Halle Gate
A week after his final victory, on the morning of 17 March 1918, Bethge once again led his fliers into combat. When he was still 200 meters from the British formation they were attacking, his Pfalz curved sharply downwards and out of sight, probably hit by return fire from a D.H.4 of No. 57 Squadron. His body was found at Passchendaele and laid out in the church nearest his jasta, in Phalempin. His funeral procession took place a few days later; Air Force General Ernst von Hoeppner and Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen attended the march to the railway station. Bethge's body was sent home to Berlin, where it was buried in Jerusalem's Church cemetery near the Halle Gate. His mother was told on 18 March that her son would receive the Pour le Merite; however, it had not been approved before his untimely death.