When Hermann Göring was almost three-quarters of the way through the ten-week course at Freiburg he received a pleasant surprise. In a brief ceremony at the flying school, which was located in Baden, he was presented with the Grand Duchy’s impressive looking Knight’s Cross 2nd Class of the Order of the Zähringer Lion with Swords.⁹ As aviation awards expert Neal W. O’Connor observed: ‘… [It] is considered to be the most attractive of all Imperial German orders insignia because …instead of the usual enamelled arms of [the award’s] crosses, they are … made of dark green crystal. The effect is further enhanced by a delicate gold filigree that appears between the arms of the crosses.’¹⁰ The award honoured Baden’s centuries-old House of Zähringen,¹¹ but, given Göring’s love of fantasy, it is easy to see him as being quite taken with receiving such a chivalric-sounding honour, if only a second-class knighthood. He surely sensed there would be more and higher awards to come.

While Göring continued to develop his piloting skills, Loerzer returned to FFA 25 as a Fokker-qualified pilot on 2 August.¹² But, at that time, the unit had no Fokker E.I monoplane fighters and he was posted temporarily to a nearby unit, FFA 60, in hopes of finding a better use for his new talents; he did not return to FFA 25 until 2 October.¹³

A New Commander

On Sunday, 13 August, Hauptmann Ernst Blum handed over command of FFA 25 to Hauptmann Leo Leonhardy, a career officer who had recently flown as an observer with FFA 59 on the Russian Front.¹⁴ Blum did not seem to be suited to a command position. His tolerance of near insubordination when Göring and Loerzer reported to the unit and his allowing Göring to dominate the Crown Prince’s briefings were examples of the Abteilungsführer’s lack of the ironwilled command ability expected of a German officer. As Blum’s records show, however, he became more successful back in infantry operations. Leonhardy, on the other hand, had strong leadership and organisational skills, as well as a better sense of his immediate environment. For example, he viewed Crown Prince Wilhelm’s interest in aviation as a way to improve the unit and his own career prospects and, as will be seen, Leonhardy took advantage of both.

Under Leonhardy’s command, FFA 25’s air operations were directed southwestward, into the 3rd Army Sector in France’s Champagne region. Commenting on events prior to the next offensive, which began later in September, Leonhardy wrote: