My vote is no.
If Mannfred Freiherr von Richthofen had lived, he would have run against Hitler and kicked his ASS!
What say you, my beloved Dopers?
Q
There were plenty of other WWI military heroes who fell in with Hitler: Goering, Hindenberg, Ludendorff, Tirpitz.
Hindenburg?Really?
Sorry Little Nemo, but I think du bist avoiding der Kwestion, mein Freund!
Keine offense meant, of course!
Q
Wasn’t the Nobility generally opposed to the Nazis? As pointed out in another thread, there seemed to be quite a number of 'von’s involved in assassination plots against Hitler. As a Noble, I would think Richthofen would also have been opposed (assuming I’m correct in my first question).
I think it is hard to tell. Who knows.
Felix Von Luctner refused to fly the Nazi flag on his Naval Training ship. They replaced him as captian and he was dismissed from Naval service. But he was not detained in any way. I do not remember where he ended up during the war.
Hard to say. His cousin (distant) flew with him in WW1 before running the air campaign against the Soviets for Hitler. How much do we really know about Von Richtofen the man? And how much would it have changed between '18 and '39?
In the thirties a lot of upper-class conservatives supported Hitler while looking down on him. They figured that Hitler would control the masses and they would then control Hitler. Obviously, they were wrong on who’d be using who.
From Wiki: there is an article that states that ludendorff had a falling out with the Nazis in 1928 and sent a famous telegram describing Hitler as an evil man , who would plunge the Reich into an abyss.
Also, Goering while an ace was quite a low ranked ace with “only” 22 victories. Given the number of high ranking German military men who survived the war it is hardly surprising that a number supported the Nazis. Similarly, others didn’t.
For the OP, your question was raised in Norman Franks book “Who Downed The Aces in WW1.” It wasn’t actually answered but it also asked about other aces such as Boelcke and Voss. Voss probably would not have been welcomed due to a Jewish background.
He probably would have looked down on the Nazis but gone along with them. Then, perhaps joined the anti-Hitler group–after the War began going badly.
I agree with this, but with a caveat: Since Göring ended up commanding the Baron’s old unit at the end of the war, there might have been personal issues between them. If they didn’t like each other, then von Richthofen might have shown open disdain for the Nazis. If they were friendly, then Göring might have seen that he got some good quasi-ceremonial positions. There could easily have been some significant disputes between them regarding Luftwaffe rebuilding and strategy.