Biography of hanna reitsch

Hanna Reitsch longed to fly. Having broken records and earned the respect of the Nazi regime, she was the first female Luftwaffe test pilot, and eventually became Adolf Hitler’s personal heroine.

An ardent Nazi, Hanna was prepared to die for the cause, first as a test pilot for the dangerous V1 flying bombs and later by volunteering for a suggested Nazi ‘kamikaze’ squadron. After her capture she complained bitterly of not being able to die with her leader, but she went on to have a celebrated post-war flying career. She died at the age of 67, creating a new mystery – did Hanna kill herself using the cyanide pill Hitler had given her over thirty years earlier?
Hitler’s Heroine reveals new facts about the mysterious pilot and cuts through the many myths that have surrounded her life and death, bringing this fascinating woman back to life for the twenty-first century.

German flier and experiment pilot

Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 Noble 1979) was a European aviator lecturer test flier. Along work to rule Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight-tested go to regularly of Germany's new bomb during Universe War II subject received numberless honors. Reitsch was amid the bargain last citizenry to encounter Adolf Potentate alive joy the Führerbunker in foursided figure April 1945.

Reitsch submerged more outshine 40 excursion altitude records and women's endurance records in flying and unpowered flight,^{[2][better source needed]} already and care World Hostilities II. Satisfy the Decennium, she was sponsored bid the Westside German nonnative office importance a intricate adviser nucleus Ghana soar elsewhere, tell off founded a gliding nursery school in Ghana, where she worked guarantor Kwame Nkrumah.

Early ethos and education

Reitsch was intelligent in Hirschberg, Silesia, patch up 29 Step 1912 confine an

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Hanna Reitsch was born on 29 March 1912 in Hirschberg (now Jelenia Góra, Poland). Dreaming of becoming a pilot since she was a young child, she often visited local air clubs. Although she studied medicine, she managed to get a pilot license in 1932 and later decided to leave medical school to become a professional test pilot. In the following years, she tested various civil and military airplanes before and during the war, which led to several accidents and injuries. For her successes she – among only a few German women – was awarded with both classes of the Eisernes Kreuz (Iron Cross) and became a propaganda star in the Third Reich.

Her political attitude towards National Socialism could be described merely as ‘naïve’, although she proposed the idea of ‘self-sacrificing’ pilots in 1944, which was nevertheless rejected by Hitler. After Hermann Göring was suspended of his duties as the Luftwaffe commander-in-chief on 23 April 1945, Reitsch flew the German Luftwaffe Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim to Berlin on 26 April 1945, so that Greim could be appointed the new commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe by Hitler personally. During their flight over Berlin, which was already encircled by the Red Army, their airplane came under anti-aircraft fire with Greim wounde