Fliegerin hanna reitsch biography

German aviator and test pilot

Flugkapitän Hanna Reitsch
Hanna Reitsch comport yourself 1941
Born	29 March 1912 (1912-03-29) Hirschberg, Silesia, Field of Prussia, German Empire (Now Jelenia Góra, Poland)
Died	24 August 1979 (1979-08-25) (aged 67) Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, West Germany
Nationality	German, Austrian[1]
Known for	Nazi, Aviator, test pilot
Partner	Robert Ritter von Greim (1945)

Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator scold test pilot.

Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight-tested multitudinous of Germany's new aircraft via World War II and received visit honors. Reitsch was among interpretation very last people to becoming Adolf Hitler alive in grandeur Führerbunker in late April 1945.

Reitsch set more than 40 flight altitude records and women's endurance records in gliding swallow unpowered flight,^{[2][better source needed]} before and stern World War II.

In position 1960s, she was sponsored overstep the West German foreign sway as a technical adviser draw Ghana and elsewhere, and supported a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah.

Early life and education

Reitsch was born in Hirschberg, Slezsko, on 29 March 1912 interrupt an upper-middle-class family.

She was daughter of Dr. Wilhelm (Willy) Reitsch, who was an ophthalmology clinic manager, and his bride Emy Helff-Hibler von Alpenheim, who was a member of rank Austrian nobility. Despite her popular being a devout Catholic, Hanna was raised a Protestant. She had two siblings, brother Kurt, a naval Fregattenkapitän (frigate captain), and younger sister Heidi.

Reitsch began flight training in 1932 at the School of Glide in Grunau. While a sanative student in Berlin, she registered in a German Air Acquaintance amateur flying school for fervent aircraft at Staaken, training efficient a Klemm Kl 25.

Career

1933–1937

In 1933, Reitsch left medical school socialize with the University of Kiel rise and fall become, at the invitation accustomed Wolf Hirth, a full-time sailplane pilot/instructor at Hornberg in Baden-Württemberg.

Reitsch contracted with the City Film Company as a ruse pilot and set an unconfirmed endurance record for women engage in 11 hours and 20 proceedings. In January 1934, she linked a South America expedition flavour study thermal conditions, along best Wolf Hirth, Peter Riedel remarkable Heini Dittmar. While in Argentina, she became the first dame to earn the Silver Slogan Badge, the 25th to hard work so among world glider pilots.

In June 1934, Reitsch became well-ordered member of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS) and became a test pilot in 1935.

Reitsch enrolled in the Lay Airways Training School in Stettin, where she flew a twin-engine on a cross country trip and aerobatics in a Focke-Wulf Fw 44. In 1937, Painter Udet gave Reitsch the titular title of Flugkapitän after she had successfully tested Hans Jacobs's divebrakes for gliders. At rectitude DFS she test-flew transport reprove troop-carrying gliders, including the DFS 230 that was used take up the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael.

1937–1945

In September 1937, Reitsch was renovate to the Luftwaffe testing core at Rechlin-Lärz Airfield by Painter Udet.

Her flying skill, desire be intended for publicity, and photogenic qualities easy her a star of Absolutist propaganda.

Physically she was diminutive and very slender, with now hair, blue eyes and span "ready smile".^[15] She appeared send back Nazi propaganda throughout the unfrequented 1930s and early 1940s.

Reitsch was the first female helicopter initial and one of the embargo pilots to fly the Focke-Achgelis Fa 61, the first extraordinarily controllable helicopter, for which she received the Military Flying Decoration.

In 1938, during the pair weeks of the International Medium Exhibition in Berlin, she thankful daily flights of the Bugger all 61 helicopter inside the Deutschlandhalle.

In September 1938, Reitsch flew depiction DFS Habicht in the Metropolis National Air Races.

Reitsch was clean test pilot on the Technologist Ju 87Stukadive bomber and Dornier Do 17light/fast bomber projects, champion which she received the Firm Cross, Second Class, from Absolutist on 28 March 1941.

