Kunigunde von Richthofen came from a wealthy Silesian family. Her father, Leopold von Shickfus, was an only son and thus inherited his father's estates. While learning estate management with the wealthy Baron von Falkenhausen of Wallishurt, Leopold courted and married one of the Baron's four daughters, Therese.
The couple lived on Leopold's estate at Baumgarten, an 18th-century country house with a moat of three sides, where Kunigunde, born in 1868, and her sister, Elfriede, born in 1870, spent and idylic childhood. One of Kunigunde's earliest memories was watching her father ride off the Franco-Prussian war from the torch-lit coutyard of their home.
The marriage was a happy one, but Therese died young, of scarlet fever contracted while visiting one of the villagers. Kunigunde and her sister were left at home with their governess, who had the younger girl sent to a convent school. The governess had grand ideas of becoming the new lady of the house, but Leopold soon became engaged to a neighbor. The young stepmother did not like having Kunigunde around the house. She sent her off to finis school in Berlin, then made sure she married shortly after graduation. Kunigunde would have preferred to remain at the school and take her governess exams, but her father felt that the girl should marry before the age of 21 or forever be known as and old maid.
After a season of parties and balls in Breslau, Kunigunde married Albrecht von Richthofen at her home in Baumgarten. They had met and come to know each other through their favorite sport, horseback riding. The marriage had a rocky beginning; Kunigunde wrote of her new husband, "He understood little about practical life and even less about money."
Albrecht von Richthofen, born in 1859, was the eldest son of Julius von Richthofen (known as "le beau Jules" for his good looks) and Marie Seip of Mecklenburg. Albrecht grew up on his tury country house on the Weistritz River west of Breslau. Altought his father was relatively wealthy, Albrecht had no source of income other than his military pay. Julius had other children who needed support, and Albrecht was encouraged to rely on his rich father-in-law.
Kunigunde refused to ask her father for money, so the young couple was perpetually short of funds. Their daughter, Ilse, was born in 1890, followed by sons Manfred in 1892, then Lothar in 1894, while the family was living in an apartment in Breslau, near Albrecht's regiment.
Moving from Breslau to the country seemed to be a good way for the young family to find cheaper lodgings. However, Kunigunde did not count at all the extras that came with her country house: horses, a coach, servants, and costly hunting privileges for Albrecht. All of these expenses came from her allowance, and she soon learned to be thrifthy. The constant penny-pinching left her bitter and unhappy. The children were tutored privately when they were very young, but when it became time to send them to school, the family decided to move back to Breslau. Shortly thereafter, Albrecht, who had been pensioned off from the cavalry due to a loss of hearing, got a job procuring gorses for the cavalry in Schweidnitz. When Kunigunde's father died in 1903, she inhereted enough money to buy the villa in Schweidnitz that remained in the family until 1945. Their youngest son, Bolko, was born in Schweidnitz in that same year. The family's financial burden eased somewhat, but Kunigunde always felt that she had a very modest lifestyle compared to the rest of her family and Albrecht's who lived on large estates.
Albrecht died of pneumonia in 1920 at the age of 60. Needing a way to supplement her widow's pension, Kunigunde decided to open the upper floor of the family home as a museum to her two heroic sons. Their former bedrooms and the corridor held photos and artifacts of their childhood exploits as well as their military careers. Not only Germans came to visit the museum: some former Allied airmen also came to meet the mother of their one-tme apponents, and to donate memorabiblia. With the raise of National Socialism, a new generation was eager to learn of the aces the Great War; many of the biographies of German pilots were written or their memoirs compiled during this time. After the publication of Floyd Gibbons' The Red Knight of Germany in 1927, Manfred's name was nearly as well-known in America as it was in Germany. As two of the most famous pilots of the war, the von Richthofen brothers were the subject of much patriotic commemoration. The street in front of the house was renamed "Manfred-von-Richthofen-Strasse" at a celebration in 1930'sm complete with Luftwaffe fly-over and a visit from Hermann Göring.
