reitsch, hanna

"Despite Hitler's dictates on women's place being in the home, two fiercely defiant female pilots were awarded the Iron Cross during the Second World War. Other than this unique distinction and a passion for flying that bordered on addiction, these women could not have been less alike. One was Aryan Nazi poster-girl Hanna Reitsch, an unsurpassed pilot, who is now best known for being the last person to fly into a Berlin-under-siege in April 1945, in order to beg Hitler to let her save him. He refused and killed himself two days later. The other pilot was her antithesis, a brilliant aeronautical engineer and test-pilot, Melitta Schenk Grafin von Stauffenberg who was part Jewish. She used her value to the Luftwaffe as a means to protect her family. When her brother-in-law, Claus von Stauffenberg, planned the Valkyrie attack to assassinate the Fuehrer, she agreed to provide the transport. Both women repeatedly risked their lives to change the history of the Third Reich--one in support of and the other in opposition to.".

Hanna Reitsch became the first female Luftwaffe test pilot. She was an ardent Nazi and prepared to die for the cause. She became Hitler's personal heroine. After her capture she complained bitterly about not being able to die with Hitler, but went on to have a celebrated flying career post-war. She died at the age of 67, creating a new mystery---did she kill herself using the cyanide pill Hilter had given her thirty years earlier?.

Biography of flier Hanna Reitsch of Nazi Germany, who managed to break the traditionally defined roles of wife and mother to become a test pilot and military pilot during World War II, earning her an Iron Cross and the friendship of Adolf Hitler.