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Lothar a »shooter« and not a hunter

Event ID: 212

Categories: 

Der rote Kampfflieger von Rittmeister Manfred Freiherrn von Richthofen, 1917, 351.000 - 400.000, Verlag Ullstein & Co, Berlin-Wien

13 April 1917

50.367639, 3.03435
Near Douai
La Brayelle

Source ID: 4

Der rote Kampfflieger von Rittmeister Manfred Freiherrn von Richthofen, 1917, 351.000 - 400.000, Verlag Ullstein & Co, Berlin-Wien p.  174 

‘Lothar is a ’shooter” and not a huntsman My father makes a distinction between a hunter (huntsman) and a shooter who just enjoys shooting. When I have shot down an Englishman, my passion for hunting is calmed for the next quarter of an hour. So I can’t bring myself to shoot two Englishmen in quick succession. If one falls, I have an unconditional feeling of satisfaction. It wasn’t until much, much later that I got over myself and trained as a marksman. It was different with my brother. I had the opportunity to watch him shoot down his fourth and fifth opponents. We were attacking a squadron. I was the first. My opponent was soon finished off. I looked round and saw my brother sitting behind an Englishman whose plane had just burst into flames and exploded. A second Englishman was flying next to him. He did nothing more than point his machine gun at the next one, which hadn’t even fallen down yet and was still in the air, and immediately continued firing as soon as he set down. This one also fell after a short fight. At home, he proudly asked me: ‘How many did you shoot?’ I said very modestly: ‘One.’ He turned his back to me and said, ‘I’ve got two,’ whereupon I sent him forward to do a follow-up search. He had to find out what his blokes’ names were and so on. Late in the afternoon he comes back and has only found one. So the search was poor, as is generally the case with such shooters. It wasn’t until the next day that the troop reported where the other one was. We had all seen that he had fallen down.”

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