"[2] Rudolf moved to Schweinfurt's Königliches Humanistische Gymnasium (Royal Secondary School for Humanities) for sixth level classes.

[4] He trained at the Halberstädter Flugzeugwerke (Halberstadt Aircraft Factory) on dual-control Bristol types; one of his fellow students was Oswald Boelcke.

German staff officers' disbelief led to Berthold personally briefing Generaloberst Karl von Bülow on the situation.

As November's winter weather limited combat flying, Berthold arranged to continue his pilot's training at a nearby flight park.

This decision sped Buddecke on his way to being a member of the first wave of German aces that included Oswald Boelcke, Max Immelmann, and Kurt Wintgens.

Even as the pioneering fighter units formed, on 14 January, the British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) Headquarters directed that any reconnaissance craft crossing into German-held territory be escorted by at least three protective aircraft.

After he scored another victory, he was again honored by his native Kingdom of Bavaria, this time with the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Saint Henry on 15 April.

After Immelmann's death, Germany's highest scoring ace, Oswald Boelcke, was grounded for fear that his loss would be disastrous to morale.

[22] The next day, KEK Vaux became Jagdstaffel 4 (Fighter Squadron 4) under Berthold's command; the new unit started with a starred roster—Wilhelm Frankl, Walter Höhndorf, and Ernst Freiherr von Althaus were early members—all fated to become prominent aces.

Five of the other living recipients attended the 16 October celebration of the award, including Buddecke, Althaus, Frankl, Höhndorf, and Kurt Wintgens.

By September, his entire squadron had adopted his basic scheme of royal blue fuselages and scarlet cowlings, plus additional personal insignia.

Berthold returned to his unit to await the paperwork, to discover that he was being transferred to command Jagdstaffel 18 (Fighter Squadron 18) in Harelbeke, Belgium, on 12 August.

[4][29] During a dogfight on 10 October, a British bullet ricocheted within the cockpit of Berthold's aircraft and entered his arm at an angle that pulverized his right humerus.

Berthold overcame the handicap of half-severed ailerons and remained conscious long enough to make a smooth one-handed landing at the Jagdstaffel 18 home airfield.

She arranged for her brother's diversion to the Berlin clinic of one of Germany's pre-eminent surgeons, Doctor August Bier, pioneer of cocaine usage in spinal anesthesia.

[32] On 16 March, Rudolf Berthold was transferred to command Jagdgeschwader II (Fighter Wing 2) to replace Hauptmann Adolf Ritter von Tutschek, killed in action the previous day.

He had suffered the loss of his best friend, left his familiar old squadron, was taking command of an unfamiliar and newly formed larger unit, and was not on flight status.

He returned to his new assignment two days into the new German offensive, to find that the infantry divisions his wing was supposed to support were complaining about their lack of air cover.

He outlined an air defense warning net posted forward to alert his wing, and he pleaded for a transport column to maintain the unit's mobility.

Georg von Hantelmann, one of his pilots, noted that despite his undiminished martial skills, his morphine addiction made him temperamentally erratic.

As summer's heat came on, the engines of the Fokker Triplanes of Jagdstaffel 12 began overheating, aggravated by the lack of genuine castor oil for lubrication.

The government under president Friedrich Ebert utilized the Freikorps units to quell socialist and communist uprisings, such as against members of the Spartacus League.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which came into effect on 10 January 1920, Germany was required to reduce its land forces to a maximum of 100,000 men, who were to be only professional soldiers, not conscripts.

However, on 13 March, parts of the military attempted the Kapp Putsch with the goal to undo the German Revolution of 1918–1919, overthrow the Weimar Republic, and establish an autocratic government in its place.

[52] Slowed by doused signals along the rail line, they got as far as Harburg, Hamburg on the evening of 14 March; there they bivouacked in Heimfelder Middle School.

[53] The Independent Socialist government of Harburg anticipated the imminent arrival of the Freikorps by arresting the commander of local Pionier-Bataillon 9 (Pioneer Battalion 9), the remaining 900 trained soldiers declared themselves loyal to the republic.

A crowd of unarmed onlookers who had not been part of the negotiations were outraged by the civilian casualties, and they started kicking and beating the members of the Freikorps.

Berthold's Pour le Merite, Iron Cross First Class, and Pilot's Badge were retrieved from a garbage dump in Harburg before she arrived.

Another example of this posthumus martyrization is the account of Hans Wittmann, member of the Freikorps: In the dirt of the street lay, lifeless, Hauptmann Berthold, his shoes and his overcoat robbed from him, his face crushed into a formless mass by the mob's feet, his paralyzed arm torn out of its socket, his bloody body punctured by gunshot wounds...[57]After 1945, the streets lost the Berthold name.

According to Peter Kilduff, Tombstones were removed from many graves in 1960, including Berthold's, so that communist border guards preventing escapes from East Berlin had a better view of the boundary.