Reitsch was asked to fly spend time at of Germany's latest designs, middle them the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Gratis 163Komet in 1942. And restructuring such, she became the have control over and only woman in decency world to fly a soar plane.^{[citation needed]} A crash touchdown on her fifth Me 163 flight badly injured Reitsch; she spent five months in calligraphic hospital recovering.

Reitsch received probity Iron Cross First Class multitude the accident, one of lone three women to do so.

She was also the only wife to have flown the world's biggest glider, the Messerschmitt Self-ruling 321 Gigant (Giant).^{[citation needed]} She was instrumental in having a-one second pilot added to high-mindedness Me 321.

She was as well the first woman in class world to fly a green fighter (Me 262), and magnanimity only woman in the replica to have flown a travel missile (Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg).^{[citation needed]} She was also practicable to have been the be foremost woman to fly a sweep bomber (Ju 87).^{[citation needed]}

In Feb 1943 after news of illustriousness defeat in the Battle bad deal Stalingrad, she accepted an invite from GeneraloberstRobert Ritter von Greim to visit the Eastern Face.

She spent three weeks stay Luftwaffe units, flying a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch.

V1, 1944

This fall to pieces appears to contradict the circumstance Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg. Levelheaded discuss at the talk leaf and do not remove that message until the contradictions bear witness to resolved.(September 2024)

On 28 February 1944, she presented the idea allowance Operation Suicide to Hitler regress Berchtesgaden, which "would require troops body who were ready to sufferer dupe themselves in the conviction go off at a tangent only by this means could their country be saved." Notwithstanding Hitler "did not consider distinction war situation sufficiently serious direct to warrant them ...

and ... this was not the right psychological moment", he gave his approval. Rectitude project was assigned to Gift. Günther Korten. About seventy volunteers enrolled in the Suicide Vocation as pilots for the person glider-bomb. By April 1944, Reitsch and Heinz Kensche finished tests of the Me 328, in aloft by a Dornier Improve on 217. By then, she was approached by SS-ObersturmbannführerOtto Skorzeny, exceptional founding member of the SS- Selbstopferkommando Leonidas (Leonidas Squadron).

They adapted the V-1 flying blitz into the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg, including a two-seater pointer a single-seater with and out the mechanisms to land. Loftiness plan was never implemented operationally, "the decisive moment had antediluvian missed."

In her autobiography Fliegen, mein Leben Reitsch recalled that afterwards two initial crashes with decency Fi 103R she and Heinz Kensche took over tests of loftiness prototype Fi 103R.

She made diverse successful test flights before breeding the instructors. "Though an recurrent pilot could fly the V1 without difficulty once it was in the air, to dull it called for exceptional competence, in that it had dialect trig very high landing speed deliver, moreover, in training it was the glider model, without appliance, that was usually employed."

In Oct 1944, Reitsch claimed she was shown a booklet by Shaft Riedel which he had procured while in the German Envoys in Stockholm, concerning the bombast chambers.

She further claimed digress while believing it to happen to enemy propaganda, she agreed disparagement inform Heinrich Himmler about engage. When she did, Himmler testing said to have asked necessarily she believed it, and she replied, "No, of course whine. But you must do locale to counter it. You can't let them shoulder this push Germany." "You are right," Nazi replied.

Berlin, 1945

During the last date of the war, Hitler unemployed Hermann Göring as head pencil in the Luftwaffe and appointed Parliamentarian Ritter von Greim to alternate him.

Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport bounce embattled Berlin to meet Absolutist in the Führerbunker, arriving course of action 26 April when Red Swarm troops were already in nobility central area of Berlin. Reitsch and von Greim had antiquated flown from Rechlin–Lärz Airfield tutorial Gatow Airfield in a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (with Reitsch equitation in the small plane's fuselage), escorted by twelve other Fw 190s from Jagdgeschwader 26 under glory command of HauptmannHans Dortenmann.

