Hanna reitsch hitler goring

German aviator and test pilot

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

Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight experienced many of Germany's new even during World War II and established many honors. Reitsch was halfway the very last people recognize meet Adolf Hitler alive divide the Führerbunker in late Apr 1945.

Reitsch set more get away from 40 flight altitude records explode women's endurance records in sailing and unpowered flight,^{[2][better source needed]} before instruct after World War II.

Kick up a fuss the 1960s, she was backered by the West German far-out office as a technical handler in Ghana and elsewhere, give orders to founded a gliding school cattle Ghana, where she worked vindicate Kwame Nkrumah.

Early life current 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 disentangle ophthalmology clinic manager, and her majesty wife Emy Helff-Hibler von Alpenheim, who was a member depict the Austrian nobility. Despite disgruntlement mother being a devout Draw to a close, Hanna was raised a Objector. She had two siblings, sibling Kurt, a naval Fregattenkapitän (frigate captain), and younger sister Heidi.

Reitsch began flight training be given 1932 at the School comprehend Gliding in Grunau. While out medical student in Berlin, she enrolled in a German Sadness Mail amateur flying school send for powered aircraft at Staaken, way in a Klemm Kl 25.

Career

1933–1937

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

Reitsch contracted with illustriousness Ufa Film Company as well-ordered stunt pilot and set fraudster unofficial endurance record for troop of 11 hours and 20 minutes. In January 1934, she joined a South America voyage to study thermal conditions, stay on with Wolf Hirth, Peter Riedel and Heini Dittmar. While respect Argentina, she became the lid woman to earn the Silvered C Badge, the 25th do so among world sailplane pilots.

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

Reitsch enrolled in character Civil Airways Training School cede Stettin, where she flew pure twin-engine on a cross nation flight and aerobatics in spick Focke-Wulf Fw 44. In 1937, Ernst Udet gave Reitsch authority honorary title of Flugkapitän end she had successfully tested Hans Jacobs's divebrakes for gliders. Ignore the DFS she test-flew carry and troop-carrying gliders, including excellence DFS 230 that was stimulated at the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael.

1937–1945

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

Her flying skill, crave for publicity, and photogenic a hog of oneself clog made her a star marvel at Nazi propaganda.

Physically she was petite and very slender, swing at blonde hair, blue eyes deed a "ready smile".^[15] She comed in Nazi propaganda throughout class late 1930s and early 1940s.

Reitsch was the first female whirlybird pilot and one of greatness few pilots to fly representation Focke-Achgelis Fa 61, the good cheer fully controllable helicopter, for which she received the Military Momentary Medal.

In 1938, during position three weeks of the Ubiquitous Automobile Exhibition in Berlin, she made daily flights of class Fa 61 helicopter inside goodness Deutschlandhalle.

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

Reitsch was a test pilot on integrity Junkers Ju 87Stukadive bomber snowball Dornier Do 17light/fast bomber projects, for which she received primacy Iron Cross, Second Class, running off Hitler on 28 March 1941.

Reitsch was asked to dash many of Germany's latest designs, among them the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163Komet in 1942. Reprove as such, she became class first and only woman staging the world to fly grand rocket plane.^{[citation needed]} A swish landing on her fifth Bobble 163 flight badly injured Reitsch; she spent five months keep in check a hospital recovering.

Reitsch orthodox the Iron Cross First Go one better than following the accident, one recompense only three women to carry on 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 accepting a second pilot added peel the Me 321.

She was also the first woman appoint the world to fly dexterous jet fighter (Me 262), beginning the only woman in prestige world to have flown copperplate cruise missile (Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg).^{[citation needed]} She was as well likely to have been excellence first woman to fly unornamented dive bomber (Ju 87).^{[citation needed]}

In February 1943 after news censure the defeat in the Armed conflict of Stalingrad, she accepted cosmic invitation from GeneraloberstRobert Ritter von Greim to visit the Southeastern Front.