Kunigunde did not speak much of World War II except for the cold January night that she fled her home during the Russian advance. The seventy-six-year-old widow and her daughter (also widowed) had only one hour's notice to gather their most important items into a single suitcase. Hoping to return soon, they took only a few clothes and some food. Three days later, their car crossed the Oder into Mecklenburg. In March, the Russians again forced Kunigunde to flee; this time, to the American side. After the war, she made contact with an American diplomat who had spent some time in her home in the 1930's. He found her living in a tiny, shabby room and made arrangements for more comfortable quarters. She remained in Wiesbaden until her death at age 93 in 1962.
Manfred, Lothar, and Ilse were educated at home until the family moved to Schweidnitz. Ilse attended a girls' school there, then spent two years at a convent-run finishing school in Losnitz. When she returned, she made her debut in Breslau society. Manfred attended a local boys' grammar school for a year before he went to the junior military academy at Wahlslatt, while Lothar attended the same school and gymnasium until he felt for the Army in 1914. Lothar was a "delicate" child, so his mother kept him at home rather than send him to boarding or military school.
Manfred's time in the Cadet Corps was uneventful except for a gymnastics injury in June 1909. While practicing at the vaulting horse, he sustained damage to his knee that left him partially lame and in pain for nearly a year. After an operation in June 1910, he regained most of his movement, but he had spent his first year at Lichterfelde performing at less than his peak ability. After finishing his training, Manfred entered the 1st Uhlans in Militsch on 27 April 1911, received his second-liteutnant's commision on 19 November 1912, and spentthe years before the war with the 3rd Squadron in Ostrowo.
Manfred was killed on April 21, 1918, and fell behind the Allied lines. He was buried with full military honors in the civilian cemetery at Bertangles, near Amiens. After the war, he was reinterred in a German military cemetery at Bertangles, near Amiens. In 1925, his brother, Bolko, traveled to France to oversee the transport of his remains to the Invaliden Cemetery in Berlin, where a magnificent ceremony took place. Manfred now rests in Wiesbaden, with other members of his family.
Ilse married Karl Alexander von Reibnitz in August 1920 and had three children, Manfred, Anna-Ursula, and Nicol. The couple lived in Schweidnitz, in a house near the Friedenskirche. Major von Reibnitz died in 1929 and Ilse never remarried. After helping her mother lead a group of refugees out of Silesia in 1945, Ilse moved to the seaside town of Cuxhaven, where she died in 1963.
Bolko decided against a military career and became a successful businessman. He married Viktoria von Richthofen in 1931. Bolko died in 1971 in Karlsruhe and is buried in Wiesbaden with other family members. His oldest son, Manfred, is President of the German Sports Association, and his younger son, Hartmann, is the German Ambassador to Great Britain.
Lothar's war injuries had left him in pain and he walked with a limp from his last leg wound. His physical condition, combined with grief over Manfred's death and the loss of so many comrades, made him restless and unable to hold a job. He tried to learn estate management, but eventually returned to flying with Deutsche Luftreederei, carrying mail and passengers. In June 1919, Lothar married Doris, the daughter of Count Robert von Keyselingk, who lived nearby Cammerau. They had two children, Carmen Viola (b. 12 May 1920) and Wold Manfred (b.25 March 1922). The couple divorced just a few weeks before Lothar's death in a flying accident. On July 4, 1922, Lothar was taking silent film actress Fern Andra and her manager, Georg Bluen to the coast to look at some shooting locations. The warsurplus plane developed engine trouble while on approach for a landing at Hamburg and crashed into a high-tension wire that was hidden by some tall trees. Andra and Bluen were taken to the hospital with head injuries, but Lothar died shortly after the impact.
Lothar's grave lies next to that of his father in the old garrison cemetery of Schweidnitz. The gravestones were removed and the cemetery is now a public park. The family plot in Wiesbaden's Südfriedhof includes a memorial stone with his name.
