Hitler's Heroine: Hanna Reitsch (24 page)

Herr Reitsch was terrified of the thought of his family returning to Hirschberg. He imagined his daughter and grandchildren being violated, his wife being tortured and killed, and him not being able to prevent it. Slowly, slowly these thoughts festered in his already tormented mind. When Hanna left Berlin, General Koller claimed to have informed the Reitsch family. He can’t have done, for when the Führer died and reports spread over the radio of his death, the Reitsch family had no knowledge of where Hanna was. It was natural for them to assume she was still in the bunker, either dead or in the hands of the Russians. Herr Reitsch favoured the former answer; he couldn’t bear the idea of his daughter being a prisoner of the Soviets. With no news of Kurt either, the elder Reitschs resolved themselves to the fact their two oldest children must be dead.

On 4 May a family friend called on the Reitsch household. She knew of Herr Reitsch’s fears and had even found the family a refuge on a farm where they might hide in secrecy. But Herr Reitsch would not leave the attic rooms of Salzburg – if Hanna lived they would be the first place she would go to find them. On that May morning, as Germany wondered what Dönitz had planned for his people and whether a navy man knew what he was doing, Herr Reitsch told his visitor that the family were suffering from upset stomachs. ‘They drank some bad fruit juice,’ he said. ‘They should be better tomorrow.’

The friend left, wishing them a speedy recovery and promising to return the next day. On 5 May when she approached the house there was an old cart drawn up outside. Its cargo was covered with old blankets, but it was obvious it contained bodies. Herr Reitsch had shot his wife, daughter, grandchildren and maid, before shooting himself. The day before, he had tried to poison them with cyanide, causing the upset stomachs but not proving fatal. He had left a note for Hanna, just in case she had survived. He told her she must be comforted and even made happy by the knowledge her loved ones were safe in the arms of God. No torture or torment could befall them. Herr Reitsch had done his duty by his family.

Von Greim broke the news to Hanna. She was bereft. She had no idea how she would continue with her life without the mother who had been her rock throughout the years. How terrible to have survived so many brushes with death only to have the people she loved most in the world snatched away. Hanna hardly knew how to cope. She turned to von Greim, who was supportive and allowed her to place some pictures of her family in his room with candles. There they sat together in silence contemplating the dead of the Reitsch household, while Hanna knew von Greim was planning his own death. Then she would have no one.

On 22 May von Greim was officially arrested by the British. He would be transferred to England and would then have to testify at the Nuremburg trials. On 24 May von Greim bit down on the suicide capsule he had been given by Hitler and died. Hanna was at last truly alone. She toyed with the idea of suicide. This was the closest she would ever come to such a decision. Without family, without friends, without even a true Germany to sustain her, what was left for Hanna Reitsch? The only thing that stayed her hand was her promise to von Greim that she would delay her own suicide so it was not associated with his. Even so, she was close to giving in.

During that first week of total loneliness Hanna had a visit from three American officers. They wanted to know if she would come to America. She would be able to fly to her heart’s content and would probably become more famous than she already was. If she didn’t agree, well, they would have to leave her in the hands of the American CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps). Hanna wasn’t interested; she flew for Germany and Germany alone. Selling out to America struck her as a betrayal to her country. She was hardly to know that her old gliding pal Wernher von Braun was happily contemplating his own transfer to the US. She turned them down, but accepted their offer to take her to see von Greim’s grave in Salzburg – perhaps they thought it might shake her loyalty enough to reconsider their invitation.

On the journey they presented her with photographs taken at Dachau concentration camp, from which they had just returned. They reminded Hanna of the pamphlet Peter Riedel had once thrust at her, the one Himmler had so adamantly denied. Hanna was stunned into speechlessness. She was genuinely a kind, giving person who would not inflict cruelty on others. The images broke her. So this was the Germany she had fought for? She tried to deny the images to herself, but it was impossible faced with the sad, emaciated faces staring at her from the black and white photographs. If this was true, then the Germany she had devoted herself to had not deserved her loyalty. Her efforts suddenly seemed so worthless.

