Английская Википедия:Hanna Reitsch

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Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator and test pilot. Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight tested many of Germany's new aircraft during World War II and received many honors. Reitsch was among the very last people to meet Adolf Hitler alive in the Шаблон:Lang in late April 1945.

Reitsch set more than 40 flight altitude records and women's endurance records in gliding and unpowered flight,[1]Шаблон:Better source needed before and after World War II. In the 1960s, she was sponsored by the West German foreign office as a technical adviser in Ghana and elsewhere,Шаблон:Sfn and founded a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah.

Early life and 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 an ophthalmology clinic manager, and his wife Emy Helff-Hibler von Alpenheim, who was a member of the Austrian nobility. Despite her mother being a devout Catholic, Hanna was raised a Protestant. She had two siblings, her brother Kurt, a Frigate captain, and her younger sister Heidi. Reitsch began flight training in 1932 at the School of Gliding in Grunau.Шаблон:Sfn While a medical student in Berlin she enrolled in a German Air Mail amateur flying school for powered aircraft at Staaken, training in a Klemm Kl 25.Шаблон:Sfn

Career

1933–1937

In 1933, Reitsch left medical school at the University of Kiel to become, at the invitation of Wolf Hirth, a full-time glider pilot/instructor at Hornberg in Baden-Württemberg.Шаблон:Sfn Reitsch contracted with the Ufa Film Company as a stunt pilot and set an unofficial endurance record for women of 11 hours and 20 minutes.Шаблон:Sfn In January 1934, she joined a South America expedition to study thermal conditions, along with Wolf Hirth, Peter Riedel and Heini Dittmar.Шаблон:Sfn While in Argentina, she became the first woman to earn the Silver C Badge, the 25th to do so among world glider pilots.Шаблон:Sfn

In June 1934, Reitsch became a member of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS) and became a test pilot in 1935.Шаблон:Sfn Reitsch enrolled in the Civil Airways Training School in Stettin, where she flew a twin-engine on a cross country flight and aerobatics in a Focke-Wulf Fw 44.Шаблон:Sfn In 1937, Ernst Udet gave Reitsch the honorary title of Шаблон:Lang after she had successfully tested Hans Jacobs's divebrakes for gliders.Шаблон:Sfn At the DFS she test-flew transport and troop-carrying gliders, including the DFS 230 used at the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael.Шаблон:Sfn

1937–1945

Файл:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-W-0801-512, Rhön, Hanna Reitsch beim Segelflug-Wettbewerb.jpg
Reitsch in 1936 at Wasserkuppe
Файл:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F051625-0295, Verleihung des EK an Hanna Reitsch durch Hitler.jpg
Adolf Hitler awards Hanna Reitsch the Iron Cross 2nd Class in March 1941

In September 1937, Reitsch was posted to the Luftwaffe testing centre at Rechlin-Lärz Airfield by Ernst Udet.Шаблон:Sfn

Her flying skill, desire for publicity, and photogenic qualities made her a star of Nazi propaganda. Physically she was petite in stature, very slender with blonde hair, blue eyes and a "ready smile".[2] She appeared in Nazi propaganda throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s.Шаблон:Sfn

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, for which she received the Military Flying Medal.Шаблон:Sfn In 1938, during the three weeks of the International Automobile Exhibition in Berlin, she made daily flights of the Fa 61 helicopter inside the Шаблон:Lang.Шаблон:Sfn

In September 1938, Reitsch flew the DFS Habicht in the Cleveland National Air Races.Шаблон:Sfn

Reitsch was a test pilot on the Junkers Ju 87 Шаблон:Lang dive bomber and Dornier Do 17 light/fast bomber projects, for which she received the Iron Cross, Second Class, from Hitler on 28 March 1941.Шаблон:Sfn Reitsch was asked to fly many of Germany's latest designs, among them the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 Шаблон:Lang in 1942.Шаблон:Sfn And as such, she became the first and only women in the world to fly a rocket plane. A crash landing on her fifth Me 163 flight badly injured Reitsch; she spent five months in a hospital recovering.Шаблон:Sfn Reitsch received the Iron Cross First Class following the accident, one of only three women to do so.Шаблон:Sfn

She was also the only woman to fly the world's biggest glider, the Messerschmitt Me 321 Gigant (Giant). She was instrumental in having a second pilot added to the Me 321. She was also the first woman in the world to fly a jet fighter (Me 262), and the only woman in the world to fly a cruise missile (Fi 103R). She was also likely to have been the first woman to fly a dive bomber (Ju 87).

