Hanna Reitsch

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Reitsch next to Karl Ritter (1968)

Hanna Reitsch (born March 29, 1912 in Hirschberg , Silesia ; † August 24, 1979 in Frankfurt am Main ) was one of the most famous and successful female pilots in Germany in the 20th century. Reitsch set more than 40 records in all classes and types of aircraft. She gave up her German citizenship in 1974 and became Austrian .

youth

Hanna Reitsch was the second of three children of the doctor Willy Reitsch, who ran an eye clinic, and his wife Emy (née Helff-Hibler von Alpenheim). Even as a child, she dreamed of flying. The young woman stated that her dream job was “flying missionary doctor”. When she was off school, she rode her bike to the glider airfield in Grunau . It was there in the early 1930s that she met the young Wernher von Braun , with whom she had a lifelong friendship. In 1931 she graduated from high school, then she attended the colonial women's school in Rendsburg . From 1932 she studied medicine in Berlin and Kiel .

First flying successes

Reichsluftsportführer Oberst Mahnke paid a visit to the glider pilots on the Wasserkuppe on August 27, 1936 . Here he welcomes Hanna Reitsch, the only participant in the competition.
A DFS Habicht with Hanna Reitsch and flight captain Knoetsch at the major flight day in 1938 at the Kassel-Waldau airfield

In addition to her studies, the woman, who is only 1.50 meters tall, acquired her sailing and motorized license in 1932 at the Berlin-Staaken airfield . In the same year she set her first record, the permanent glider record for women (5.5 hours in the air). In 1933 Reitsch was asked by Wolf Hirth to work as a flight instructor at his new glider piloting school on the Hornberg near Schwäbisch Gmünd. From 1933 to 1934 she took part in a research expedition in Brazil and Argentina and dropped out of medicine after four semesters in favor of aviation. In 1936 she set a new world record in gliding for women with 305 kilometers. Further records followed (see section: Aviation Achievements ).

As a trial and test pilot

From June 1934 on, Hanna Reitsch worked as a test pilot for the " German Research Institute for Glider Flight " in Griesheim . She worked closely with the well-known designer and DFS department manager Hans Jacobs . As the first woman in the world, she was made an honorary flight captain by Ernst Udet in 1937 and appointed as a test pilot to the flight test center of the Air Force Rechlin in September 1937 . There she tried out Stukas , bombers and fighters . From 1937 on, she flew the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 helicopter built by Henrich Focke (later renamed Fa 61, after the company co-owner and former aerobatic pilot and test pilot Gerd Achgelis ), with which she rode a 109-km Flug set a world record for helicopters. In 1938 Reitsch demonstrated this helicopter in the Deutschlandhalle in Berlin on the world's first indoor helicopter flight. A flight with the motor glider and wing-only Horten H II (registration number D-11-187 ) of the Horten brothers near Berlin in November 1938 is documented by one of their test reports, in which, among other things, they noted that they opened the landing gear lever Because of her arms that were too short.

Adolf Hitler awards Reitsch the Iron Cross 2nd Class, in the middle Göring (March 1941)

As a test pilot, Reitsch flew in together with Erich Klöckner in 1939 the tall ship DFS 230 intended for the German airborne troops and on March 8, 1941, 11 days after the first flight, the cargo glider Me 321 .

With the Dornier Do 17 and the Heinkel He 111 she flew attempts to find out whether the steel cables of British balloon barriers could be cut with a device attached to the bow of the aircraft. In 1942, Reitsch flew the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket aircraft in Augsburg  - but only in a pure towing flight in a non-powered cell of the Me 163 without the highly explosive two-component rocket fuel. This was expressly forbidden to Reitsch due to its importance for Nazi propaganda at the time, since the associated high risk of a serious (start) accident, which was not uncommon, was not wanted. Nevertheless, she was seriously injured in the head in a landing accident with the Me 163b when her face was thrown into the reflex sight. After her recovery she took part in experiments with the manned Fieseler V1 ("Reichenberg"). Hanna Reitsch was seriously injured several times during her testing activities. For her work, she received, among other things, the Iron Cross second and first class (EK I as the only woman in German history) and the pilot and observer badge in gold with diamonds ( Melitta Schenk Countess von Stauffenberg and Reitsch were the only women with such awards) .

From the winter of 1943/1944 Reitsch campaigned for the development of the " self-sacrificed " aircraft. This project, which she proposed to Adolf Hitler on February 28, 1944 , provided for manned bombs in which the death of the pilot was accepted, similar to the Japanese Tokkōtai (" Kamikaze "). The project met with considerable resistance from the air force leadership and was not implemented.

