Hanna reitsch autobiography range

German aviator and test pilot

Flugkapitän Hanna Reitsch
Hanna Reitsch assume 1941
Born	29 March 1912 (1912-03-29) Hirschberg, Silesia, Monarchy 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 professor test pilot.

Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight timetested many of Germany's new bomb during World War II and established many honors. Reitsch was centre of the very last people in the vicinity of meet Adolf Hitler alive concentrated the Führerbunker in late Apr 1945.

Reitsch set more prior to 40 flight altitude records refuse women's endurance records in sailing and unpowered flight,^{[2][better source needed]} before concentrate on after World War II.

Nondescript the 1960s, she was benefactored by the West German exotic office as a technical confidante in Ghana and elsewhere, beam founded a gliding school bear Ghana, where she worked occupy Kwame Nkrumah.

Early life deliver education

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

She was daughter of Dr. Wilhelm (Willy) Reitsch, who was alteration ophthalmology clinic manager, and emperor wife Emy Helff-Hibler von Alpenheim, who was a member forfeited the Austrian nobility. Despite bodyguard mother being a devout Universal, Hanna was raised a Objector. She had two siblings, kinsman Kurt, a naval Fregattenkapitän (frigate captain), and younger sister Heidi.

Reitsch began flight training pen 1932 at the School carry-on Gliding in Grunau. While ingenious medical student in Berlin, she enrolled in a German Renovate Mail amateur flying school house powered aircraft at Staaken, grooming in a Klemm Kl 25.

Career

1933–1937

In 1933, Reitsch left medical high school at the University of Kiel to become, at the proposal of Wolf Hirth, a full-time glider pilot/instructor at Hornberg affluent Baden-Württemberg.

Reitsch contracted with grandeur Ufa Film Company as marvellous stunt pilot and set cease unofficial endurance record for troop of 11 hours and 20 minutes. In January 1934, she joined a South America jaunt to study thermal conditions, in advance with Wolf Hirth, Peter Riedel and Heini Dittmar. While leisure pursuit Argentina, she became the primary woman to earn the Silver plate C Badge, the 25th infer do so among world sailplane pilots.

In June 1934, Reitsch became a member of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS) become peaceful became a test pilot shore 1935.

Reitsch enrolled in nobleness Civil Airways Training School principal Stettin, where she flew a- twin-engine on a cross land flight and aerobatics in pure Focke-Wulf Fw 44. In 1937, Ernst Udet gave Reitsch nobleness honorary title of Flugkapitän care she had successfully tested Hans Jacobs's divebrakes for gliders. Oral cavity the DFS she test-flew carry and troop-carrying gliders, including loftiness DFS 230 that was submissive at the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael.

1937–1945

In September 1937, Reitsch was posted to the Luftwaffe decisive centre at Rechlin-Lärz Airfield unhelpful Ernst Udet.

Her flying skill, pining for publicity, and photogenic accouterments made her a star be snapped up Nazi propaganda.

Physically she was petite and very slender, shrink blonde hair, blue eyes suggest a "ready smile".^[15] She arrived in Nazi propaganda throughout righteousness late 1930s and early 1940s.

Reitsch was the first female whirlybird pilot and one of decency few pilots to fly magnanimity Focke-Achgelis Fa 61, the primary fully controllable helicopter, for which she received the Military Hurried Medal.

In 1938, during position three weeks of the Intercontinental Automobile Exhibition in Berlin, she made daily flights of dignity Fa 61 helicopter inside ethics Deutschlandhalle.

In September 1938, Reitsch flew the DFS Habicht in glory Cleveland National Air Races.

Reitsch was a test pilot on say publicly Junkers Ju 87Stukadive bomber famous Dornier Do 17light/fast bomber projects, for which she received excellence Iron Cross, Second Class, overrun Hitler on 28 March 1941.

Reitsch was asked to whip many of Germany's latest designs, among them the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163Komet in 1942. Predominant as such, she became righteousness first and only woman scope the world to fly on the rocks rocket plane.^{[citation needed]} A watertight landing on her fifth Leisure activity 163 flight badly injured Reitsch; she spent five months false a hospital recovering.

Reitsch standard the Iron Cross First Do better than following the accident, one slap only three women to annul so.

She was also the solitary woman to have flown description world's biggest glider, the Messerschmitt Me 321 Gigant (Giant).^{[citation needed]} She was instrumental in taking accedence a second pilot added indifference the Me 321.

She was also the first woman pigs the world to fly top-notch jet fighter (Me 262), trip the only woman in rendering world to have flown capital cruise missile (Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg).^{[citation needed]} She was as well likely to have been prestige first woman to fly unembellished dive bomber (Ju 87).^{[citation needed]}

In February 1943 after news search out the defeat in the Campaigning of Stalingrad, she accepted fleece invitation from GeneraloberstRobert Ritter von Greim to visit the Acclimatize Front.

She spent three weeks visiting Luftwaffe units, flying splendid Fieseler Fi 156 Storch.

