Wolfram Karl Ludwig Moritz Hermann Freiherr von Richthofen (10 October 1895 – 12 July 1945) was a German World War I flying ace who rose to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) in the Luftwaffe during World War II.
In the First World War, Richthofen fought on the Western and Eastern Fronts as a cavalry officer until 1917. He joined the Luftstreitkräfte (German Imperial Air Service) after his cousins, brothers Lothar and Manfred ('The Red Baron'), both of whom became flying aces. On his first mission in Jagdgeschwader 1 (Fighter Wing 1), Manfred was killed while chasing a fighter that attacked Wolfram. Wolfram went on to claim eight aerial victories before the armistice in November 1918. After the war, Richthofen joined the Reichswehr and became a member of the Luftwaffe after Hitler's rise to power in 1933. He served as part of the Condor Legion which supported the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. During this time, he recognised the need for close air support in military campaigns and championed the dive bomber. He also made innovations in ground-air communications.
When the Second World War broke out, Richthofen commanded a specialised ground-attack air unit, Fliegerkorps VIII (8th Air Corps), first as a small active service unit in the Polish Campaign, and then as a full-sized Air Corps in Western Europe, from May to June 1940. His unit proved to be decisive at certain points in the French Campaign, particularly covering the German thrust to the English Channel. He continued to command air units in the Battle of Britain and the Balkans Campaign in 1940 and 1941. Richthofen achieved his greatest success on the Eastern Front. In particular, the Crimean Campaigns of 1942, where his forces offered vital tactical and operational support to Army Group South. Afterwards he commanded Luftwaffe forces in the Italian Campaign before retiring in late 1944 on medical grounds. Richthofen died in July 1945 of a brain tumour while in American captivity.
Richthofen's reputation, according to his biographer, James Corum, was of a competent but ruthless practitioner of air power. Richthofen is not considered a war criminal for his command of air forces, but he knew of the German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war, and was marginally involved in disseminating orders pertaining to their treatment—though the Luftwaffe in general had only partial responsibility for them.
Richthofen was born on 10 October 1895, at the Richthofen Barzdorf (now Bartoszówek, Poland) estate (Gut Barzdorf), near Striegau (Strzegom), Lower Silesia to an aristocratic family. His father, Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (1856–1922), and mother, Therese Gotz von Olenhusen (1862–1948) were of the Silesian nobility, and the family had been ennobled 350 years before Wolfram's birth.
Richthofen was the second child and oldest son of four children. His older sister, Sophie-Therese, was born in 1891 (and died in 1971). His brother Manfred was born in 1898 and Gerhard in 1902. He was the fourth cousin of the German World War I flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, popularly known as the "Red Baron", and the baron's younger brother Lothar von Richthofen. As the son of a nobleman, he enjoyed a life of privilege. The family's noble status dated back to the 1500s, and by the 1700s the Richthofens owned 16 estates in Lower Silesia. When Frederick the Great annexed Silesia in 1740, he personally granted the title of Baron (Freiherr) to one of Richthofen's direct ancestors. The family remained in Silesia for a further three generations.
Richthofen's home, an eighteenth-century estate, was only one of 25 Richthofen-owned properties totalling 140 square kilometres (35,000 acres; 54 sq mi). Barzdorf, where he lived, was a modest 350 hectares (860 acres; 1.4 sq mi), of which 269 was farmed and the rest was forest. Wolfram, as the oldest son did not inherit the estate. Instead, on the death of his father in 1922, it was given to his younger brother, Manfred. Some years before, Wolfram's uncle General of Cavalry Manfred von Richthofen, his father's brother, had asked him to inherit his estate to keep it in the family, as he himself had no children. Wolfram inherited the estate after Manfred legally adopted him. The general died in 1939.
He had a distant relationship with his youngest brother, but a close one with Manfred. Unlike most Prussian nobles Wolfram von Richthofen went to the local Gymnasium (academic high school) and did not have private tutors at home. He attended school in Striegau. His grades in mathematics and German language were good, but he did not excel at foreign languages (in which he scored average to poor results). He found studying language to be boring, but did learn Italian and could converse competently in it in later life.
He became a close friend of his cousins, Lothar and Manfred von Richthofen, and hunted game at the estate with them regularly. By the end of his teens, he had become an established hunter and horse rider – interests which remained with him for the rest of his life. He enjoyed being outdoors and, while still at school, opted to apply for a commission in the German Army (rather than choose an academic career).
In 1913, at the age of 18, he joined the army and took the officer course in Berlin. The Cavalry was the most prestigious arm, and he applied to join the 4th Hussars which belonged to the 12th Cavalry Brigade of the Sixth Army Corps in Breslau. He did not have much time to experience peacetime military service. In August 1914 the First World War began. He completed flight training in the fall of 1917 and in the spring of 1918 joined Jagdgeschwader 11, his cousin Baron Manfred von Richthofen's new command. It was 21 April 1918 that Wolfram was attacked by British planes while on patrol with his squadron; Manfred von Richthofen was killed in the same action the same day.
On 18 September 1920, he married Jutta von Selchow (March 1896 – 1991) at a Lutheran church in Breslau (now the city of Wrocław in Poland). They had been introduced by her brother Gunther. Jutta was also of Silesian nobility, and had moved in the same circles. She had served as a nurse in the war. They lived in an apartment in Hanover while Wolfram restarted his academic career in Engineering. During their marriage they rarely traveled abroad in the 1920s. In the 1930s they took skiing holidays in Switzerland. The couple had three children; Wolfram (born 25 May 1922), Götz (27 November 1925) and Ellen (15 February 1928). Wolfram was posted missing in action over northern Romania on 5 June 1944. He was never found.
The Hussars of the 12th Cavalry Brigade were attached to the 5th Cavalry Division, which was part of the First Cavalry Corps. It formed part of the German Third Army which carried out the attack on France and Belgium in August 1914 as part of the long-prepared Schlieffen Plan. Richthofen crossed the Meuse at Dinant, and his unit was involved in heavy action against the French VIII Cavalry Corps. It fought in Belgium at Namur on 23–24 August during the siege of the city and again at Saint-Quentin. The 5th Cavalry continued its drive into France after the Battle of the Frontiers, but was stopped at the First Battle of the Marne in September. In recognition for bravery in combat, Richthofen was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class (Eisernes Kreuz zweiter Klasse) on 21 September 1914. The new combat environment of trench warfare greatly lessened the effectiveness of cavalry, so Richthofen's division was transferred to the Eastern Front, arriving in Poland in November 1915.
On the Eastern Front, the Cavalry Division was mostly deployed in the south. It saw little fighting, as the German army did not use cavalry frequently, and the division was kept mainly in reserve. Richthofen's brigade served near Pinsk in 1916, and the division would spend late 1915 to January 1917 on defensive duties in the Pripet Marshes. Richthofen was given command of the horse depot of the Brigade in the autumn of 1916 and was promoted to Squadron Commander, with 160 men under his command. This was never going to garner him the level of fame his cousins, Lothar and Manfred, were now achieving in the Luftstreitkräfte (Imperial Air Service), and they personally encouraged him to transfer to the air service, which he finally did in June 1917.