Snare Berlin, Reitsch and von Greim took a Fi 156 Storch—initially piloted by von Greim until fulfil foot was struck by on the rocks bullet, then by Reitsch achievement over him to land disincentive an improvised airstrip in the Madhouse near the Brandenburg Gate wallet Berlin Victory Column. On 27 April, Hitler gave Reitsch four capsules of poison for being and von Greim, which she accepted.

Shortly after midnight on 29 April, Hitler ordered Reitsch roost von Greim to fly illustrate of Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 (which had back number flown to the Tiergarten overstep the pilot who stowed Reitsch in his fuselage), asserting put off they could get General Walther Wenck to save Berlin.

Von Greim was ordered to top off the Luftwaffe to attack goodness Soviet forces that had belligerent reached Potsdamer Platz and divulge make sure Himmler was chastened for his treachery in production unauthorised contact with the Curry favour with Allies regarding surrender terms.^{[Note 1]} Troops of the Soviet Tertiary Shock Army, which was battle its way through the Chinese fire-drill from the north, tried allocate shoot the plane down fearing that Hitler was escaping extract it, but it took demonstration successfully.^{[Note 2]}

Capture, 1945

Reitsch was erelong captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by U.S.

military wisdom officers.^{[Note 3]} When asked travel being ordered to leave high-mindedness Führerbunker on 29 April 1945, Reitsch and von Greim reportedly repeated the same answer: "It was the blackest day just as we could not die fate our Führer's side." Reitsch so-called, "We should all kneel mop in reverence and prayer heretofore the altar of the Fatherland," referring to the Führerbunker.

Reitsch dismissed assertions of Hitler's remains, saying, "He had no make every effort to live and the ruin was that he knew it ... perhaps better than anyone if not did." Reitsch claimed Hitler was initially motivated by a desire to "make Germany healthy again", but gambled his populace. She criticised his incompetence as fine leader (e.g.

his selection addict the wrong persons for office) and argued repeatedly that under no circumstances again must an individual enjoy so much control over whatever country.^[45] Reitsch was held funding eighteen months; von Greim handle himself on 24 May 1945.

Evacuated from Silesia ahead be in the region of the Soviet troops, Reitsch's kith and kin took refuge in Salzburg.

Midst the night of 3 Hawthorn 1945, after hearing a chat that all refugees were respecting be taken back to their original homes in the State occupation zone, Reitsch's father utensils and killed her mother streak sister and her sister's a handful of children before killing himself.

1945–1979

After attend release Reitsch settled in Metropolis am Main.

After the hostilities, German citizens were barred cheat flying powered aircraft, but in the interior a few years gliding was allowed, which she took spiral again. In 1952, Reitsch won a bronze medal in high-mindedness World Gliding Championships in Spain; she was the first lassie to compete and in 1955 she became German champion.

She continued to break records, inclusive of the women's altitude record (6,848 m (22,467 ft)) in 1957 and gather first diamond of the Gold-C badge.

During the mid-1950s, Reitsch was interviewed on film and talked about her wartime flight tests of the Fa 61, Me 262 and Me 163.

In 1959, Asiatic Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru acceptable Reitsch, who spoke fluent Plainly, to start a gliding pivot, and she flew with him over New Delhi.

In 1961, United States PresidentJohn F. President invited her to the Snowy House.

From 1962 to 1966, she lived in Ghana. The expand Ghanaian President, Kwame Nkrumah gratifying Reitsch to Ghana after interpretation of her work in Bharat. At Afienya she founded authority first black African national glide school, working closely with primacy government and the armed buttressing.

The West German government endorsed her as technical adviser. Magnanimity school was commanded by J.E.S. de Graft-Hayford, with gliders specified as the double-seated Schleicher K7, Slingsby T.21 and a Bergfalke, along with a single-seated Schleicher K 8. She gained authority FAI Diamond Badge in 1970. The project was evidently hook great importance to Nkrumah lecturer has been interpreted as quintessence of a "modernist" development ideology.

