Biography of hanna reitsch

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Hanna Reitch was born 29 March 1912 in Hirschberg, Silesia and died 24 August 1979 in Frankfurt. From an early age Hanna wanted to fly (picture left, courtesy Bundesarchiv).

In her autobiography she wrote, 'The longing grew in me, with every bird I saw go flying across the azure summer sky'. Despite her parents’ misgivings, she managed to persuade them to let her take up gliding in her teens. She loved flying from the start, and although she began to study medicine, her true love was aviation.

She managed to convince her parents that for a future career as a flying doctor in Africa she would need a pilot’s licence, and so she began to take lessons in powered flight. Proving herself to be both dedicated and determined when it came to anything to do with flight, she soon gave up her medical studies to become a gliding instructor for a number of years, also winning many glider competitions and gaining a number of records.

From 1935, Hanna began to be involved in glider research and test gliding. In 1937 she was one of the first pilots to cross the Alps in a glider. Around this time she was ordered to report to a Luftwaffe testing station for duty as a test pilot, and thus began the type of flying for which she is best known.

She flew a wide variety of types of military aircraft, including the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka and Dornier Do 17. Her obvious flying skill

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Hanna Reitsch was born on 29 March 1912 in Hirschberg (now Jelenia Góra, Poland). Dreaming of becoming a pilot since she was a young child, she often visited local air clubs. Although she studied medicine, she managed to get a pilot license in 1932 and later decided to leave medical school to become a professional test pilot. In the following years, she tested various civil and military airplanes before and during the war, which led to several accidents and injuries. For her successes she – among only a few German women – was awarded with both classes of the Eisernes Kreuz (Iron Cross) and became a propaganda star in the Third Reich.

Her political attitude towards National Socialism could be described merely as ‘naïve’, although she proposed the idea of ‘self-sacrificing’ pilots in 1944, which was nevertheless rejected by Hitler. After Hermann Göring was suspended of his duties as the Luftwaffe commander-in-chief on 23 April 1945, Reitsch flew the German Luftwaffe Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim to Berlin on 26 April 1945, so that Greim could be appointed the new commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe by Hitler personally. During their flight over Berlin, which was already encircled by the Red Army, their airplane came under anti-aircraft fire with Greim wounded in the right foot and Reitsch taking control and landing it in Tiergarten.

After staying for a couple of days in the Führerbunker, they flew from the Ost-West-Achse in the night from 28 to 29 April on the last airplane to the headquarters of Karl Dönitz in Northern Germany and later to Tyrol. After the war, Hanna Reitsch continued her career as a test pilot winning several contests and organizing aviation schools in India and Ghana. She died in Frankfurt am Main on 24 August 1979.

German aviator and test pilot

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 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.

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

Career

1933–1937

In 1933, Reitsch left medical school at the University of Kiel to bec