Richthofen was commissioned as an officer in the 1st Uhlan cavalry regiment of the Prussian army. For the next eight years, he would prepare for a life of military service, which could be seen as either a good or bad turn of luck, as he graduated from his training in 1911, just three years before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand would plummet Europe into the world’s first Great War.
Once his younger brothers were born, it wasn’t long before Richthofen had them trailing behind him on his hunts as well.īy the time he was 11 years old, however, young Richthofen was sent off to a military academy in Schweidnitz (in what is now Poland). He not only took to horse riding and gymnastics, for which he earned a number of awards, he also spent a lot of time hunting animals from elk to wild boar.
Born into wealth and aristocracy, the youngest Richthofen made it clear from an early age that he had no intentions of resting on the laurels of his family name. On May 2, 1892, Major Albrecht Philipp Karl Julius Freiherr von Richthofen (that’s all one name) and his wife, Kunigunde von Schickfuss und Neudorff (also one name) had their second child–a son by the name of Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen.