In February 1943 after news of the defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad she accepted an invitation from Generaloberst Robert Ritter von Greim to visit the Eastern Front. She spent three weeks visiting Luftwaffe units, flying a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch.Шаблон:Sfn

V1, 1944

On 28 February 1944, she presented the idea of Operation Suicide to Hitler at Berchtesgaden, which "would require men who were ready to sacrifice themselves in the conviction that only by this means could their country be saved." Although Hitler "did not consider the war situation sufficiently serious to warrant them ... and ... this was not the right psychological moment", he gave his approval. The project was assigned to Gen. Günther Korten.Шаблон:Sfn There were about seventy volunteers who enrolled in the Suicide Group as pilots for the human glider-bomb.Шаблон:Sfn By April 1944, Reitsch and Heinz Kensche finished tests of the Me 328, carried aloft by a Dornier Do 217.Шаблон:Sfn By then, she was approached by SS-Шаблон:Lang Otto Skorzeny, a founding member of the Шаблон:Lang (Leonidas Squadron). They adapted the V-1 flying bomb into the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg including a two-seater and a single-seater with and without the mechanisms to land.Шаблон:Sfn The plan was never implemented operationally, "the decisive moment had been missed."Шаблон:Sfn

In her autobiography Шаблон:Lang Reitsch recalled that after two initial crashes with the Fi 103R she and Heinz Kensche took over tests of the prototype Fi 103R. She made several successful test flights before training the instructors. "Though an average pilot could fly the V1 without difficulty once it was in the air, to land it called for exceptional skill, in that it had a very high landing speed and, moreover, in training it was the glider model, without engine, that was usually employed."Шаблон:Sfn

In October 1944, Reitsch claimed she was shown a booklet by Peter Riedel which he'd obtained while in the German Embassy in Stockholm, concerning the gas chambers. She further claimed that while believing it to be enemy propaganda, she agreed to inform Heinrich Himmler about it. When she did, Himmler is said to have asked whether she believed it, and she replied, "No, of course not. But you must do something to counter it. You can't let them shoulder this onto Germany." "You are right," Himmler replied.Шаблон:Sfn

Berlin, 1945

Файл:Fieseler Fi156.jpg
A Fieseler Fi 156 Шаблон:Lang 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, Hitler dismissed Hermann Göring as head of the Luftwaffe and appointed von Greim to replace him. Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport into embattled Berlin to meet Hitler in the Шаблон:Lang, arriving on 26 April when Red Army troops were already in the central area of Berlin.Шаблон:Sfn Reitsch and von Greim had flown from Rechlin–Lärz Airfield to Gatow Airfield in a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, escorted by twelve other Fw 190s from Jagdgeschwader 26 under the command of Шаблон:Lang Hans Dortenmann.Шаблон:Sfn In Berlin, Reitsch landed a Fi 156 Шаблон:Lang on an improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate.Шаблон:Sfn Hitler gave Reitsch two capsules of poison for herself and von Greim.Шаблон:Sfn She accepted the capsules.Шаблон:Sfn

Shortly after midnight on 29 April, Reitsch and von Greim flew out of Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 from the same improvised airstrip. This was the last plane out of Berlin.Шаблон:Sfn Von Greim was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamer Platz and to make sure Heinrich Himmler was punished for his treachery in making unauthorised contact with the Western Allies so as to surrender.Шаблон:Refn Troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army, which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten from the north, tried to shoot the plane down fearing that Hitler was escaping in it, but it took off successfully.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn

Capture, 1945

Reitsch was soon captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by U.S. military intelligence officers.Шаблон:Refn When asked about being ordered to leave the Шаблон:Lang on 29 April 1945,Шаблон:Sfn 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 ..."Шаблон:Sfn She was held for eighteen months;Шаблон:Sfn von Greim killed himself on 24 May 1945.

Evacuated from Silesia ahead of the Soviet troops, Reitsch's family took refuge in Salzburg.Шаблон:Sfn During the night of 3 May 1945, after hearing a rumour that all refugees were to be taken back to their original homes in the Soviet occupation zone, Reitsch's father shot and killed her mother and sisterШаблон:Sfn and her sister's three children before killing himself.Шаблон:Sfn

1945–1979

After her release Reitsch settled in Frankfurt am Main. After the war, German citizens were barred from flying powered aircraft, but within a few years gliding was allowed, which she took up again. In 1952, Reitsch won a bronze medal in the World Gliding Championships in Spain; she was the first woman to competeШаблон:Sfn and in 1955 she became German champion.Шаблон:Sfn She continued to break records, including the women's altitude record (Шаблон:Convert) in 1957 and her first diamond of the Gold-C badge.Шаблон:Sfn

