 Having downed 38 of his 40 victories in the Fokker D.VII, in a span of five months, he's the most successful pilot in the type.In the turbulent postwar period the 22-year-old Büchner flew against communist revolutionaries but was shot down and killed by members of the Spartacus League during a reconnaissance flight near his hometown of Leipzig on March 18, 1920, three days after Rudolf Berthold was murdered in Harburg.Besides the Pour le Mérite, Prussia's highest military honor, Büchner also received the highest military honor of his home state, Saxony's Military Order of St. Henry ("Militär-St. Heinrichs-Orden"), on October 7, 1918.