Hitler's Heroine: Hanna Reitsch (32 page)

4 Hanna shakes hands with an officer at the Rhön soaring competition of 1936. Hanna was not renowned for doing well at the competition and never matched the great successes of her fellow gliders, such as Heini Dittmar and Peter Riedel, but she enjoyed the experience. (German Federal Archives)

5 Wolf Hirth was legendary among gliders. He had survived several crashes, though it was a road accident that cost him a leg. He was a father figure to Hanna and died doing what he loved best – gliding. (German Federal Archives)

6 The Olympics in Berlin were hugely controversial. The Americans had threatened to boycott them due to the Nazi Party’s anti-Semitic stance. Hanna, having just come from flying displays at the Winter Olympics, managed to ignore the strong atmosphere of controversy in Berlin. (Josef Jindrich Sechtl)

7 The Olympics introduced Hanna to several people who would subsequently become friends or enemies, including Captain Eric Brown, then a boy visiting the stadium, who was first fascinated by Hanna, but turned against her during the war. (Fallschirmjager)

8 Hanna performed several displays, both at the Olympics and two years later, when flying the first helicopter either in or near to the Deutschlandhalle. In 1938 its interior was made to look like an African village and Hanna had to perform flying stunts inside twice a day, feeling unhappily like a circus performer. (German Federal Archives)

9 The Germans built the first viable helicopter in 1938 and though Hanna could not claim to be the very first test pilot for the machine, she was the first woman inside. In this image it is difficult to tell the gender of the pilot, but it is tempting to think it might be Hanna. She proved skilful at flying the awkward machine and even impressed Göring.

10 Ernst Udet first met Hanna in the 1930s and became very fond of her. She, in turn, respected and adored him. Udet, however, was unsuited to his rank in the Luftwaffe, and pressure from above and the political interference of Göring eventually destroyed him. Udet committed suicide the year after this picture was taken. (German Federal Archives)

11 Charles Lindbergh was one of Hanna’s heroes and he witnessed her flying the helicopter. She was especially enamoured of him because Lindbergh was generous in his praise of Germany and was not entirely against Hitler or Göring. Lindbergh would later be viewed as a Nazi by the US press, but Hanna thought he was honest and charming. (Library of Congress)

12 There is still debate as to why Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat in Paris, was assassinated. It may have been pure bad luck on his part. Whatever the cause, the result was the terrible Kristallnacht, witnessed by Hanna Reitsch, and her first indication that all was not well in Germany.

13 A synagogue is burned to the ground in Siegen. Hanna witnessed a similar scene while on a night out with staff of the DFS. She was upset to realise that most of her colleagues were revelling in the destruction. Hanna stood up for the Jews, but this is often forgotten.