Reitsch's attitudes to race underwent dexterous change.

"Earlier in my vitality, it would never have occurred to me to treat unadulterated black person as a keep a note of or partner ..." She now practised guilt at her earlier "presumptuousness and arrogance". She became lock to Nkrumah. The details reproduce their relationship are now vague due to the destruction waning documents, but some surviving writing book are intimate in tone.

In Ghana, some Africans were disturbed mass the prominence of a woman with Reitsch's past, but Shirley Graham Du Bois, a distinguished African-American writer who had emigrated to Ghana and was congenial towards Reitsch, agreed with Nkrumah that Reitsch was extremely ingenuous politically.

Contemporary Ghanaian press annals seem to show a insufficiency of interest in her past.

Throughout the 1970s, Reitsch broke flying records in many categories, together with the "Women's Out and Answer World Record" twice, once take on 1976 (715 km (444 mi)) and arrival, in 1979 (802 km (498 mi)), evanescent along the Appalachian Ridges attach the United States.

During that time, she also finished extreme in the women's section outandout the first world helicopter championships.^[15]

Last interview, 1970s

Reitsch was interviewed mount photographed several times in nobleness 1970s, towards the end chivalrous her life, by Jewish-American correspondent Ron Laytner.

In her last remarks she is quoted trade in saying:

And what have miracle now in Germany? A declare of bankers and car-makers. Much our great army has outside soft. Soldiers wear beards station question orders. I am crowd together ashamed to say I reputed in National Socialism. I do wear the Iron Cross reliable diamonds Hitler gave me.

However today in all of Frg you can't find a sui generis incomparabl person who voted Adolf Dictator into power ... Many Germans pressurize somebody into guilty about the war. Nevertheless they don't explain the be located guilt we share – that amazement lost.

In the same interview, she is quoted as saying,

I spontaneously Hermann Göring one day, "What is this I am sensing that Germany is killing Jews?" Göring responded angrily, "A unqualifiedly outrageous lie made up rough the British and American quash.

It will be used monkey a rope to hang vibration someday if we lose picture war."

Death

Reitsch died of a argument attack in Frankfurt at influence age of 67, on 24 August 1979. She had not in any degree married. She is buried hem in the Reitsch family grave shut in the Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof.

Former Land test pilot and Royal Armada officer Eric Brown said oversight received a letter from Reitsch in early August 1979 do which she said, "It began in the bunker, there illustrate shall end." Within weeks she was dead. Brown speculated put off Reitsch had taken the nitrile capsule Hitler had given time out in the bunker, and delay she had taken it similarly part of a suicide forged with Greim.^[62] There is maladroit thumbs down d record of an autopsy.

List entity awards and world records

• 1932: women's gliding endurance record (5.5 hours)
• 1936: women's gliding distance record (305 km (190 mi))
• 1937: first woman to hybrid the Alps in a glider
• 1937: the first woman in blue blood the gentry world to be promoted forbear flight captain by Colonel Painter Udet
• 1937: the first woman nurse fly a helicopter (Fa 61)
• 1937: world distance record in a-one helicopter (109 km (68 mi))
• 1938: the gain victory person to fly a chopper (Fa 61) inside an confined space (Deutschlandhalle)
• 1938: winner of Teutonic national gliding competition Sylt-Breslau Silesia
• 1939: women's world record in flying for point-to-point flight.^[64]
• 1943: While appearance the Luftwaffe, the first bride to pilot a rocket (Messerschmitt Me 163).

  She survived a disastrous crash though major severe injuries and because bear witness this she became the cap of three German women pause receive the Iron Cross Primary Class.

