A review-Red Baron Documentory

[Barry Hickson]

I had looked forward to this new release for some months as the release date through Amazon had been posponed a couple of times.
It finally arrived yesterday & I watched it last night.

Unfortunately I was thoroughly disappointed!
This DVD was made by a German Company called History Films & in my opinion it is totally flawed.
My disappointment commenced with the Introductory Monolog which talks of Metal Wings, Metal Fuselarges etc. It would have been suitable for a WW2 Title but absolutely wrong for a WW1 Story.

Next they have intergrated stock B & W footage from early WW1 Films such as "the Eagle & the Hawk" etc with Original Archival Film but have not used them Cronologically. You therefore have Fok DV11 appearing before Fok Triplanes & Camels mixed with "replica" British planes made from Tiger Moths etc. They do not advise which film is Archival & which is Movie Footage which Aero History Buffs would recognise but the general public would think are ALL Aechival!
Their recreation of the Duel between Hawker & Richtofen has at various points MvR flying a DV11 & Hawker in a Moth!

Later in the Film they Claim 209 Squadron had been formed specifically as an "Anti Richtofen" Squadron & had painted their Camel's noses Red because of this. They totally ignored the fack that 209 Sqd came into being from the conversion of 9 Naval Sqd with the formation of the RAF on April 1st.

They also perpetuate ( or so I believe) the completely false statement that the British offered a VC, Promotion, Cash Prize of Thousands of Pounds plus a Personal Aircraft to any British Pilot who shot down MvR & had a Camera plane fly with this special Sqd to record the Victory (???)

Further errors are in the profile of the Camel in the Bonus Material where they state the Camel was the main British Fighter. No mention of the SE5a at all!

Should anyone with no knowledge of WW1 History watch this Film they will be very misled!

Another thing that amazed me was in shots of the Museum of the current Richtofen Squadron they have a replica of MvRs Triplane with a WHITE Nose.

After the movie finished I was left with the feeling I had just watched a German Propaganda movie made during WW1.

I will be most interested to hear what other Forum Members think of this Film & particularly from our German Members.

P.S. One thing they did get right was that MvR was brought down by
Ground Machine Gun fire from Australian Troops. However they said it was "a Random shot" but we know from records that a number of MGs & Troops were aiming directly at the Triplane.