Personal albums of the Red Baron's Nazi cousin for sale
- Published
A personal collection of photographs by one of Adolf Hitler's senior commanders is up for auction in the UK on 31 March. Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen - seen here reporting at the victory parade for the Condor Legion in Berlin - was the cousin of Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, a fighter ace from World War One.
The collection is being auctioned by Dickins Auctioneers in Buckinghamshire and is expected to fetch up to £20,000. Von Richthofen commanded the Condor Legion, the flag of which is seen here. It infamously bombed Guernica during the Spanish civil war, killing hundreds. In 1941, von Richthofen commanded a Luftwaffe division during Operation Barbarossa - the ultimately unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union.
Here von Richthofen marches just to the left of General Franco at a parade at Barajas, Madrid. The Condor Legion's support for Franco aided in his seizing power - which he retained, as dictator, until 1975.
The homecoming reception for von Richthofen and the rest of the Condor Legion in Berlin was substantial. These photographs come from two photo albums, which were taken from Berlin by a British soldier, covering Operation Barbarossa. Many of the photos are captioned in von Richthofen's own handwriting.
A "chain" of Henschel planes, flying for the Luftwaffe in the offensive against the Soviet Union. After his success with the Condor Legion in Spain, von Richthofen had command of an air corps unit, supporting ground troops and tank units.
“I am quite taken aback by what you see in the photos, especially the aerial photos looking down on the bombed Russian cities,” said John Dickins, of Dickins Auctioneers. The caption on this photo identifies a "burning railroad train" on the route from Germany to the Russian town on Novosokolniki, attacked on 8 July 1941.
Some of the tank warfare on the Eastern Front is captured in the photos
Some of the photos are of high-ranking military officials. Here, generals Hermann Hoth and Walther von Hünersdorff confer over maps. Hoff was the commander of the 3rd Panzer Group at the time, and probably would have been in contact with his air support as the offensive progressed.
"Stalin's son captured": the capture of Yakov Dzhugashvili was a major coup for the attacking German forces during the operation. He was the eldest son of Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, and had been serving in the Soviet Army. He eventually died in the prison camp he was sent to following his capture.
This unlabelled photo, showing prisoners standing or resting on the ground, comes from a number of pages filled with other photographs from Vitebsk, in modern-day Belarus, suggesting these prisoners were Soviet soldiers captured in the region during Operation Barbarossa
The photographs from von Richthofen's collection also show some of the hard labour the Third Reich put its prisoners to - such as these "Russian captives".
This photo from the collection was simply captioned "Jews are led to work". Von Richthofen survived the war but was diagnosed with a brain tumour in its latter years. It could not be fully removed by operation and he was made a prisoner-of-war when the United States took over his hospital. He died in July 1945, before facing charges of war crimes.
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