Hanna Reitsch (born March 29, 1912, Hirschberg, Germany – died August 24, 1979, Frankfurt am Main) was the leading female German test pilot in the 20th century. Signed on front and back. Postcardsize.
During the last days of the war, Hitler dismissed Hermann Göring as head of the Luftwaffe and appointed Reitsch’s lover, von Greim, to replace him. Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport into embattled Berlin to meet Hitler in the Führerbunker, arriving on 26 April as the Red Army troops were already in the central area of Berlin. Reitsch and von Greim had flown from Rechlin–Lärz Airfield to Gatow Airfield in a Focke Wulf 190, escorted by twelve other Fw 190s from Jagdgeschwader 26 under the command of Hauptmann Hans Dortenmann. In Berlin, Reitsch landed on an improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate. Hitler gave Reitsch two capsules of poison for herself and von Greim. She accepted the capsule.
During the evening of 28 April, Reitsch flew von Greim out of Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 from the same improvised airstrip. This was the last plane out of Berlin. Von Greim was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamer Platz and to make sure Heinrich Himmler was punished for his treachery in making unauthorised contact with the Western Allies so as to surrender. Troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army, which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten from the north, tried to shoot the plane down fearing that Hitler was escaping in it, but it took off successfully.
Capture, 1945: Reitsch was soon captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by U.S. military intelligence officers. When asked about being ordered to leave the Führerbunker on 28 April 1945, Reitsch and von Greim reportedly repeated the same answer: “It was the blackest day when we could not die at our Führer’s side.” Reitsch also said: “We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before the altar of the Fatherland.” When the interviewers asked what she meant by “Altar of the Fatherland” she answered, “Why, the Führer’s bunker in Berlin …” She was held for eighteen months. Von Greim killed himself on 24 May 1945.
Evacuated from Silesia ahead of the Soviet troops, Reitsch’s family took refuge in Salzburg. During the night of 3 May 1945, after hearing a rumour that all refugees were to be taken back to their original homes in the Soviet occupation zone, Reitsch’s father shot and killed her mother and sister and her sister’s three children before killing himself.
