Red Baron

Freiherr Manfred von Richthofen is the most famous aviator of World War I, if not of all time. Credited with eighty air-to-air victories, he shot down more planes than any other flyer in the war. And he is popularly known as the Red Baron, because as commander of Jagdgeschwader (fighter wing) 1, known as the Flying Circus, he flew in a bright-red Fokker triplane. But researcher Brett Holman has discovered something quite interesting about the nickname Red Baron: until the mid-1960s, almost sixty years after his death in 1918, Richthofen was rarely called the Red Baron. Instead, the popularity of that nickname derives from the Peanuts comic strip, which often featured the beagle Snoopy engaging in imaginary dog fights with the German nemesis.

The nickname Red Baron did exist during the war but was apparently restricted to oral use among allied soldiers, not appearing in print until his death. This is the announcement of his death in the British newspaper Graphic, 25 May 1918:

The End of the Red Baron

Cavalry Captain Baron von Richthofen was shot down in aerial combat on the day when the German papers announced his 79th and 80th victories. Boyd Cable writes: “The Red Baron, with his famous ‘circus,’ discovered two of our artillery observing machines, and with a few followers attacked, the greater part of the ‘circus’ drawing off to allow the Baron go in and down the two. They put up a fight, and, while the Baron manœuvred for position, a number of our fighting scout machines appeared and attacked the ‘circus.’ The Baron joined the mêlée, which, scattering into groups, developed into what our men call ‘a dog fight.’ In the course of this the Baron dropped on the tail of a fighting scout, which dived, with the Baron in close pursuit. Another of our scouts seeing this dived after the German, opening fire on him. All three machines came near enough to the ground to be engaged by infantry machine-gun fire, and the Baron was seen to swerve, continue his dive headlong and crash in our lines. His body and famous blood-red Fokker triplane were afterwards brought in by the infantry, and the Baron was buried with full military honours. He was hit by one bullet, and the position of the wound showed clearly that he had been killed by the pilot who dived after him.”

The Royal Air Force officially credited Canadian Captain Arthur Roy Brown, pilot of the Sopwith Camel that was pursuing him with Richthofen’s death. But more recent analysis by historians has concluded that he was killed by machinegun fire from Australian infantry in the trenches below.

For decades following this first appearance in print, the moniker Red Baron only appeared sporadically in print.

Then on Sunday, 10 October 1965, the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles Schulz, ran this strip:

References to Richthofen as the Red Baron began to become more and more common after this date. The novelty song “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron,” written by Phil Gernhard and Dick Holler, was released by the Royal Guardsmen in November 1966, which further contributed to the nickname’s popularity.

Here is an example from Time magazine of 24 March 1967 that shows how the term had become somewhat genericized by that date:

Students in Paris and London have been ransacking secondhand stores for old uniforms dating back to the Crimean and FrancoPrussian [sic] wars. But in the U.S., uniforms are generally out in favor of the Frank Nitti gangster look, including palm tree-studded ties and double-breasted pinstripe jackets. At Dartmouth, the particular “drinking uni” (for uniform) at the moment is the “blow-lunch look” (so called, one student explains, because “when you look at one of those ties you want to blow your lunch”) topped off with a Red Baron Flying Ace helmet, complete with ear flaps and shrapnel holes.

Red Baron is a good example of why one should be careful in ascribing a date to a word or phrase without actual evidence of its use. The occurrence of an event, the coining of a word associated with that event, and when that word enters into the general parlance are not always the same.

Sources:

“The End of the Red Baron.” Graphic (London), 25 May 1918, 631. British Newspaper Archive.

“Fads: The Follies that Come with Spring.” Time, 24 March 1967, 52/2. Time Vault.

Holman, Brett. “When Was the Red Baron?” Airminded (blog), 20 August 2018.

Image credits:

“The End of the Red Baron,” Joseph Simpson, 1918. The Graphic, 25 May 1918, 631. British Newspaper Archive. Public domain image.

Peanuts, Charles Schulz, 1965. Fair use of a copyrighted image to illustrate the topic under discussion.