Hanna Reitsch

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Hanna Reitsch : biography

29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979

Notes

Death

Reitsch died in Frankfurt at the age of 67 on 24 August 1979, allegedly after a heart attack. She had never married.

That same month Eric Brown, a British test pilot who had known her before the war, was surprised to receive a letter from Reitsch in which she reminisced about their shared love of flying, the letter ending with the words; "It began in the bunker and there it shall end". Brown speculated that this may have referred to a suicide pact with von Greim, who may well have been Reitsch’s lover: they had both been given cyanide pills by Hitler while in the bunker and Reitsch was known still to have hers. It is possible that she had made a pact with von Greim to follow him in committing suicide, albeit at a different time in order to dampen any rumours of their affair. Her death was announced shortly after Brown received this letter, which led him to wonder whether she had finally carried out her side of the pact and had used the suicide pill at last: apparently no post-mortem inquest was carried out on her body.Wings on my Sleeve pp. 113-114

Führerbunker

At the outbreak of war in 1939 Reitsch was asked to fly many of Germany’s latest designs, among them the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet as well as several larger bombers on which she tested various mechanisms for cutting barrage balloon cables. A crash on her fifth Me 163 flight badly injured Reitsch, who 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 during World War II. She became close to former fighter pilot and high-ranking Luftwaffe officer Robert Ritter von Greim.

During the winter of 1943 to 1944, she was assigned to the development of suicide aircraft and, under the command of SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny, was the first founding member of the SS-Selbstopferkommando Leonidas (Leonidas Squadron). This project, in which the pilots flew manned bombs and died during the mission, similarly to the later use of Tokkōtai (or "Kamikaze") by the Japanese, was proposed by Hitler on 28 February 1944. It is probable that the idea originated with Reitsch during her testing of the Messerschmitt Me 163 in 1942: she was the first to volunteer for the newly formed unit. The programme met with considerable resistance from the Luftwaffe high command and was never activated: even Hitler was initially reluctant to accept its use. The unit was disbanded one year later.

According to Reitch, she held several discussions with Heinrich Himmler in which she was persuaded that he was smart and correct in his ideas about the world. In October 1944 she was shown a booklet by Peter Reidler, with images of the German death camps and evidence of gassing. She claims she believed it to be outrageous propaganda, and confronted Himmler with it. He asked her if she believed it, and upon her negative response, and request to counter it, he agreed that it would be "the rope by which they will hang us, in case of defeat". Accordingly, never actually believing in any Nazi atrocities, she writes that Himmler followed suit and accordingly refuted the claims in Neutral country newspapers. in Sky, My Kingdom, Hanna Reitche’s book. (on Google books)

Early life

Reitsch was born in Hirschberg, Silesia on 29 March 1912 to an upper-middle-class family. She had a brother, Kurt, and a sister. Although her mother was a devout Catholic, Reitsch and her siblings were brought up in the Protestant religion of their father,Reitsch, Hanna (2009). The Sky My Kingdom: Memoirs of the Famous German World War II Test Pilot. Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania: Casemate Publishers. Chapter One: The Child Who Watched the Sky. an ophthalmologist who wanted her to become a doctor. Interested in aviation, she thought she might become a flying missionary doctor in North Africa and studied medicine for a time at the Colonial School for Women at Rendsburg. She began flying in 1932 in gliders and left medical school in 1933 at the invitation of Wolf Hirth to become a full-time glider pilot/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.