Relationship to Nazi ideology

Reitsch in April 1941 in her hometown Hirschberg, next to her Karl Hanke , Gauleiter of Lower Silesia

Hanna Reitsch grew up in a German national climate, as was widespread among many Germans at the time due to the consequences of the First World War . The Reitschs turned to the National Socialists early on, as they promised a revision of the Peace Treaty of Versailles and the subsequent partition of Upper Silesia . Hanna Reitsch herself was an enthusiastic personal supporter of Hitler, to whom she remained loyal to the end: “A leadership may have been right or wrong - it is not up to me to judge that. But if you are primarily responsible for this leadership, you have to be ready to go under with it. "

Nevertheless, Reitsch was not a “classic National Socialist”. Rather, their political convictions were based on easily ambiguous terms such as “ loyalty ” and “ love of the country ”. She was neither a member of the NSDAP nor any other Nazi organization. She also did not accept an “honorary membership” in the Association of German Girls (BDM). The Nazi racial policy was leaning Reitsch expressly and supported with her family the negative attitude of the Silesian Evangelical Church. When the rumors about the extermination camps became known, she asked Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler of all people about the truthfulness of these allegations. This gives an indication of Hanna Reitsch's private and political "naivety" repeatedly described by contemporary witnesses.

Reitsch also felt the latently misogynistic climate of the Nazi state: in 1936, as a woman, she was initially refused to take part in the Rhön flight competition, and she was not accepted into the Nazi air corps . Nevertheless, she allowed herself to be instrumentalized by the Nazi regime. After the outbreak of war, the popular aviator reported on her work as a test pilot on numerous lecture tours across Germany and called on young people to work for the fatherland. At the end of 1943 she also visited the Eastern Front to “raise the morale of the troops” .

After Hermann Göring was removed from office by Hitler on April 23, 1945, Hanna Reitsch flew his designated successor Robert Ritter von Greim on April 26, 1945 with a Fieseler Storch to Berlin, which was already enclosed by the Red Army , so that Hitler personally took him under simultaneous promotion to field marshal could be appointed commander in chief of the air force . On the night of April 28-29, 1945, Reitsch and Greim used Charlottenburger Chaussee as a runway to take the last plane, a small Arado , to Plön , where Hitler's successor Karl Dönitz was still staying at the time. Reitsch and Greim then fled to Kitzbühel in Tyrol , where they were taken prisoner by the Americans.

Post-war posture

Reitsch spent a total of 18 months in various internment camps. She was questioned in detail about her stay in the Führerbunker . The transcripts of the interrogations became public and were freely edited by the later Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper and used in his book The Last Days of Hitler (London 1946). Reitsch vigorously opposed the statements ascribed to her and called them falsifications. In December 1947 Reitsch was denazified as "not affected" because she had not belonged to any Nazi organization.

In her books published after the end of the war, there are no attempts to critically examine National Socialism. Although she addresses her numerous encounters with Nazi leaders such as Hitler, Göring and Himmler, she avoids any evaluation. Reitsch had denied the past, according to the psychological attempt to explain the mirror in 1979, "out of a feeling of shame that the truth about the devoutly revered Reich and its 'tragic' leader could not have endured." In 1974 Reitsch gave her German citizenship and out of annoyance that she was accused of “glorifying the Nazi regime” in the Federal Republic of Germany - despite all the naivety she was allowed to do - accepted Austrian citizenship .

Further career path

From 1954 Reitsch worked again as a test pilot in Darmstadt, this time at the re-established German Aviation Research Institute (DVL). In 1959, at the invitation of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru , she traveled to India to set up a high-performance glider network. In 1961 she was invited by President John F. Kennedy to visit the White House and met her childhood friend Wernher von Braun again in the USA . From 1962 to 1966 Reitsch stayed in Ghana , where she set up and directed a gliding school and flew the then President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah as its pilot. In 1968 Hanna Reitsch was a founding member of the Association of German Female Pilots . In the 1970s, she set further records in various flight categories. She was named “Pilot of the Year 1971” at the International Order of Characters , in 1972 Honorary Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots in California, as the third woman after Jacqueline Auriol and Jacqueline Cochran , who had received this honor a year earlier 1975 the international chain of the "wind rose".

Old age and death

Hanna Reitsch's grave in the Salzburg municipal cemetery

Reitsch flew until the end of her life. She died in 1979 at the age of 67 in Frankfurt am Main of acute heart failure. She is buried in the grave of her family members at the Salzburg municipal cemetery. The Spiegel wrote in its obituary:

"Hanna Reitsch [...] embodied the German-national schizophrenia between external modernity and internal Middle Ages, between technical-scientific intelligence and deluded 'piety', between personal decency and collective barbarism."

