"It is better that one's customers come to one's shop than to have to look for them abroad"
About this Quote
A fighter ace talking like a small-town shopkeeper is the point: von Richthofen compresses aerial warfare into a brisk lesson in customer service. In the sky, “customers” aren’t patrons, they’re targets, and the “shop” isn’t a storefront, it’s home airspace where you control the hours, the lighting, the exits. The line’s dark humor is a coping mechanism and a strategic philosophy in the same breath.
The intent is pragmatic. He’s arguing for defensive advantage: let the enemy cross into your territory, where your pilots know landmarks, weather patterns, and routes; where your ground observers can warn you; where damaged planes might still limp back to friendly lines. “Look for them abroad” means burning fuel and stamina on long hunts, risking getting jumped, and being forced to land in hostile territory if something goes wrong. A business metaphor makes the calculus sound clean and inevitable, the way professionals talk when the stakes are too ugly to name directly.
The subtext is also about control. Richthofen’s fame rested not just on ferocity but on discipline; he treated combat as repeatable process, not romantic adventure. Turning killing into commerce strips away chivalric mythology and replaces it with logistics. Context matters: by 1917-1918, air combat was industrializing fast, with specialized squadrons and tightening resource constraints. The “Red Baron” is often sold as a knight of the skies; this sentence reveals a manager of risk, running a lethal enterprise where the smartest move is to make the battlefield come to you.
The intent is pragmatic. He’s arguing for defensive advantage: let the enemy cross into your territory, where your pilots know landmarks, weather patterns, and routes; where your ground observers can warn you; where damaged planes might still limp back to friendly lines. “Look for them abroad” means burning fuel and stamina on long hunts, risking getting jumped, and being forced to land in hostile territory if something goes wrong. A business metaphor makes the calculus sound clean and inevitable, the way professionals talk when the stakes are too ugly to name directly.
The subtext is also about control. Richthofen’s fame rested not just on ferocity but on discipline; he treated combat as repeatable process, not romantic adventure. Turning killing into commerce strips away chivalric mythology and replaces it with logistics. Context matters: by 1917-1918, air combat was industrializing fast, with specialized squadrons and tightening resource constraints. The “Red Baron” is often sold as a knight of the skies; this sentence reveals a manager of risk, running a lethal enterprise where the smartest move is to make the battlefield come to you.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marketing |
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