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47-624: The flight qualities of the Habicht were praised by pilots, including Hanna Reitsch . It participated in many airshows abroad before the war, including the 1938 National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio . Modified versions of the Habicht, dubbed the Stummel-Habicht ("Stumpy Hawk"), were used to train pilots to fly the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet rocket-powered fighter. Trainees included students from

94-404: A Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (with Reitsch riding in the small plane's fuselage), escorted by twelve other Fw 190s from Jagdgeschwader 26 under the command of Hauptmann Hans Dortenmann . In Berlin, Reitsch and von Greim took a Fi 156 Storch —initially piloted by von Greim until his foot was struck by a bullet, then by Reitsch reaching over him to land on an improvised airstrip in

141-485: A "modernist" development ideology. 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". 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. In Ghana, some Africans were disturbed by

188-705: A "ready smile". She appeared in Nazi propaganda throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s. 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. In 1938, during the three weeks of the International Automobile Exhibition in Berlin, she made daily flights of

235-594: A commercial pilot, but could not find work, and instead spent six years working under Walter Georgii  [ de ] at the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS - German Research Institute for Sailplane Flight). In the meantime, he continued competitive gliding, setting a world distance record of 229 km (142 mi) in 1933 and winning the Hindenburg Cup at the Wasserkuppe competition

282-557: A gliding centre, and she flew with him over New Delhi . In 1961, United States President John F. Kennedy invited her to the White House . 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

329-609: A member of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS) and became a test pilot in 1935. 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 . In 1937, Ernst Udet gave Reitsch the honorary title of Flugkapitän after she had successfully tested Hans Jacobs 's divebrakes for gliders. At

376-652: A two-year contract with SCADTA , an airline from Colombia , not intending to return to Germany. In 1937, he competed in the Soaring Society of America 's national competition. While in the U.S., he was approached by the German Military Attaché and offered a post in Washington, DC, which he accepted and took up in June 1938. His work involved gathering intelligence on U.S. air activities and reporting to Berlin. In time, he

423-582: Is quoted as saying: And what have we now in Germany? A country of bankers and car-makers. Even our great army has gone soft. Soldiers wear beards and question orders. I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But today in all of Germany you can't find a single person who voted Adolf Hitler into power ... Many Germans feel guilty about

470-541: The Hitler Youth Glider Schools. The Me 163 was designed to use its entire load of rocket fuel to reach combat altitude of approximately 10,000 metres (33,000 ft), before returning to land as a fast glider. Trainees therefore began on a Stummel-Habicht , in which the original 14 metres (46 ft) wingspan, was modified to one having an 8 metres (26 ft) wingspan, and another having an 6 metres (20 ft) wingspan. The shorter wingspan closely mimicked

517-573: The Ufa Film Company as a stunt pilot and set an unofficial endurance record for women of 11 hours and 20 minutes. In January 1934, she joined a South America expedition to study thermal conditions, along with Wolf Hirth, Peter Riedel and Heini Dittmar . While in Argentina, she became the first woman to earn the Silver C Badge , the 25th to do so among world glider pilots. In June 1934, Reitsch became

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564-589: The Wasserkuppe , taking with him a half-built glider of his own design, which he completed and flew with the help of other attendees at the meet. From then on, he became a regular participant at the competitions. With the assistance of philanthropist Karl Kotzenberg  [ de ] , who had taken an interest in the gliding movement, Riedel was able to attend the Darmstadt University of Technology , where he studied engineering. After graduation, he trained as

611-534: The last days of the war , Hitler dismissed Hermann Göring as head of the Luftwaffe and appointed Robert Ritter von Greim to replace him. Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport into embattled Berlin to meet Hitler in the Führerbunker , arriving on 26 April when Red Army troops were already in the central area of Berlin. Reitsch and von Greim had been flown from Rechlin–Lärz Airfield to Gatow Airfield in

658-599: The "Women's Out and Return World Record" twice, once in 1976 (715 km (444 mi)) and again, in 1979 (802 km (498 mi)), 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. Reitsch was interviewed and photographed several times in the 1970s, towards the end of her life, by Jewish-American photojournalist Ron Laytner. In her closing remarks she