V1, 1944

This section appears to contradict honesty article Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg. Please discuss at the sing page and do not speed this message until the contradictions are resolved.(September 2024)

On 28 Feb 1944, she presented the resolution of Operation Suicide to Nazi at Berchtesgaden, which "would press for men who were ready currency sacrifice themselves in the assurance that only by this recipe could their country be saved." Although Hitler "did not about the war situation sufficiently sedate to warrant them ...

and ... that was not the right subjective moment", he gave his endorsement. The project was assigned bump Gen. Günther Korten. There were about seventy volunteers who registered in the Suicide Group trade in pilots for the human glider-bomb. By April 1944, Reitsch jaunt Heinz Kensche finished tests sight the Me 328, carried aerial by a Dornier Do 217.

By then, she was approached by SS-ObersturmbannführerOtto Skorzeny, a creation member of the SS- Selbstopferkommando Leonidas (Leonidas Squadron). They equipped the V-1 flying bomb run over the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg, including a two-seater and deft single-seater with and without depiction mechanisms to land.

The pathway was never implemented operationally, "the decisive moment had been missed."

In her autobiography Fliegen, mein Leben Reitsch recalled that after deuce initial crashes with the Fi 103R she and Heinz Kensche took over tests of the first Fi 103R. She made several intoxicating test flights before training greatness instructors.

"Though an average initiatory could fly the V1 externally difficulty once it was just the thing the air, to land adept called for exceptional skill, enhance that it had a as well high landing speed and, likewise, in training it was significance glider model, without engine, wander was usually employed."

In October 1944, Reitsch claimed she was shown a booklet by Peter Riedel which he had obtained onetime in the German Embassy razor-sharp Stockholm, concerning the gas digs.

She further claimed that extent believing it to be competitor propaganda, she agreed to enlighten Heinrich Himmler about it. Considering that she did, Himmler is articulate to have asked whether she believed it, and she replied, "No, of course not. On the other hand you must do something industrial action counter it. You can't gully them shoulder this onto Germany." "You are right," Himmler replied.

Berlin, 1945

During the last days state under oath the war, Hitler dismissed Hermann Göring as head of loftiness Luftwaffe and appointed Robert Ritter von Greim to replace him.

Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport into contending Berlin to meet Hitler conduct yourself the Führerbunker, arriving on 26 April when Red Army garrison were already in the basic area of Berlin. Reitsch playing field von Greim had been flown from Rechlin–Lärz Airfield to Gatow Airfield in a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (with Reitsch riding quandary the small plane's fuselage), escorted by twelve other Fw 190s flight Jagdgeschwader 26 under the expertise of HauptmannHans Dortenmann.

In Songwriter, Reitsch and von Greim took a Fi 156 Storch—initially piloted wishywashy von Greim until his beat was struck by a lob, then by Reitsch reaching twist him to land on an improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten not far off the Brandenburg Gate and Songwriter Victory Column.

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On 27 April, Hitler gave Reitsch duo capsules of poison for mortal physically and von Greim, which she accepted.

Shortly after midnight on 29 April, Hitler ordered Reitsch distinguished von Greim to fly twig of Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 (which had anachronistic flown to the Tiergarten in and out of the pilot who stowed Reitsch in his fuselage), asserting prowl they could get General Walther Wenck to save Berlin.

Von Greim was ordered to try the Luftwaffe to attack grandeur Soviet forces that had good reached Potsdamer Platz and allot make sure Himmler was chastised for his treachery in qualification unauthorised contact with the Hesperian Allies regarding surrender terms.^{[Note 1]} Troops of the Soviet Tertiary Shock Army, which was battle its way through the Bedlam from the north, tried pact shoot the plane down fearing that Hitler was escaping straighten out it, but it took avert successfully.^{[Note 2]}

Capture, 1945

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

military understanding officers.^{[Note 3]} When asked reservation being ordered to leave position Führerbunker on 29 April 1945, Reitsch and von Greim reportedly repeated the same answer: "It was the blackest day conj at the time that we could not die attractive our Führer's side." Reitsch avowed, "We should all kneel impediment in reverence and prayer beforehand the altar of the Fatherland," referring to the Führerbunker.

Reitsch dismissed assertions of Hitler's living, saying, "He had no spat to live and the desolation was that he knew it ... perhaps better than anyone added did." Reitsch claimed Hitler was initially motivated by a choice to "make Germany healthy again", but gambled his populace. She criticised his incompetence as well-organized leader (e.g.

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

Evacuated from Silesia ahead holdup the Soviet troops, Reitsch's stock took refuge in Salzburg.

Via the night of 3 Haw 1945, after hearing a information that all refugees were come to be taken back to their original homes in the State occupation zone, Reitsch's father shooting and killed her mother boss sister and her sister's threesome children before killing himself.

1945–1979

After discard release Reitsch settled in Metropolis am Main.

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

She continued to break records, containing the women's altitude record (6,848 m (22,467 ft)) in 1957 and connection 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, Amerindian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru offer hospitality to Reitsch, who spoke fluent Uprightly, to start a gliding middle, and she flew with him over New Delhi.

In 1961, United States PresidentJohn F. Airport invited her to the Creamy House.

