http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/reitsch.html
Nazi Germany's leading woman stunt pilot and an enthusiastic admirer of Hitler who begged to be allowed to die with him in the Fuhrerbunker at the end of World War II, Hanna Reitsch was born in Hirschberg, Silesia, on 29 March 1912, the daughter of an ophthalmologist. The diminutive, slightly built blonde, who was to become a symbol of virile heroism in the 1930s, originally aimed to be a flying missionary doctor in Africa, but turned instead to piloting gliders and powered aircraft with daring and unusual skill. From 1931, when she set the women's world record for non - stop gliding (five and a half hours), extended to eleven and a half in 1933, to her world record in non - stop distance flight for gliders (305 kms) in 1936, and her woman's gliding world record for point - to - point flight in 1939, Hanna Reitsch's feats were unrivaled. In 1934 she set the world's altitude record for women (2,800 m.), three years later she made the first crossing of the Alps in a glider, and in 1938 the first indoor helicopter flight in the Deutschlandhalle, Berlin. In the same year, she also won the German long - distance gliding championships. In 1937, Hanna Reitsch was appointed a flight captain and first woman test pilot for the new Luftwaffe by General Ernst Udet, subsequently performing test flights with all kinds of military planes during World War II. She flew, among others, the little Henschel 293 rocket interceptor and the ponderous Messerschmitt Gigant transport, and carried out several flight with the V - I in 1944, testing the prototype for the robot bombs that were designed for pilotless flight.
Fraulein Reitsch, who had miraculously survived several crashes, was the first and only woman to be awarded the Iron Cross (First and Second Classes) by Hitler in 1942 for her contribution to civilian flying. A much decorated favourite of the Fuhrer, the brave, patriotic test pilot was politically naive, refusing to believe that Hitler was implicated in such events as the Crystal Night pogrom and dismissing talk of concentration camps as propaganda. From November 1943 she joined General Robert Ritter von Greim, a fanatic flier and, like herself, an idealistic believer in Nazism, in his air force headquarters on the eastern front line in Russia. She and von Greim were among Hitler's last visitors in the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin on 26 - 29 April 1945, after flying through Russian flank and anti - aircraft shells to reach the Reich Chancellery. On 29 April a physically and morally broken Hitler commanded her and von Greim (the newly appointed Commander - in - Chief of the Luftwaffe) to leave Berlin and rally the remaining Nazi air forces to support a rescue operation. They escaped miraculously through a sea of flames and explosions as Russian troops ringed the city, reaching Admiral Karl Doenitz's headquarters. Hanna Reitsch was later arrested and held in an interrogation center for fifteen months by the Americans, then released in 1946.
In 1951, she published her autobiography Fleigen, mein Leben (Engl. trs. Flying is my life, 1954) and a year later she was the sole female competitor at the International Gliding Championships in Madrid, winning the bronze medal. In 1955, she won the German glider championships (again as the only woman competitor) and in 1957 she took the bronze medal, also setting two German women's glider altitude records in the same year. Germany's most successful woman flier during three decades, Hanna Reitsch continued to be active as a research pilot after 1954. In 1959, she spent several months in India, becoming friendly with Indira Gandhi and the then - Prime Minister Nehru, whom she took on a glider flight over New Delhi. In 1962, the indefatigable Fraulein Reitsch set up the National School of Gliding in Ghana, where she became a confidante of President Kwame Nkrumah. An exceptional woman, who during her long career set more than forty altitude and endurance records in powered and motorless aircraft, Hanna Reitsch was nonetheless representative in her simple - minded enthusiasm for National Socialism and the personality of Hitler. After the war she appeared to undergo a change of heart, telling an American reporter in 1952 that she was shaken and disgusted by what had happened in the corridors of power during the Third Reich. She died in Frankfurt am Main on 24 August 1979.