Description
It is more than a hundred years since Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron', was killed in combat on the Western Front. Yet this gallant fighter pilot is probably as well known today as he was his lifetime. Beginning in 1916, when his lethal skills were first realised, his image proved a godsend to his country's propaganda machine. There, far above the misery of life in the trenches, was a shooting star of unimaginable potency to help pacify a weary nation that was now beginning to believe that the war was no longer necessary or the losses justified. And so, an image of chivalry was conjured up and exploited with little regard of the cost of this to an increasingly war weary man. _Manfred von Richthofen: The Red Baron and the High Price of Glory_ draws on many sources, some previously untapped, including interviews with pilots he fought alongside and against, official documents held in collections around the world and the work of three noted Great War historians, two of whom began