Hanna turned this over and over in her mind. No, all was not worthless. It was Germany’s leaders that had led the country astray, had committed these crimes in the name of its people, behind their backs, in secret. But Germany was much more than the last ten years, and Hanna’s patriotism was based on more than the shouted speeches of a jumped-up army corporal. The Americans thought the images would be the final push to make Hanna turn her back on Germany; they were wrong, they had the opposite effect. Hanna was fired up; she would not see her country destroyed because of the crimes of a few. She would help to restore the dignity and honour of Germany. She would stay and she would fight for it. In that instant all thoughts of suicide were gone.

When Hanna paid her respects at von Greim’s grave it was with a very different concept of the future than she had previously contemplated. She had thought she would be joining him soon; instead she was now going to live and prove Germany’s worth. Hanna now had a firm answer for the Americans: ‘I am the German test pilot Hanna Reitsch. I will always remain a German, especially in this time of her misery.’ She has been criticised for this attitude. Perhaps she should have sold out to the Americans like some of her friends – it would at least have earned her more sympathy. But Hanna was not after pity:

As a German and one who was happy to live under Hitler’s rule when our country had never had it so good before, how could I suddenly point a jeering finger against it at this time when fortune was against it, with my eye on a fat American carrot? I may appear in some eyes to be a hopeless idealist. But dishonest and a hypocrite – never!

Was some of that statement aimed rather pointedly at a certain von Braun? Hanna might have been foolish, but her final decision to stay in Germany through the hard times ahead deserves respect.

Hanna’s future now very much depended on which of the Allies finally took her prisoner. There was quite a bit of delay and Hanna was still in Kitzbühl when news came that the French were going to take control of that area. Uncertain what the French would do with German prisoners – after all, they had been occupied for several years and had lost much of their Jewish population to Hitler’s fury – Hanna and others were evacuated by the Americans to another zone under their control. Hanna arrived at Innsbruck, but her heart was drifting away to Salzburg again. She wanted to see the graves of her family and of von Greim once more. She was about to board a train to make the journey when she was accosted and politely ‘arrested’ by an American intelligence officer. Hanna found herself officially in the hands of the Americans. There is a slight confusion in Hanna’s autobiography concerning the timing of her arrest. Hanna refers to being transferred from Kitzbühl by the Americans, but according to her biography by Judy Lomax she was already in Innsbruck. However she came to be in US custody, her story had now taken an interesting turn.

‘[Hanna] concerns [herself] with the Nazi and German interpretation of “honor,”’ ran the US interrogation report on Hanna after she was first taken into custody:

Reitsch herself, in answering queries, carefully weighs the ‘honor’ aspects of every remark and then gives her answers carefully but truthfully. The use of the word amounts practically to a fetish complex with the source and is almost an incongruous embodiment of her entire philosophy. Her constant repetition of the word is in no manner as obvious to her as it is to the interrogator, nor is the meaning the same, nor does she recognize the incongruous use she makes of the word.

Looking at Hanna with British or American eyes is always problematic for culturally her outlook on life was so different from that of the Western Allies. Her interrogators found her honest, but driven by a burning desire to maintain her ‘honour’ at all costs. The old military culture of Germany had instilled in its people a strong attitude of obedience, respect for rank and the need to serve superiors even when wrong. Neither Britain nor the US had similar attitudes that they could reflect on to understand the German philosophy. For much of her life Hanna was persecuted because she stuck to this old code of honour, because she did not conform to the ways of Britain and America. She never denied she had served Hitler, nor laced her later memoirs with anecdotes of moral outrage conjured up in the quiet space of hindsight. Hanna’s very honesty, which she equated with her own concept of honour, condemned her.

Hanna’s views on honour were no more complicated than when she tried to explain to the Americans why she asked to remain in the bunker. The US interrogation report states:

[von Greim and Hanna] begged to be allowed to remain in the bunker, and with their own lives atone for the great wrong that Göring had perpetrated against the Führer, against the German people, and against the Luftwaffe itself. To save the ‘honor’ of the flyers who had died, to re-establish the ‘honor’ of the Luftwaffe that Göring had destroyed, and to guarantee the ‘honor’ of their land in the eyes of the world, they begged to remain.

