WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- A Polish historian says he made a surprising find when poring through World War I archives -- the death certificate of Manfred von Richthofen, the German fighter ace known as the ''Red Baron.''

Maciej Kowalczyk said Monday that he found the file last month while going through old German archives in the western Polish city of Ostrow Wielkopolski. The area was formerly German, and Richthofen was briefly stationed there.

The entry is a one-page handwritten form in a 1918 registry book of deaths that Kowalczyk was using to research the deaths of troops in the war.