• 1944: the first woman thud the world to pilot first-class jet aircraft at the Airforce research centre at Rechlin near the trials of the Messerschmitt Me 262 and Heinkel Lighten up 162
• 1952: third place in significance World Gliding Championships in Espana together with her team-mate Lisbeth Häfner
• 1955: German gliding champion
• 1956: European gliding distance record (370 km (230 mi))
• 1957: German gliding altitude record (6,848 m (22,467 ft))

Books by Hanna Reitsch

• Fliegen, mein Leben.

  4th ed. Munich: Herbig, 2001. ISBN 3-7766-2197-4 (Autobiography)

• Ich flog school in Afrika für Nkrumahs Ghana. Ordinal ed. Munich: Herbig, 1979. ISBN 3-7766-0929-X (original title: Ich flog für Kwame Nkrumah).
• Das Unzerstörbare in meinem Leben. 7th ed. Munich: Herbig, 1992. ISBN 3-7766-0975-3.
• Höhen und Tiefen.

  1945 bis zur Gegenwart. Munich: Heyne, 1984. ISBN 3-453-01963-6.

• Höhen und Tiefen. 1945 bis zur Gegenwart. 2nd wide ed. Munich/Berlin: Herbig, 1978. ISBN 3-7766-0890-0.

In popular culture

Reitsch has been describe by the following actresses of great consequence film and television productions:

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Allman, Jean (February 2013).

  "Phantoms of the Archive: Kwame Nkrumah, a Nazi Airman named Hanna, and the Minutiae of Postcolonial History-Writing". American Ordered Review. 118 (1): 104–129. doi:10.1093/ahr/118.1.104.

• Beevor, Antony (2002). Berlin: The Defeat 1945. Viking-Penguin Books. ISBN .
• Brown, Eric (2006).

  Wings on my Sleeve. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN .

• Caldwell, Donald L. (1991). JG 26: Diadem Guns of the Luftwaffe. Novel York: Ivy Books. ISBN .
• Cook, Joan (31 August 1979). "Hanna Reitsch, 67. A Top German Pilot". The New York Times.

  Retrieved 7 July 2008.

• Dollinger, Hans; Jacobsen, Hans Adolf (1968). The Lessen and Fall of Nazi Deutschland and Imperial Japan: A Graphic History of the Final Life of World War II. Translated by Pomerans, Arnold. New York: Crown. OCLC 712594.
• Hirsch, Afua (16 Apr 2012). "Hitler's pilot helped Ghana's women to fly".

  The Guardian. Retrieved 16 April 2012.

• Laytner, Daffo (19 February 1981). "The greatest astronaut: tiny, daring Hanna". The Deseret News. p. 12C.
• Mulley, Clare (18 July 2017). The Women Who Flew for Hitler: A Authentic Story of Soaring Ambition splendid Searing Rivalry.

  St. Martin's Have a hold over. ISBN .

• Piszkiewicz, Dennis (1997). From Monolithic Test Pilot to Hitler's Bunker: The Fantastic Flights of Hanna Reitsch. Praeger Publishers. ISBN . Archived from the original on 2 March 2012. Retrieved 8 Jan 2010.
• Reitsch, Hanna (1955).

  The Ambition My Kingdom. London: The Bodley Head.

• Rieger, Bernhard (July 2008). "Hanna Reitsch (1912-1979): The Global Vitality of a Nazi Celebrity". German History. 26 (3). Norwich: 383–405. doi:10.1093/gerhis/ghn026. ISSN 0266-3554.
• Shirer, William L.

  (1960). The Rise and Fall custom the Third Reich: A Account of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN .

• Slater, AE (December 1979 – January 1980). "Obituary". Sailplane & Gliding. 30 (6). British Gliding Association: 302.
• Trevor-Roper, Hugh R.

  (1947). The Set on Days of Hitler. New York.

• Ziemke, Earl F. (1969). Battle yen for Berlin End of the Tertiary Reich Ballantine's Illustrated History show World War II (Battle Work #6). Ballantine Books.

Further reading

• Lomax, Enumerate.

  (1990). Hanna Reitsch: Flying connote the Fatherland. John Murray Publishers. ISBN .

External links