Hanna Reitsch

Germany state institutions Fascism and National Socialism 1912–1979 ○ Natural causes

The test pilot who flew Greim into encircled Berlin

On 26 April 1945, when a bullet struck Greim's foot as he flew their Fieseler Storch over Berlin, Reitsch reached over him to take the controls and landed on an improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate.

Born in Hirschberg in Silesia, Reitsch set a string of women's gliding records in the 1930s and in 1937 became the first woman to fly a helicopter. As a test pilot at the Luftwaffe test centre at Rechlin she flew dive bombers, the Me 163 rocket plane and jet aircraft, and received the Iron Cross from Hitler. In February 1944 she put to Hitler a plan for suicide missions flown by volunteer pilots. On 26 April 1945 she flew Robert Ritter von Greim into encircled Berlin, stayed in the Führerbunker and flew out with him days later on Hitler's orders. Because she had belonged to no Nazi organisation, she was classed as not affected in her denazification in 1947. After the war she returned to competitive gliding, and from 1962 to 1966 she lived in Ghana at Kwame Nkrumah's invitation and founded a national gliding school there.