heaped him with medals und took care that the myth Richthofen outshined the reality already at his lifetime.
In his mostly red painted aircrafts Manfred von Richthofen proved himself as a extraordinary capable pilot but already his allegedly ‘chivalric’ style of air combat turns out to be a legend. Actually it was irrelevant for the native-born Silesian to spare the life of his opponents in battle. To the contrary: Richthofen was a fanatic in the air. For him it was only a ‘second-rate victory’ when an enemy airplane was downed without bursting into flames. ZDF-History reconstructs the short life of a military daredevil who became the embodiment of the illusion of a chivalric Airforce after his death."

[Gregvan]

Hi,

Is this a brand new production?

It sounds like it is largely based on Joachim Castan's recent biography of Richthofen. Seems to take the same viewpoint, with the same agenda.

Guido Knopp's documentary on Udet (as part of the "Hitler's Henchmen" series or whatever it's called) was dubbed in English and has been seen fairly widely over here. I can't say I was impressed with it, espcially the brief WWI portion.

Greg

[Sagittarius]

It's always the same with documentaries. So was the Udet-Film too. You can't tell the whole story in 45 (or even less) mins. So the maker are just focussing on the 'drama' aspects and monocausal explanations.
It's the same with these pretty nicely looking air war documentaries made for us-television (can't remember the name now).
I would say it's not more than a visually pretty appealing starting point for some deeper research. In my case the Udet documentary was just another small piece in the much bigger picture i'm drawing of his life.