Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a female German Luftwaffe aviator during World War II. She was well-known as a test pilot and an international representative for the Nazi regime, and she was the only woman to receive the Iron Cross First Class and the Luftwaffe Pilot/Observer Badge in Gold during the war.
Biography[]
Hanna Reitsch was born in Hirschberg, Silesia, German Empire (now Jelenia Gora, Poland) on 29 March 1912 to an upper-middle-class family, and she began flight training at glider school in 1932. In 1933, she became a full time glider pilot and instructor at Hornberg in Baden-Wurttemberg, and her flying skill, desire for publicity, and photogenic qualities made her a Nazi propaganda star during the 1930s. In 1936, she became the first female helicopter pilot when she flew in the experimental Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first functioning helicopter in history. During World War II, she served as a test pilot, and she flew Robert Ritter von Greim into Berlin during the April 1945 Battle of Berlin so that Adolf Hitler could make him commander of the Luftwaffe. She was captured by the Red Army alongside Von Greim, and her father, mother, sister, and her three nieces and nephews were killed in a murder-suicide committed by her father in Salzburg, Austria after they heard of a rumor that all refugees would be returned to the Soviet occupation zone.
Reitsch returned to Frankfurt am Main after being released from captivity, and she became the first woman to compete in the World Gliding Championships, winning a bronze medal in 1952. She remained a celebrity even after the end of the war, meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru, John F. Kennedy, and Kwame Nkrumah; many claimed that she had been politically naive and was not a convinced Nazi. During the 1970s, she said that Germany had declined, that she was not ashamed to have once been a Nazi, that she still wore the Iron Cross given to her by Hitler, and that the Germans really felt guilty about losing the war and not starting it. She died of a heart attack in 1979 at the age of 67, a lifetime bachelorette.