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, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru invited Reitsch, who spoke fluent English, to start a gliding centre, and she flew with him over New Delhi.Шаблон:Sfn In 1961, United States President John F. Kennedy invited her to the White House.Шаблон:Sfn

From 1962 to 1966, she lived in Ghana. The then Ghanaian President, Kwame Nkrumah invited Reitsch to Ghana after reading of her work in India. At Afienya she founded the first black African national gliding school, working closely with the government and the armed forces. The West German government supported her as technical adviser.Шаблон:Sfn The school was commanded by J.E.S. de Graft-Hayford, with gliders such as the double-seated Schleicher K7, Slingsby T.21 and a Bergfalke, along with a single-seated Schleicher K 8.Шаблон:Sfn She gained the FAI Diamond Badge in 1970.Шаблон:Sfn The project was evidently of great importance to Nkrumah and has been interpreted as part of a "modernist" development ideology.Шаблон:Sfn

Reitsch's attitudes to race underwent a change. "Earlier in my life, it would never have occurred to me to treat a black person as a friend or partner ..." She now experienced guilt at her earlier "presumptuousness and arrogance".Шаблон:Sfn She became close to Nkrumah. The details of their relationship are now unclear due to the destruction of documents, but some surviving letters are intimate in tone.Шаблон:Sfn

In Ghana, some Africans were disturbed by the prominence of a person with Reitsch's past, but Shirley Graham Du Bois, a noted African-American writer who had emigrated to Ghana and was friendly towards Reitsch, agreed with Nkrumah that Reitsch was extremely naive politically.Шаблон:Sfn Contemporary Ghanaian press reports seem to show a lack of interest in her past.Шаблон:Sfn

Throughout the 1970s, Reitsch broke gliding records in many categories, including the "Women's Out and Return World Record" twice, once in 1976 (Шаблон:Convert) and again, in 1979 (Шаблон:Convert), 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.[2]

Last interview, 1970s

Reitsch was interviewed and photographed several times in the 1970s, towards the end of her life, by Jewish-American photo-journalist Ron Laytner. In her closing remarks she is quoted as saying:

Шаблон:Blockquote

In the same interview, she is quoted as saying,Шаблон:Sfn Шаблон:Blockquote

Death

Файл:Grave of Hanna Reitsch (Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof) 03.jpg
Grave of Hanna Reitsch in Salzburg

Reitsch died of a heart attack in Frankfurt at the age of 67, on 24 August 1979. She had never married.Шаблон:Sfn She is buried in the Reitsch family grave in the Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof.

Former British test pilot and Royal Navy officer Eric Brown said he received a letter from Reitsch in early August 1979 in which she said, "It began in the bunker, there it shall end." Within weeks she was dead. Brown speculated that Reitsch had taken the cyanide capsule Hitler had given her in the bunker, and that she had taken it as part of a suicide pact with Greim.[3] There is no record of an autopsy.Шаблон:Sfn

List of awards and world records

Шаблон:More citations needed

  • 1932: women's gliding endurance record (5.5 hours)
  • 1936: women's gliding distance record (Шаблон:Convert)
  • 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: the first woman to fly a helicopter (Fa 61)
  • 1937: world distance record in a helicopter (Шаблон:Convert)
  • 1938: the first person to fly a helicopter (Fa 61) inside an enclosed space (Deutschlandhalle)
  • 1938: winner of German national gliding competition Sylt-Breslau Silesia
  • 1939: women's world record in gliding for point-to-point flight.[4]
  • 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 of three German women 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 Rechlin 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 (Шаблон:Convert)
  • 1957: German gliding altitude record (Шаблон:Convert)

Books by Hanna Reitsch

In popular culture

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

See also

Шаблон:Portal

Notes

Шаблон:Reflist

References

Citations

Шаблон:Reflist

Bibliography

Шаблон:Sfn whitelist

Further reading

External links

Шаблон:Commons category Шаблон:Wikiquote

Шаблон:Final occupants of the Führerbunker Шаблон:Authority control

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  1. ↑ Шаблон:Britannica
  2. ↑ 2,0 2,1 wwiihistorymagazine.com, Profiles Шаблон:Webarchive, May 2005, retrieved 6 May 2008
  3. ↑ Reitsch mentions Hitler giving them the capsules in her autobiography The Sky My Kingdom (1991 English-language edition), p.211.
  4. ↑ "Hanna Reitsch (1912–1979)" at monash.edu.au
  5. ↑ Шаблон:Citation
  6. ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
  7. ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
  8. ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
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