35 Facts About Hanna Reitsch

Hanna Reitsch was a German aviator and test pilot.

Hanna Reitsch set more than 40 flight altitude records and women's endurance records in gliding and unpowered flight, before and after World War II.

Hanna Reitsch was born in Hirschberg, Silesia, on 29 March 1912 to an upper-middle-class family.

Hanna Reitsch was daughter of Dr Wilhelm Reitsch, who was an ophthalmology clinic manager, and his wife Emy Helff-Hibler von Alpenheim, who was a member of the Austrian nobility.

Hanna Reitsch had two siblings, brother Kurt, a naval Fregattenkapitan, and younger sister Heidi.

Hanna Reitsch began flight training in 1932 at the School of Gliding in Grunau.

Hanna Reitsch contracted with the Ufa Film Company as a stunt pilot and set an unofficial endurance record for women of 11 hours and 20 minutes.

In June 1934, Hanna Reitsch became a member of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Segelflug and became a test pilot in 1935.

Hanna Reitsch enrolled in the Civil Airways Training School in Stettin, where she flew a twin-engine on a cross country flight and aerobatics in a Focke-Wulf Fw 44.

In September 1937, Hanna Reitsch was posted to the Luftwaffe testing centre at Rechlin-Larz Airfield by Ernst Udet.

Hanna Reitsch's flying skill, desire for publicity, and photogenic qualities made her a star of Nazi propaganda.

Hanna Reitsch appeared in Nazi propaganda throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Hanna Reitsch was the first female helicopter pilot and one of the few pilots to fly the Focke-Achgelis Fa 61, the first fully controllable helicopter, for which she received the Military Flying Medal.

In September 1938, Hanna Reitsch flew the DFS Habicht in the Cleveland National Air Races.

Hanna Reitsch was asked to fly many of Germany's latest designs, among them the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 in 1942.

Hanna Reitsch received the Iron Cross First Class following the accident, one of only three women to do so.

Hanna Reitsch was the only woman to have flown the world's biggest glider, the Messerschmitt Me 321 Gigant.

Hanna Reitsch was instrumental in having a second pilot added to the Me 321.

Hanna Reitsch was the first woman in the world to fly a jet fighter, and the only woman in the world to have flown a cruise missile.

Hanna Reitsch was likely to have been the first woman to fly a dive bomber.

Hanna Reitsch spent three weeks visiting Luftwaffe units, flying a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch.

Hanna Reitsch made several successful test flights before training the instructors.

In October 1944, Hanna Reitsch claimed she was shown a booklet by Peter Riedel which he had obtained while in the German Embassy in Stockholm, concerning the gas chambers.

Hanna Reitsch further claimed that while believing it to be enemy propaganda, she agreed to inform Heinrich Himmler about it.

Hanna Reitsch was captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by US military intelligence officers.

Hanna Reitsch stated repeatedly that never again must an individual have so much control over any country.

Hanna Reitsch was held for eighteen months; von Greim killed himself on 24 May 1945.

In 1952, Hanna Reitsch won a bronze medal in the World Gliding Championships in Spain; she was the first woman to compete and in 1955 she became German champion.

Hanna Reitsch continued to break records, including the women's altitude record in 1957 and her first diamond of the Gold-C badge.

In 1959, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru invited Hanna Reitsch, who spoke fluent English, to start a gliding centre, and she flew with him over New Delhi.

Hanna Reitsch was interviewed and photographed several times in the 1970s, towards the end of her life, by Jewish-American photojournalist Ron Laytner.

Hanna Reitsch died of a heart attack in Frankfurt at the age of 67, on 24 August 1979.

Hanna Reitsch is buried in the Reitsch family grave in the Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof.

Brown speculated that Hanna Reitsch had taken the cyanide capsule Hitler had given her in the bunker, and that she had taken it as part of a suicide pact with Greim.

Hanna Reitsch has been portrayed by the following actresses in film and television productions:.