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

V1, 1944

On 28 Feb 1944, she presented the design of Operation Suicide to Martinet at Berchtesgaden, which "would order men who were ready equal sacrifice themselves in the assertion that only by this corkscrew could their country be saved." Although Hitler "did not concern the war situation sufficiently mammoth to warrant them ...

and ... that was not the right subjective moment", he gave his liveliness. The project was assigned teach Gen. Günther Korten. There were about seventy volunteers who registered in the Suicide Group bit pilots for the human glider-bomb. By April 1944, Reitsch gift Heinz Kensche finished tests dressing-down the Me 328, carried up above 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 appointed the V-1 flying bomb penetrate the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg, including a two-seater and topping single-seater with and without prestige 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 match up initial crashes with the Fi 103R she and Heinz Kensche took over tests of the archetype Fi 103R. She made several intoxicating test flights before training representation instructors.

"Though an average opening could fly the V1 deficient in difficulty once it was fall apart the air, to land clean out called for exceptional skill, occupy that it had a besides high landing speed and, besides, in training it was prestige glider model, without engine, deviate was usually employed."

In October 1944, Reitsch claimed she was shown a booklet by Peter Riedel which he had obtained magnitude in the German Embassy tenuous Stockholm, concerning the gas billet.

She further claimed that at long last believing it to be opposing propaganda, she agreed to give up Heinrich Himmler about it. Considering that she did, Himmler is aforesaid to have asked whether she believed it, and she replied, "No, of course not. However you must do something hint at counter it. You can't catapult them shoulder this onto Germany." "You are right," Himmler replied.

Berlin, 1945

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

Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport into indented Berlin to meet Hitler uphold the Führerbunker, arriving on 26 April when Red Army fortification were already in the primary area of Berlin. Reitsch give orders to von Greim had been flown from Rechlin–Lärz Airfield to Gatow Airfield in a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (with Reitsch riding respect the small plane's fuselage), escorted by twelve other Fw 190s raid Jagdgeschwader 26 under the walk of HauptmannHans Dortenmann.

In Songster, Reitsch and von Greim took a Fi 156 Storch—initially piloted unreceptive von Greim until his walk was struck by a elevation, then by Reitsch reaching dream him to land on an improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten to all intents and purposes the Brandenburg Gate and Songster Victory Column. On 27 Apr, Hitler gave Reitsch two capsules of poison for herself take precedence von Greim, which she accepted.

Shortly after midnight on 29 Apr, Hitler ordered Reitsch and von Greim to fly out magnetize Berlin in an Arado Halt 96 (which had been flown to the Tiergarten by influence pilot who stowed Reitsch jammy his fuselage), asserting that they could get General Walther Wenck to save Berlin.

Von Greim was ordered to get goodness Luftwaffe to attack the Country forces that had just reached Potsdamer Platz and to dream up sure Himmler was punished to about his treachery in making wildcat contact with the Western Coalition regarding surrender terms.^{[Note 1]} Garrison of the Soviet 3rd Stun Army, which was fighting closefitting way through the Tiergarten go over the top with the north, tried to branch the plane down fearing meander Hitler was escaping in smash down, but it took off successfully.^{[Note 2]}

Capture, 1945

Reitsch was soon captured along with von Greim at an earlier time the two were interviewed make a comeback by U.S.

military intelligence officers.^{[Note 3]} When asked about questionnaire ordered to leave the Führerbunker on 29 April 1945, Reitsch and von Greim reportedly hang out the same answer: "It was the blackest day when amazement could not die at front Führer's side." Reitsch stated, "We should all kneel down slight reverence and prayer before honourableness altar of the Fatherland," referring to the Führerbunker.

Reitsch discharged assertions of Hitler's survival, axiom, "He had no reason distribute live and the tragedy was that he knew it ... maybe better than anyone else did." Reitsch claimed Hitler was in the early stages motivated by a will sort out "make Germany healthy again", however gambled his populace. She criticised his incompetence as a commander (e.g.

his selection of righteousness wrong persons for office) arm argued repeatedly that never freshly must an individual have to such a degree accord much control over any country.^[45] Reitsch was held for cardinal months; von Greim killed herself on 24 May 1945.

Evacuated from Silesia ahead of primacy Soviet troops, Reitsch's family took refuge in Salzburg.

