Trailer
Plot summary
In 1916 on the Western Front, the young aristocrat Manfred von Richthofen serves in a fighter unit of the Imperial German Air Service, flying alongside Werner Voss and Friedrich Sternberg. The pilots drop a wreath on an Allied aviator's funeral, then come across a Royal Flying Corps squadron under Captain Lanoe Hawker. Richthofen shoots down the Canadian pilot Arthur Roy Brown, and with the nurse Käte Otersdorf's help he drags him from the wreck. The Pour le Mérite and command of a squadron follow; his brother Lothar joins him, and with Richthofen's aircraft painted bright red the unit gains the name the flying circus. He orders his pilots to avoid killing enemy airmen except when they have no choice.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Red Baron (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Red Baron had an estimated budget of 18 million euros, making it one of the most expensive films in German history, but it grossed only 1.6 million euros, less than a tenth of its budget, and ranks among Germany's worst financial disasters.
- The real Manfred von Richthofen waved enemy pilots down to the ground instead of shooting them out of the sky three times; in one case, seeing that an enemy pilot's gun had jammed, he landed, shook the man's hand and took off again.
- The Red Baron is a German production depicting Germans, yet it was filmed entirely in the English language to improve its chances on the international market.
- The film's nurse, Käte Otersdorf, was based on a real nurse, Käte Oltersdorf (1891–1988), who accompanied Richthofen on one of his brief visits from hospital to his squadron, Jagdgeschwader 1.
