Red Baron

East Denver’s leafy Montclair was founded, as many IJN readers will know, by Baron Walter von Richthofen, a German immigrant who was the uncle of another, better known Richthofen, the WW I flying ace, the Red Baron.

By coincidence, I was at the German war cemetery in Fricourt, France where Manfred von Richthofen was interred for many years, before his remains were moved to Germany in 1975. What really fascinated me at this cemetery were the Jewish soldiers buried there.

This past week I watched “The Red Baron,” which dramatizes the life of Manfred von Richthofen and his fellow pilots. Among them is Friedrich Sternberg, a fictitious Jewish ace intended as a composite character based on real Jewish pilots.

The movie isn’t the best, but one aspect I really enjoyed was seeing how pilots individualized their planes; in fact, it was Richthofen painting his plane red that led to his moniker.

I was reminded of a scene in “Above & Beyond,” the documentary about the Israeli air force, when Bob Vickman designs the 101 Squadron’s “Angel of Death” symbol. Sternberg paints a Star of David on his plane, which seems rather unlikely, but certainly piqued by curiosity. I had a look online to see about real German Jewish pilots and discovered Fritz Beckhardt, whose symbol, ironically, was a swastika.

In a twisted form of serendipity he also served with Hermann Göring. This ended up saving Beckhardt’s life in the Holocaust.

I wish we knew more about these German Jewish soldiers. To me, their stories are the definition of tragic irony.

Shana Goldberg may be reached at [email protected].

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