Hanna Reitsch

Hanna Reitsch
Hanna Reitsch in 1941
Born29 March 1912 (1912-03-29)
Hirschberg, Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
(Now Jelenia Góra, Poland)
Died24 August 1979 (1979-08-25) (aged 67)
Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, West Germany
NationalityGerman, Austrian[1]
Known forNazi, Aviator, test pilot
PartnerRobert Ritter von Greim (1945)

Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator and test pilot. Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight tested many of Germany's new aircraft during World War II and received many honors. Reitsch was among the very last people to meet Adolf Hitler alive in the Führerbunker in late April 1945.

Reitsch set more than 40 flight altitude records and women's endurance records in gliding and unpowered flight,[2][better source needed] before and after World War II. In the 1960s, she was sponsored by the West German foreign office as a technical adviser in Ghana and elsewhere,[3] and founded a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah.

  1. ^ "Hanna Reitsch – Hitlers Fliegerin". ORF. Archived from the original on 13 October 2016. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  2. ^ Hanna Reitsch at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  3. ^ Rieger 2008.