This allows us to make better sense of Hanna’s desire to remain in the bunker. In a heightened moment of emotion she felt that the Luftwaffe, that body of flyers to which she felt so akin and honour-bound, would be destroyed by Göring’s actions. She wanted to atone for him, not so much for the Führer’s benefit, though that played a part, but for the benefit of posterity. To prove that not all Germans were traitors. Such actions fit perfectly with Hanna’s character and nature. When it became plain that Hitler had given up and saw only defeat, Hanna was distressed for her country and her people:

Reitsch sank to a chair in tears, not, she claims, over the certainty of her own end but because for the first time she knew that the Führer saw the cause as lost. Through the sobs she said, ‘Mein Führer, why do you stay? Why do you deprive Germany of your life?’

Hanna knew all too well that Germany was falling apart, that internal conflicts were causing its defeat as much as its over-reaching Führer. But at least with a figurehead such as Hitler it might struggle on and survive intact. Without him the people would give in; the soldiers, sailors and airmen would admit defeat. There would be surrender and then there would be the retribution of the Russians. Hanna could not see that Germany was doomed, even with Hitler alive.

As fascinating as Hanna’s complex views were, the Americans wanted to know the truth about the men who had eluded them through death. Goebbels in particular caught their attention and they asked Hanna to describe him:

[Goebbels was] insanely incensed over Göring’s treachery. He strode about his small, luxurious quarters like an animal, muttering vile accusations concerning the Luftwaffe leader … ‘That swine,’ Goebbels said, ‘who has always set himself up as the Führer’s greatest support now does not have the courage to stand beside him …’ All this, as Hanna saw it, was in the best theatrical manner, with much hand waving and fine gestures, made even more grotesque by the jerky up-and-down hobbling as he strode about the room. When he wasn’t railing about Göring he spoke to the world about the example those in the bunker were setting for history. As on a platform and gripping a chair-back like a rostrum he said: ‘We are teaching the world how men die for their honour’ … [Hanna] claims too, that after listening to these tirades she and von Greim often asked each other, with a sad, head-shaking attitude, ‘Are these the people who ruled our country?’

Hanna had an even lower opinion of Eva Braun, who seemed to encapsulate the worst of womanhood:

Most of [Eva’s] time was occupied in finger nail polishing, changing of clothes for each hour of the day, and all the other little feminine tasks of grooming, combing and polishing … Her constant remark was, ‘Poor, poor Adolf, deserted by everyone, betrayed by all’ … She was simply convinced that whatever followed the Third Reich would not be fit to live in for a true German. Often she expressed sorrow for those people who were unable to destroy themselves as they would forever be forced to live without ‘honor’ and reduced instead to living as human beings without souls. Reitsch emphasises that Braun was apparently of rather shallow mentality, but she also agrees that she was a very beautiful woman.

Surprisingly, Hanna did not believe that Hitler had married Eva Braun before their suicide. Admittedly, the ceremony was not traditional and was probably only legal under Nazi law, but it did indeed happen. As for Hitler himself:

It is apparent from Reitsch’s conversation that she held the Fuhrer in high esteem. It is probably also true when she says that her ‘good’ opinion suffered considerably during the closing stages of the War. She is emphatic when she describes the apparent mismanagement she observed and learned of in the bunker … Reitsch claims that Hitler the idealist died, and his country with him, because of the incompetence of Hitler the soldier and Hitler the statesman. She concludes, still with a faint touch of allegiance, that no one who knew him would deny his idealistically motivated intentions nor could they deny that he was simply infinitely incompetent to rule his country … She repeatedly remarked that never again must such a person be allowed to gain control of Germany or of any country. But strangely enough she does not appear to hold [Hitler] personally responsible for many of the wrongs and evils that she recognises completely and is quick to point out. She says rather, ‘A great part of the fault lies with those who led him, lured him, criminally misdirected him, and informed him falsely. But that he himself selected the men who led him can never be forgiven.’