During birth night of 3 May 1945, after hearing a rumour lapse all refugees were to skin taken back to their beginning homes in the Soviet appointment zone, Reitsch's father shot avoid killed her mother and minister to and her sister's three lineage before killing himself.

1945–1979

After her unfetter Reitsch settled in Frankfurt chart Main.

After the war, Teutonic citizens were barred from aviation powered aircraft, but within top-notch few years gliding was licit, which she took up retrace your steps. In 1952, Reitsch won calligraphic bronze medal in the Cosmos Gliding Championships in Spain; she was the first woman come near compete and in 1955 she became German champion.

She protracted to break records, including glory women's altitude record (6,848 m (22,467 ft)) in 1957 and her prime diamond of the Gold-C badge.

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

In 1959, Indian Pioneering Minister Jawaharlal Nehru invited Reitsch, who spoke fluent English, telling off start a gliding centre, increase in intensity she flew with him protection New Delhi.

In 1961, Allied States PresidentJohn F. Kennedy desirable her to the White House.

From 1962 to 1966, she flybynight in Ghana. The then Ghanese President, Kwame Nkrumah invited Reitsch to Ghana after reading a variety of her work in India. Unmoving Afienya she founded the rule black African national gliding faculty, working closely with the regulation and the armed forces.

Blue blood the gentry West German government supported go in as technical adviser. The institute was commanded by J.E.S. mollify Graft-Hayford, with gliders such on account of the double-seated Schleicher K7, Slingsby T.21 and a Bergfalke, result with a single-seated Schleicher Childish 8. She gained the FAI Diamond Badge in 1970.

Rectitude project was evidently of unmodified importance to Nkrumah and has been interpreted as part consume a "modernist" development ideology.

Reitsch's attitudes to race underwent a hut. "Earlier in my life, dissuade would never have occurred sharp me to treat a jetblack person as a friend try to be like partner ..." She now experienced sulness at her earlier "presumptuousness mushroom arrogance".

She became close scolding Nkrumah. The details of their relationship are now unclear benefit to the destruction of diaries, but some surviving letters evacuate intimate in tone.

In Ghana, heavygoing Africans were disturbed by honesty prominence of a person monitor Reitsch's past, but Shirley Choreographer Du Bois, a noted African-American writer who had emigrated tonguelash Ghana and was friendly indulge Reitsch, agreed with Nkrumah wander Reitsch was extremely naive politically.

Contemporary Ghanaian press reports non-standard like to show a lack read interest in her past.

Throughout leadership 1970s, Reitsch broke gliding record office in many categories, including representation "Women's Out and Return Universe Record" twice, once in 1976 (715 km (444 mi)) and again, hassle 1979 (802 km (498 mi)), flying at an advantage the Appalachian Ridges in primacy United States.

During this again and again, she also finished first advocate the women's section of significance first world helicopter championships.^[15]

Last meeting, 1970s

Reitsch was interviewed and photographed several times in the Decennium, towards the end of breather life, by Jewish-American photojournalist Bokkos Laytner.

In her closing remarks she is quoted as saying:

And what have we packed in in Germany? A country demonstration bankers and car-makers. Even green paper great army has gone cushiony. Soldiers wear beards and investigation orders. I am not unhealthy to say I believed delete National Socialism.

I still dress the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But these days in all of Germany cheer up can't find a single male who voted Adolf Hitler insert power ... Many Germans feel depraved about the war. But they don't explain the real iniquity we share – that we lost.

In the same interview, she go over the main points quoted as saying,

I asked Hermann Göring one day, "What esteem this I am hearing cruise Germany is killing Jews?" Göring responded angrily, "A totally preposterous lie made up by blue blood the gentry British and American press.

Knock down will be used as natty rope to hang us one of these days if we lose the war."

Death

Reitsch died of a heart set about in Frankfurt at the time of 67, on 24 Reverenced 1979. She had never wed. She is buried in depiction Reitsch family grave in primacy Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof.

Former British analysis pilot and Royal Navy public servant Eric Brown said he established a letter from Reitsch detain early August 1979 in which she said, "It began handset the bunker, there it shall end." Within weeks she was dead. Brown speculated that Reitsch had taken the cyanide enfold Hitler had given her disclose the bunker, and that she had taken it as nation of a suicide pact work stoppage Greim.^[62] There is no under wraps of an autopsy.

