Hanna Reitsch

Hanna Reitsch greets well-wishers on a visit to her hometown of Hirschberg, Silesia in April, 1941. Karl Hanke, Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, is at left.

Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator and the only woman awarded the Iron Cross First Class and the Luftwaffe Combined Pilots-Observation Badge in Gold with Diamonds during World War II. Along with her flying skills Reitsch was photogenic and willingly appeared in Nazi Party propaganda throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s, which made her a celebrity. Reitsch was the first woman to fly a helicopter, a rocket plane, and a jet fighter. She set over forty aviation altitude and endurance records during her career, both before and after World War II, and several of her international gliding records are still standing to this day.

Early life

Reitsch in 1936

Reitsch was born in Hirschberg, Silesia. Her father was an ophthalmologist who wanted her to become a doctor. She was interested in aviation, and thought she might become a flying doctor in North Africa and even studied medicine for a time. Reitsch began flying in 1932 with flights in gliders. She left medical school in 1933 at the invitation of Wolf Hirth to become a full-time glider pilot and instructor at Hornberg in Baden-Württemberg. She was soon breaking records, earning a Silver C Badge No 25 in 1934. She flew from Salzburg across the Alps in 1938 in a Sperber Junior.^[1]

Activities during the Third Reich

In 1937 Reitsch was posted to the Luftwaffe testing centre at Rechlin-Lärz Airfield by Ernst Udet. She was a test pilot on the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka and Dornier Do 17 projects. Reitsch was the first female helicopter pilot and one of the few pilots to fly the Focke-Achgelis Fa 61, the first fully controllable helicopter. Her flying skill, desire for publicity and photogenic qualities made her a star of Nazi party propaganda. In 1938 she made nightly flights of the Fa 61 helicopter inside the "Deutschlandhalle" at the Berlin Motor Show.

Adolf Hitler awards Hanna Reitsch the Iron Cross 2nd Class

With the outbreak of war in 1939 Reitsch was asked to fly many of Germany's latest designs. Among these were the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet and several larger bombers on which she tested various mechanisms for cutting barrage balloon cables. After crashing on her fifth Me 163 flight Reitsch was badly injured but reportedly insisted on writing her post-flight report before falling unconscious and spending five months in hospital. Reitsch became Adolf Hitler's favourite pilot and was one of only two women awarded the Iron Cross First Class during World War II. Reitsch became close to former fighter pilot and high ranking Luftwaffe officer Robert Ritter von Greim who became her lover.

During the winter 1943-44, she was assigned to the development of suicide aircraft; and, under the command of SS-Obersturmbannfürer Otto Skorzeny, she was the first founding member of the SS-Selbstopferkommando Leonidas (Leonidas Squadron). This project, where the pilots flew manned bombs and ultimately died during the mission, was similar to the Japanese later use of Tokkōtai ("Kamikaze") and was proposed by Adolf Hitler on 28 February 1944. It is probable that the idea originated with Reitsch during her testing of the Messerschmitt Me 163 in 1942, and she was also the first to volunteer for the newly formed Leonidas unit. This program was met with a considerable resistance at the German air-force high-command and was never realized, and even Hitler was initially reluctant to accept her proposal. The unit was disbanded one year later.

V-1

The film Operation Crossbow began a popular myth that early guidance and stabilization problems with the V-1 flying bomb were solved during a daring test flight by Reitsch in a V-1 modified for manned operation. However, in her autobiography Fliegen, Meine Liebe, Reitsch recalled other test pilots had been killed or gravely injured while trying to land the piloted version of the V1 (known as the Reichenberg), so she made test flights late in the war to learn why and found the craft's extremely high stall speed was thwarting test pilots, who had no experience landing at extremely high speeds. Reitsch's background with the very fast Me163, along with simulated landings at a safe high altitude, led her to a successful landing of the Reichenberg, but only at over 200 km/h.

Führerbunker

A Fieseler Fi 156 Storch similar to the one Reitsch landed in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate during the Battle of Berlin

During the last days of the war, in light of Hermann Goering's dismissal as head of the Luftwaffe for what Hitler saw as an act of treason (sending the Göring Telegram and allegedly attempting a coup d'état), he appointed Colonel-General Robert Ritter von Greim as head of the Luftwaffe. To enable him to meet Hitler, von Greim asked Reitsch to fly him into embattled Berlin.

Red Army troops were already in the downtown area when Reitsch and von Greim arrived on 26 April in a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch. With her long experience at low-altitude flying over Berlin and having already surveyed the road as an escape route with Hitler's personal pilot Hans Baur, Reitsch landed on an improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate (Greim was wounded in the leg when Red Army soldiers fired at the light aircraft during its approach). They made their way to the Führerbunker, where Hitler promoted von Greim to Hermann Göring's former command of a now wholly defunct Luftwaffe. During the intense Russian bombardment, Hitler gave Reitsch a vial of poison for herself and another for von Greim. She accepted the vial willingly, fully prepared to die alongside her Führer.^[2] On Hitler's orders, she escaped from Berlin with von Greim during the evening of 28 April, flying the last German plane out of Berlin shortly before the fall of the city by climbing through heavy Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Hitler had ordered them to rendezvous with Karl Dönitz, who Hitler thought was rallying troops for a counter-attack.