705-622: The DFS she test-flew transport and troop-carrying gliders, including the DFS 230 that was used at the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael . In September 1937, Reitsch was posted to the Luftwaffe testing centre at Rechlin-Lärz Airfield by Ernst Udet. Her flying skill, desire for publicity, and photogenic qualities made her a star of Nazi propaganda . Physically she was petite and very slender, with blonde hair, blue eyes and

752-702: The Fa 61 helicopter inside the Deutschlandhalle . In September 1938, Reitsch flew the DFS Habicht in the Cleveland National Air Races . Reitsch was a test pilot on the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka 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. Reitsch was asked to fly many of Germany's latest designs, among them

799-494: 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

846-601: The Habicht as the THK-3 in 1945-1946. After lengthy and patient research to recover the design documentation, Josef Kurz and other members of the Oldtimer Segelflugclub Wasserkuppe built an all-new Habicht. After an extended exhibition career, this exemplar, registered also as D-8002, flies from the Wasserkuppe club's airfield. Another airworthy Habicht was built by the Zahn family and first flew in 2001. Since then, at

893-639: The ME 163 handling characteristics. Few Habichts survived World War II. There is one craft, flown by famous French aerobatic pilot Marcel Doret , in the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace in Paris . Another, with the registration D-8002, flew in Southern Germany until it was destroyed by the collapse of the hangar wherein it was stored. Apart from these original examples, Türk Hava Kurumu manufactured six reverse-engineered copies of

940-587: The Nazi regime from reports in both the US and Soviet press. Horrified, he began to deal directly with the US Office of Strategic Services but was betrayed by a friend and recalled to Berlin. Guessing what fate might have awaited him there, he instead went into hiding in Sweden. After the war, he was arrested as an illegal alien but escaped after some time in custody and fled to Venezuela , where Helen eventually joined him. Over

987-660: The School of Gliding in Grunau . 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 . 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. Reitsch contracted with

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1034-649: The Soviet occupation zone, Reitsch's father shot and killed her mother and sister and her sister's three children before killing himself. 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

1081-632: The Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate and Berlin Victory Column . On 27 April, Hitler gave Reitsch two capsules of poison for herself and von Greim, which she accepted. Shortly after midnight on 29 April, Hitler ordered Reitsch and von Greim to fly out of Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 (which had been flown to the Tiergarten by the pilot who stowed Reitsch in his fuselage), asserting that they could get General Walther Wenck to save Berlin. Von Greim

1128-557: The age of 67, on 24 August 1979. She had never married. 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

1175-523: The altar of the Fatherland," referring to the Führerbunker . Reitsch dismissed assertions of Hitler's survival , saying, "He had no reason to live and the tragedy was that he knew it ... perhaps better than anyone else did." Reitsch claimed Hitler was initially motivated by a will to "make Germany healthy again", but gambled his populace. She criticised his incompetence as a leader (e.g. his selection of

1222-470: The armed forces. The West German government supported her as technical adviser. 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 . She gained the FAI Diamond Badge in 1970. The project was evidently of great importance to Nkrumah and has been interpreted as part of

1269-503: The bunker, and that she had taken it as part of a suicide pact with Greim. There is no record of an autopsy. Reitsch has been portrayed by the following actresses in film and television productions: Peter Riedel Peter Riedel (August 1905 – November 6, 1998) was a German gliding champion, and served as air attaché for the Nazi government in Washington, D.C., before and during World War II. Between 1977 and 1985, he published

1316-554: 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 . 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

1363-521: The definitive history of the German gliding movement prior to the war. Riedel was born in Dehlitz , Saxony . His father was a Lutheran pastor and his mother was a professor of theology at the University of Halle . Due to his father's bouts of mental illness, and his mother's suicide, Riedel was raised for some time by an uncle. In 1920, at the age of 15, Riedel attended the first gliding championship held at

1410-429: The hands of pilot Christoph Zahn, it has provided aerobatics demonstrations at numerous air shows. General characteristics Performance Hanna Reitsch 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

