test pilot
Hanna Margarete Maria Therese Reitsch, was born on March 29, 1912 In Jelenia Góra (Hirschberg). Her family home was a tenement house at today’s 11 Bankowa Street. The street itself had its name changed several times, in the following order: Promenade (1863-1933), Adolf-Hitlerstrasse (1933-1945), Wolności Avenue (1945-1949): December 15th Avenue (1949-1993), Bankowa Street since 1993.
Hanna Reitsch was the most famous German test pilot, aviation acrobat, and above all a famous glider, a multiple German, European and World champion in this field. Today, she is counted among the 100 greatest figures in the world of aviation.
Hanna’s parents were Willi Paul Reitsch, a doctor of medicine, an ophthalmologist, and his wife Emilie Therese Maria née Helf-Hibles von Alpenheim, who came from Austrian Tyrol. She took care of the house and although she was a Catholic, Hanna was brought up as an Evangelical woman. Hanna’s father ran a private ophthalmology practice from 1910. The Reitsch family had three children. Apart from Hanna, they were her older brother Kurt Paul, born on September 16,1910, and her younger sister, Maria Maragerta Dorota, born on November 30, 1916.
In 1930, Hanna Reitsch passed the matura exam at a middle school in Jelenia Góra, and then continued her education at the Kolonialna Szkoła dla Kobiet (Colonial School for Women), and in 1931 began medical studies in Berlin, continued from 1932 in Kiel. However, she did not complete those studies. Her true and only passion, from at least the age of 15, was flying. Therefore, right after passing her matura exam, she enrolled in a gliding course, in a gliding school that opened at the turn of 1923/1924 in nearby Jeżów Sudecki (Granau). Here, too, in 1928, glider production plants were established. The first piloting lessons of the young gliding adept were given by instructor Pit van Husen. Although she was the only woman there and was not shown favorable treatment, she did well, proving to be the most talented participant in training. Wolf Hirth himself, the head of the school and the fame of German gliding, noticed her and began giving her individual lessons. Hanna completed the gliding course in 1930. Then, in 1932 in Berlin, She completed the pilot course and obtained a plane pilot license.
Quite quickly, thanks to talent and extraordinary diligence, Hanna Reitsch achieved considerable sporting success, breaking many country and world records. As early as the summer 1933, during a regular flight with a new glider, Granau-Baby, she quite unexpectedly broke the altitude record (2300 m), and additionally made an emergency landing on Równia near Śnieżka mountain. That same year she was hired in a film as a double and stunt performer. In 1934, she set off on a German gliding expedition to South America. During this trip, she stayed in the air for over three hours, for which she was awarded the Silver Glider Medal. At that time, she was the first woman in the world to receive this award. In July 1934, after returning from America, Hanna Reitsch began working at the German Gliding Research Institute (Deutsche Forschunsinstitut für Segelflug). Soon (1935) she obtained the position of a test pilot there. In 1937, together with five colleagues, she made the first ever glider flight over the Alps, breaking the record for altitude (4000 m) and flight length (over 160 km). From that moment on, she became a very famous person in Germany and the world. All of Germany was interested in the career of Hanna Reitsch, which was unusual for a woman. After all, she was a denial of the traditional German woman whose place - especially in the Nazi period - was definde by a rather contemptous phrase: “Kirche, Kinder, Küche" - "Church, children, kitchen.". She was called “Heroin of the Third Reich” and became very popular. She entered the “salons”, befriending many top officials of the Third Reich. Her friend from even before 1932 was also Wernher von Braun.
However, her sports successes did not satisfy her aviation ambitions. Looking for new experiences and sources of income, she not only worked as an aviation stuntman in films, but finally became a professional test pilot in the Luftwaffe, the first woman in such a position. She won championship laurels in aviation acrobatics. She tested the first helicopters (in 1938 Focke-Achgelis FW 61), jet planes, V-1 manned flying bombs, transport gliders. Her extraordinary dedication, effort combined with talent, as well as the risks taken, allowed the designers to eliminate many design flaws, which undoubtedly saved the lives of many later users of various aircraft. As a test pilot, she also contributed to the development of aviation technology, suggesting many technical solutions, or drawing the attention of the designers of these machines to their mistakes and shortcomings.
Hanna Reitsch was a personal friend of many of the highest-ranking officials of the Third Reich. She was awarded the honorary rank of "air captain", for her merits as a tester for the Luftwaffe, she was also decorated with a special diamond pilot's badge, as well as the Iron Cross II class (March 28, 1941), as the second woman in the history of Germany. A little later, on April 4, 1941, the authorities of Jelenia Góra granted her honorary citizenship, and the granting of this title turned into a great manifestation of all the town's inhabitants in honor of Hanna. On October 30, 1942, while flying the Me 163B Komet rocket plane, she had an accident and sustained serious injuries. This event, however, became the reason for her next award. From Adolf Hitler himself, in recognition of her services to German aviation, she received the Iron Cross, 1st class.
Hanna Reitsch was never a member of the Nazi party. However, she was fascinated by the ideology of National Socialism. All her friends and relatives as well as people to whom she owed her aviation career were supporters of this trend, she basically did not know any other ideology, and she identified it with Germany, which she wanted to serve until the end. She considered working towards the victory of Nazi Germany as her patriotic duty. She was so dedicated to this that in February 1944 she became the suggested the idea of creating a German "Suicide Squadron", modeled after Japanese kamikazes. Her idea was not realized. However, she undertook other special tasks and missions. In 1945, she held, inter alia, courier flights between the besieged Wrocław and Berlin. Finally, she flew with General Greim to the besieged Berlin and stayed in Hitler's bunker for three days. From there, on April 29, 1945, she was the last person to get out of the siege by plane.
After the war, due to her convictions and the fact that she was one of the few people who left Hitler's bunker alive in the last days of the war, she was imprisoned for 15 months by the Americans. Then her pilot's license was revoked, which was a real tragedy for her. Having no sources of income, Reitsch took up writing down memoirs which were published in 1951, bringing her money and satisfaction. However, the real joy came when the Allies lifted the ban on gliding sports by the Germans in 1952, and the restoration of her pilot's license, which allowed her to return to the helm.
From 1952, Hanna Reitsch began to work very actively for the reconstruction of the sport of gliding in Germany. She successfully participated in the national and world gliding championships, breaking new records. It also won its first diamonds, i.e. glider badges. She also began working as a test pilot at the Focke-Wulf factory. However, in 1958 she had a conflict with the authorities of the German Aero Club, which did not stand up for her against the decisions of the Polish authorities not allowing her to participate in the gliding championships held in Leszno. Offended, she left Germany for many years. First, she promoted gliding in India, and then, in 1962-1966, ran a gliding school in Ghana at the personal invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, the president of the country at the time. In 1968, she took part in the German Helicopter Championships. In the following years she broke new gliding records, e.g. in 1978 the world record for return flight (715 km). She also received many honorable awards. In 1972, she became an honorary member of the American Society of Experimental Test Pilots and the German Veteran Pilots Association, and the German Association of Female Pilots elected her as its vice-president. She also wrote more books about her aerial feats. She died on August 24, 1979 and was buried in Salzburg, Austria, next to the graves of her immediate family members. She never started a family of her own, had no husband or children. Her only and true love was aviation, and in fact she devoted her entire life to it.