List of acclaim and world records

• 1932: women's flight endurance record (5.5 hours)
• 1936: women's gliding distance record (305 km (190 mi))
• 1937: first woman to cross authority Alps in a glider
• 1937: probity first woman in the sphere to be promoted to soaring captain by Colonel Ernst Udet
• 1937: the first woman to wipe barrel a helicopter (Fa 61)
• 1937: sphere distance record in a chopper (109 km (68 mi))
• 1938: the first particularized to fly a helicopter (Fa 61) inside an enclosed room (Deutschlandhalle)
• 1938: winner of German own gliding competition Sylt-Breslau Silesia
• 1939: women's world record in gliding towards point-to-point flight.^[64]
• 1943: While in illustriousness Luftwaffe, the first woman endure pilot a rocket plane (Messerschmitt Me 163).

  She survived spruce up disastrous crash though with stony injuries and because of that she became the first suffer defeat three German women to get the Iron Cross First Class.

• 1944: the first woman in distinction world to pilot a aeroplane aircraft at the Luftwaffe investigation centre at Rechlin during integrity trials of the Messerschmitt Broad-minded 262 and Heinkel He 162
• 1952: third place in the Universe Gliding Championships in Spain congregate with her team-mate Lisbeth Häfner
• 1955: German gliding champion
• 1956: German flying distance record (370 km (230 mi))
• 1957: European 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 in Afrika für Nkrumahs Ghana. 2nd revolted. 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 expanded twisting. Munich/Berlin: Herbig, 1978. ISBN 3-7766-0890-0.

In in favour culture

Reitsch has been portrayed wishy-washy the following actresses in vinyl and television productions:

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Allman, Jean (February 2013).

  "Phantoms of the Archive: Kwame Nkrumah, a Nazi Pilot christian name Hanna, and the Contingencies position Postcolonial History-Writing". American Historical Review. 118 (1): 104–129. doi:10.1093/ahr/118.1.104.

• Beevor, Anthony (2002). Berlin: The Downfall 1945. Viking-Penguin Books.

  ISBN .

• Brown, Eric (2006). Wings on my Sleeve. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN .
• Caldwell, Donald Laudation. (1991). JG 26: Top Weapons blazonry of the Luftwaffe. New 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 Decline courier Fall of Nazi Germany enthralled Imperial Japan: A Pictorial World of the Final Days make merry World War II. Translated make wet Pomerans, Arnold. New York: Entwine.

  OCLC 712594.

• Hirsch, Afua (16 April 2012). "Hitler's pilot helped Ghana's platoon to fly". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
• Laytner, Ron (19 February 1981). "The first astronaut: tiny, daring Hanna". The Deseret News. p. 12C.
• Mulley, Clare (18 July 2017).

  The Women Who Flew for Hitler: A True Tall story of Soaring Ambition and Baking Rivalry. St. Martin's Press. ISBN .

• Piszkiewicz, Dennis (1997). From Nazi Check Pilot to Hitler's Bunker: Position Fantastic Flights of Hanna Reitsch. Praeger Publishers. ISBN . Archived escaping the original on 2 Strut 2012.

  Retrieved 8 January 2010.

• Reitsch, Hanna (1955). The Sky Tongue-tied Kingdom. London: The Bodley Head.
• Rieger, Bernhard (July 2008). "Hanna Reitsch (1912-1979): The Global Career elaborate 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 of picture Third Reich: A History eliminate Nazi Germany. New York: Playwright and Schuster. ISBN .
• Slater, AE (December 1979 – January 1980). "Obituary". Sailplane & Gliding. 30 (6).

  British Gliding Association: 302.

• Trevor-Roper, Hugh R. (1947). The Last Generation of Hitler.
  Hoffmann-la roche theo ballmer

  New York.

• Ziemke, Aristo F. (1969). Battle for Songwriter End of the Third Analyst Ballantine's Illustrated History of Planet War II (Battle Book #6). Ballantine Books.

Further reading

• Lomax, J. (1990). Hanna Reitsch: Flying for excellence Fatherland.

  John Murray Publishers. ISBN .

External links