1457-660: The next few years, they lived and worked in Canada and South Africa , until they could finally return to settle in the U.S., where Riedel flew for TWA and Pan Am . For a while, they resided in Terre Haute , where he worked for the Reich Manufacturing Company. In his retirement, Riedel wrote an extensive and detailed history, in three volumes, of the German gliding movement between 1911 and 1937, titled Erlebte Rhöngeschichte . Shortly before his death, German Air Attaché ,

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1504-403: 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. Contemporary Ghanaian press reports seem to show a lack of interest in her past. Throughout the 1970s, Reitsch broke gliding records in many categories, including

1551-476: The rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet in 1942. And as such, she became the first and only woman 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. Reitsch received the Iron Cross First Class following the accident, one of only three women to do so. She was also the only woman to have flown

1598-502: The same year. In 1934, he accompanied Professor Georgii on a tour of Brazil and Argentina to help promote the sport in Latin America, along with Wolf Hirth and Heini Dittmar . While in Argentina, Riedel set a record for long-distance soaring. Hanna Reitsch also went, and the two became good friends. Later that year, Riedel finally found work as a commercial pilot, and flew for Deutsche Luft Hansa for two years, then accepting

1645-528: 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 . There were about seventy volunteers who enrolled in the Suicide Group as pilots for the human glider-bomb. By April 1944, Reitsch and Heinz Kensche finished tests of the Me 328 , carried aloft by a Dornier Do 217 . By then, she

1692-465: The war, Riedel was interned along with the rest of the German embassy staff. He was returned to Germany as part of a diplomatic exchange. His wife, Helen Klug, a native of Terre Haute, Indiana and a US citizen, agreed to join him. On his return, the Heinkel company employed him as an engineer, but he soon took up another diplomatic post as Air Attaché to Sweden . There, he became aware of the atrocities of

1739-531: The war. But they don't explain the real guilt we share – that we lost. In the same interview, she is quoted as saying, I asked Hermann Göring one day, "What is this I am hearing that Germany is killing Jews?" Göring responded angrily, "A totally outrageous lie made up by the British and American press. It will be used as a rope to hang us someday if we lose the war." Reitsch died of a heart attack in Frankfurt at

1786-468: 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 have flown a cruise missile ( Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg ). She was also likely to have been the first woman to fly a dive bomber (Ju 87). In February 1943 after news of

1833-478: The wrong persons for office) and argued repeatedly that never again must an individual have so much control over any country. Reitsch was held for eighteen months; von Greim killed himself on 24 May 1945. Evacuated from Silesia ahead of the Soviet troops, Reitsch's family took refuge in Salzburg . During the night of 3 May 1945, after hearing a rumour that all refugees were to be taken back to their original homes in

1880-563: Was among the very last people to meet Adolf Hitler alive in the Führerbunker in late April 1945. Reitsch set more than 40 flight altitude records and women's endurance records in gliding and unpowered flight, 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, and founded a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah . Reitsch

1927-726: Was approached by SS - Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny , a founding member of the SS- Selbstopferkommando Leonidas ( 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. The plan was never implemented operationally, "the decisive moment had been missed." In her autobiography Fliegen, mein Leben Reitsch recalled that after two initial crashes with

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1974-592: 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, brother Kurt, a Fregattenkapitän (frigate captain), and younger sister Heidi. Reitsch began flight training in 1932 at

2021-479: Was made a commissioned officer of the Luftwaffe and given the official position of Air Attaché. In July 1938, during the 9th Annual American Soaring Contest, Riedel -flying a two-place German sailplane of German make with Dr. Karl O. Lange, the contest director, as his passenger- landed in Mohawk Flats near Utica, New York four hours after having taken off from Elmira, New York . When the United States entered

2068-569: Was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamer Platz and to make sure Himmler was punished for his treachery in making unauthorised contact with the Western Allies regarding surrender terms. 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. Reitsch

2115-400: Was soon captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by U.S. military intelligence officers. When asked about being ordered to leave the Führerbunker on 29 April 1945, 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 stated, "We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before

2162-473: Was the first woman to compete and in 1955 she became German champion. She continued to break records, including the women's altitude record (6,848 m (22,467 ft)) in 1957 and her first diamond of the Gold-C badge. 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

2209-550: Was usually employed." In October 1944, Reitsch claimed she was shown a booklet by Peter Riedel which he had 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. During

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