Fricourt German Cemetery

The First World War saw the birth of new means of fighting: tanks (used for the first time in the Battle of the Somme, in 1916, at Courcelette) and aviation. The leading German air ace was Manfred von Richthofen, known as "the Red Baron". In solo combat he was personally responsible for bringing down 80 Allied aircraft between 1916 and 1918.

Since then he has been the object of passionate interest, both in Germany and for anyone devoted to military and aviation history.

Immediately after the war an immense campaign was undertaken to gather burials into vast national military cemeteries from the very numerous small battlefield cemeteries or isolated burial sites.

In the course of this reinterment the body of Manfred von Richthofen was buried in 1920 in the large German military cemetery at Fricourt opened that year until, in November 1925 his brother Bolko came to retrieve his body and take it back to Germany.

“The above information is posted at the entrance of the main gate”