- Der Spiegel 36/1979

Aviation achievements

  • 1932: Long-term gliding record for women (5.5 hours)
  • 1936: Women's distance record in gliding (305 km)
  • 1937: first crossing of the Alps in a glider by a woman
  • 1937: the first woman in the world to be appointed flight captain by Colonel Ernst Udet
  • 1937: first woman in the world to fly a helicopter ( Focke-Wulf Fw 61 ); also flight in a closed hall ( Germany hall )
  • 1937: world record for helicopters (109 km)
  • 1938: Winner in the "German glider route competition" Sylt - Breslau (Silesia)
  • 1939: Women's glider world record in target flight
  • 1943: As a test pilot at the Rechlin Air Force Test Center : first woman to fly a rocket plane ( Messerschmitt Me 163 A) and survive a serious landing accident. For this she was the only woman in German history to receive the Iron Cross First Class .
  • 1944: First woman in the world to fly jet aircraft ( Messerschmitt Me 262 and Heinkel He 162 at the Luftwaffe test center in Rechlin)
  • 1952: Third place at the gliding world championships in Spain with Lisbeth Häfner (two-seater class)
  • 1955: German master of gliding
  • 1956: German women's glider flight course record (370 km)
  • 1957: German high altitude gliding record for women (6,848 m) (1st diamond for Gold-C)
  • 1960: 300 km triangular flight (2nd diamond to Gold-C)
  • 1970: German women's gliding record over 500 km (3rd diamond for Gold-C), as well as German champion in the German gliding competition (women's class)
  • 1971: World Champion at the Helicopter World Championship (women’s class)
  • 1972: German women's glider record in speed flight over the 300-kilometer triangular route
  • 1977: German women's glider record in the destination-return flight over 644 km
  • 1978: Women's glider world record in the destination-return flight over 715 km
  • 1979: German women's glider record in the finish-return flight over 801.70 km

Honors

Media reception

In the film The Downfall , Hanna Reitsch is played by Anna Thalbach .

Barbara Rütting plays Hanna Reitsch in the spy thriller Secret Action Crossbow .

Books

  • Flying, my life . 4th edition. Herbig, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7766-2197-4 (autobiography).
  • I flew in Africa for Nkrumah's Ghana . 2nd Edition. Herbig, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7766-0929-X (former title: I flew for Kwame Nkrumah ).
  • The indestructible in my life . 7th edition. Herbig, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-7766-0975-3 .
  • Ups and downs. 1945 to the present . Heyne, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-453-01963-6 .
  • Ups and downs. 1945 to the present . 2nd expanded edition. Herbig-Verlag, Munich / Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-7766-0890-0 .

literature

Comic

  • Yann / Henriet Bärenzahn 3 volumes. All Verlag, 2015–2016

Documentation

watch TV

  • Himmelsstürmerinnen - German aviators . Documentation from February 3, 2014 by ZDF-History about German aviation pioneers
  • On February 26, 2016 on ORF 2 in the documentary series Universum History: Hanna Reitsch - "Hitler's Fliegerin"
  • 2020 ZDF documentary Hitler's death (2/4): The Testament [1]

Radio reports and podcast

Web links

Commons : Hanna Reitsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In detail: Matthias Blazek: "Hanna Reitsch flew a helicopter record from Faßberg in 1937", in: Faßberg - Luft- und Raumfahrt in der Heide , brochure on AeroSpaceDay Faßberg, self-published by the Faßberg community, Faßberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-00- 042877-7 , p. 58 f. See Hans strenght: Faßberg - history of the air base and the unincorporated district of Faßberg in the Lüneburg Heath , self-published by the author, Faßberg 1971, pp. 77-79, 192 (appendix).
  2. ↑ www.nurflugel.com .
  3. ↑ Hanna Reitsch - Hitler aviator , documentation of Gerhard Jelinek and Fritz Kalteis, 2010 IMDb.de .
  4. ↑ Hanna Reitsch autobiography: Höhen und Tiefen , p. 97 ff, Herbig Verlag, Munich 1977 / specifically on the only EK I of a woman in German history: text on the back cover of the book cover.
  5. ↑ See Sigmund, p. 182.
  6. ↑ Hanna Reitsch: Ups and Downs, 1945–1977 . Munich 1977, p. 75.
  7. ↑ Sigmund, pp. 194, 202.
  8. ↑ See Sigmund, p. 192 ff., P. 200 ff.
  9. ↑ Poor, poor Adolf: Treue - but not until death in Der Spiegel 16/1947, pp. 5–6, from April 19, 1947.
  10. ↑ Traudl Junge, Melissa Müller: Until the last hour - Hitler's secretary tells her life , Munich 2002, p. 292, footnote 104
  11. ^ Reitsch interrogation documents in the Hoover Library (Lerner estate, B. 21); Trevor-Roper documents in the IfZ Munich (Irving Collection, DI-39); See also Sigmund's presentation, p. 219 ff.
  12. ↑ a b Hanna Reitsch † in Der Spiegel 36/1979, p. 268, from September 3, 1979.
  13. ↑ Sigmund, p. 224 f.
personal data
SURNAME Reitsch, Hanna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German aviation pioneer and aviator
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Hirschberg in the Giant Mountains , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1979
Place of death Frankfurt am Main