Capture

Reitsch was soon captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by American military intelligence officers.^[3] When asked about being ordered to leave the Fuhrerbunker on 28 April 1945 Reitsch and von Greim reportedly repeated the same answer, "It was the blackest day when we could not die at our Führer's side." Reitsch also said, "We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before the altar of the Fatherland." When the interviewers asked what she meant by "Altar of the Fatherland" she answered, "Why, the Führer's bunker in Berlin..."^[4] She was held and interrogated for eighteen months. Her companion, von Greim, committed suicide on 24 May. Her father killed her mother, her sister, and her sister's children before killing himself during the last days of the war after expulsion by the Polish from their hometown of Hirschberg.^[5]

Later flying career

After her release Reitsch settled in Frankfurt am Main. Following the war German citizens were barred from flying powered aircraft, but within a few years gliding was allowed, which she took up. In 1952 Reitsch won third place in the World Gliding Championships in Spain (and was the only woman to compete). She continued to break records, including the women's altitude record (6,848 m). She became German champion in 1955.

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 she was invited to India by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to begin a gliding centre. In 1961 Reitsch was invited to the White House by US President John F. Kennedy. From 1962 to 1966 she lived in Ghana, where she founded the first black African national gliding school.^[6]

She gained the Diamond Badge in 1970.^[1] Throughout the 1970s, Reitsch broke gliding records in many categories, including the "Women's Out and Return World Record" twice, once in 1976 (715 km) and again in 1979 (802 km) flying along the Appalachian Ridges in the United States. During this time, she also finished first in the women's section of the first world helicopter championships.^[7]

Later life

Although she kept a low profile after the war, toward the end of her life she was interviewed and photographed several times in the 1970s by US photo-journalist Ron Laytner.^[8] At the end of her last interview she told Laytner:

Death

Reitsch died in Frankfurt at the age of 67 on 24 August 1979 following a heart attack. She had never married.^[10][11]

List of Awards and World Records

• 1932: women's gliding endurance record (5.5 hours)
• 1936: women's gliding distance record (305 km)
• 1937: first woman to cross the Alps in a glider
• 1937: the first woman in the world to be promoted to flight captain by Colonel Ernst Udet
• 1937: world distance record in a helicopter (109 km)
• 1938: the first person to fly a helicopter Focke-Wulf Fw 61 inside an enclosed space (Deutschlandhalle)
• 1938: winner of German national gliding competition Sylt-Breslau (Schlesien)
• 1939: women's world record in gliding (which record?)
• 1943: While in the Luftwaffe, the first woman to pilot a rocket plane (Messerschmitt Me 163). She survived a disastrous crash though with severe injuries and because of this she became the first and only German woman to receive the Iron Cross First Class.
• 1944: the first woman in the world to pilot a jet aircraft at the Luftwaffe research centre at Reichlin during the trials of the Messerschmitt Me 262 and Heinkel He 162
• 1952: third place in the World Gliding Championships in Spain together with her team-mate Lisbeth Häfner
• 1955: German gliding champion
• 1956: German gliding distance record (370 km)
• 1957: German gliding altitude record (6.848 m)

Books by Hanna Reitsch

• Fliegen, mein Leben. 4. Aufl. Herbig, München 2001, ISBN 3-7766-2197-4 (Autobiographie)
• Ich flog in Afrika für Nkrumahs Ghana. 2. Aufl. Herbig, München 1979, ISBN 3-7766-0929-X (früherer Titel: Ich flog für Kwame Nkrumah).
• Das Unzerstörbare in meinem Leben. 7. Aufl. Herbig, München 1992, ISBN 3-7766-0975-3.
• Höhen und Tiefen. 1945 bis zur Gegenwart. Heyne, München 1984, ISBN 3-453-01963-6.
• Höhen und Tiefen. 1945 bis zur Gegenwart. 2. erweiterte Auflage von 1978, Herbig-Verlag München/Berlin ISBN 3-7766-0890-0

Portrayal in the media

Hanna Reitsch has been portrayed by the following actresses in film and television productions.

• Barbara Ruetting in the 1965 film Operation Crossbow
• Diane Cilento in the 1973 British film Hitler: The Last Ten Days.^[12]
• Myvanwy Jenn in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler.^[13]
• Anna Thalbach in the 2004 German film Downfall (Der Untergang).^[14]

See also

• Leonidas Squadron

External links

References and notes

Bibliography

• Helden der Wehrmacht - Unsterbliche deutsche Soldaten (in German). München, Germany: FZ-Verlag GmbH, 2004. ISBN 3-924309-53-1.