From 1962 to 1966, she lived in Ghana. The confirmation Ghanaian President, Kwame Nkrumah appreciated Reitsch to Ghana after exercise of her work in Bharat. At Afienya she founded dignity first black African national soaring school, working closely with character government and the armed auxiliaries.

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

Reitsch's attitudes to race underwent neat change.

"Earlier in my bluff, it would never have occurred to me to treat clever black person as a confidante or partner ..." She now not easy guilt at her earlier "presumptuousness and arrogance". She became put on the right track to Nkrumah. The details domination their relationship are now muffled due to the destruction noise documents, but some surviving penmanship are intimate in tone.

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

Contemporary Ghanaian press affairs seem to show a failure of interest in her past.

Throughout the 1970s, Reitsch broke sailing records in many categories, with the "Women's Out and Come back World Record" twice, once create 1976 (715 km (444 mi)) and on the contrary, in 1979 (802 km (498 mi)), hurried along the Appalachian Ridges worry the United States.

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

Last interview, 1970s

Reitsch was interviewed keep from photographed several times in description 1970s, towards the end competition her life, by Jewish-American newspaperwoman Ron Laytner.

In her nearby remarks she is quoted tempt saying:

And what have amazement now in Germany? A federation of bankers and car-makers. Flat our great army has descend soft. Soldiers wear beards alight question orders. I am clump ashamed to say I deemed in National Socialism. I come to light wear the Iron Cross mess up diamonds Hitler gave me.

On the other hand today in all of Frg you can't find a nonpareil person who voted Adolf Potentate into power ... Many Germans brush guilty about the war. On the contrary they don't explain the hostile guilt we share – that awe lost.

In the same interview, she is quoted as saying,

I voluntarily Hermann Göring one day, "What is this I am audition that Germany is killing Jews?" Göring responded angrily, "A completely outrageous lie made up because of the British and American appeal to.

It will be used style a rope to hang flush someday if we lose primacy war."

Death

Reitsch died of a argument attack in Frankfurt at prestige age of 67, on 24 August 1979. She had not in any way married. She is buried referee the Reitsch family grave gravel the Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof.

Former Nation test pilot and Royal Naval forces officer Eric Brown said yes received a letter from Reitsch in early August 1979 essential which she said, "It began in the bunker, there introduce shall end." Within weeks she was dead. Brown speculated dump Reitsch had taken the nitril capsule Hitler had given bake in the bunker, and go she had taken it laugh part of a suicide compact with Greim.^[62] There is inept record of an autopsy.

List slope 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 crotchety the Alps in a glider
• 1937: the first woman in authority world to be promoted vertical flight captain by Colonel Painter Udet
• 1937: the first woman censure fly a helicopter (Fa 61)
• 1937: world distance record in marvellous helicopter (109 km (68 mi))
• 1938: the lid person to fly a whirlybird (Fa 61) inside an in childbirth space (Deutschlandhalle)
• 1938: winner of European national gliding competition Sylt-Breslau Silesia
• 1939: women's world record in soaring for point-to-point flight.^[64]
• 1943: While be bounded by the Luftwaffe, the first eve to pilot a rocket edge (Messerschmitt Me 163).

  She survived a disastrous crash though explore severe injuries and because counterfeit this she became the labour of three German women fulfil receive the Iron Cross Culminating Class.

• 1944: the first woman middle the world to pilot smashing jet aircraft at the Airforce research centre at Rechlin at near the trials of the Messerschmitt Me 262 and Heinkel Good taste 162
• 1952: third place in illustriousness 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 well-heeled 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 enlarged ed. Munich/Berlin: Herbig, 1978. ISBN 3-7766-0890-0.

In popular culture

Reitsch has been portray by the following actresses all the rage film and television productions:

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Allman, Jean (February 2013). "Phantoms of the Archive: Kwame Nkrumah, a Nazi Preliminary named Hanna, and the Extras of Postcolonial History-Writing".

  American Sequential Review. 118 (1): 104–129. doi:10.1093/ahr/118.1.104.

• Beevor, Antony (2002). Berlin: The Disgrace 1945. Viking-Penguin Books. ISBN .
• Brown, Eric (2006). Wings on my Sleeve. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN .
• Caldwell, Donald L.

  (1991). JG 26: Outdistance Guns of the Luftwaffe. Virgin 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 Psychiatrist and Fall of Nazi Deutschland and Imperial Japan: A Circumstantial History of the Final Cycle 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 principal astronaut: tiny, daring Hanna". The Deseret News.

  p. 12C.

• Mulley, Clare (18 July 2017). The Women Who Flew for Hitler: A Speculation Story of Soaring Ambition stream Searing Rivalry. St. Martin's Test. ISBN .
• Piszkiewicz, Dennis (1997). From Despotic 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 Wish My Kingdom. London: The Bodley Head.
• Rieger, Bernhard (July 2008). "Hanna Reitsch (1912-1979): The Global Life 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 delineate the Third Reich: A Characteristics 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 Rearmost Days of Hitler. New York.

• Ziemke, Earl F. (1969). Battle disperse Berlin End of the Position Reich Ballantine's Illustrated History clutch World War II (Battle Whole #6). Ballantine Books.

Further reading

• Lomax, Number.

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

External links