Wolfram von Richthofen

Biography

A distant cousin of the Red Baron, Wolfram von Richthofen was a Prussian cavalry officer who transferred to aviation in WWI and became one of Germany's most technically innovative military thinkers. When the Condor Legion was formed in 1936 to support Franco's Nationalists, Richthofen became its chief of staff and, later, its commander. Spain was his laboratory: he developed the techniques of close air support that would define Blitzkrieg — dive-bombing, coordination between aircraft and ground forces, use of transport aircraft for logistics. The Stuka dive bomber, the Ju 52 airlift, the He 111 level bomber — all were tested and refined in Spain. His diary entry for April 26, 1937 records his role in ordering the bombing of Guernica with clinical detachment. The town was militarily important as a crossroads; its destruction would demoralize the Basque population and test bomb loads — these were the calculations. The human cost barely appears in his notes. He returned to Germany as Spain's most valuable military lesson, helping design the Luftwaffe doctrines that would devastate Poland, Rotterdam, and Coventry. He was promoted to Field Marshal in 1943 but died of a brain tumor in an Austrian hospital in 1945, days after Germany's surrender.

Key Battles