Hitler's Heroine: Hanna Reitsch Read Online Free PDF

the stick just a fraction, without anyone noticing? Would the “crate” take me a yard or so up into the air?’
    So the School of Grunau learned what the real Hanna was like. The daredevil within had taken over. The other students, wanting to spook this frail little girl who had infiltrated their class, hauled extra hard on the rope to give her a really fast slide. Hanna pulled back the stick just a few inches, and the combination sent the glider soaring. Hanna was jerked forward then back, for a moment she had no sense of what was happening, then she was looking up into blue sky. Hanna was flying!
    From below a frantic Pit van Husen was shouting for her to come down. Hanna pushed the stick forward, the glider’s nose dropped steeply. She didn’t want to land, didn’t want to come out of her bubble, and she pulled the stick back and climbed again. But then something happened, the airspeed dropped, the glider lost whatever thermal it had found and she plunged downwards. There was a crash and Hanna found herself thrown from the plane with a gang of whooping boys tearing towards her. The glider was in one piece, so was Hanna, and she stood up and laughed at the oncoming students, who were delighted to see a woman fail so dramatically. Pit van Husen was another matter. ‘What did you think you were doing?’ the instructor was screaming at her, bellowing in his fury and fear. ‘You are a disobedient, undisciplined girl! I should never have allowed you here, you are completely unfit for flying!’
    Hanna was cowed before the boys who were smirking and enjoying the performance. ‘As a punishment,’ continued van Husen, ‘you will be grounded for three days!’ Van Husen spun on his heel and stalked off. Several students followed, but a few remained. They were quietly impressed by Hanna’s daring. After all, she had been the first to fly. As they helped her haul the glider back to its start point, they gave her a new nickname – Stratosphere.
    Hanna cycled home more dejected than she liked to admit to herself. Her foolhardiness had stripped her of her dream to fly before she had even begun. Now she would have to ensure she stayed on van Husen’s good side to avoid any further bans. It was to be far from the last time Hanna’s tendency to act before she thought landed her in trouble. What Hanna could not know as she rode home, arguing with herself that she was not completely unfit for flying, was that Pit van Husen was working on removing her from the course altogether. After Hanna had gone, he went to report to Grunau’s director, Wolf Hirth, and explained the full problem. A pioneer of gliding, Hirth was something of a god to his young students. He had a round, jovial face which, when he smiled, folded into happy creases and crumpled up his eyes. He was never happier than when flying, undeterred at having to wear both glasses and a prosthetic leg, having lost the original limb in a 1924 motorcycle accident. If anyone spotted him smoking they might have noted his unusual cigarette holder carved from the fibula of his lost leg.
    Hirth had taken up gliding at the same age as Hanna, in the days just after the First World War, when gliding was all that remained of Germany’s aviation industry. He had excelled at competitive gliding, particularly in annual competitions at Wasserkuppe. Nothing deterred him. Certainly not the loss of a leg. Hirth’s brother, Hellmuth, had founded the Hirth Aircraft Engine Manufacturing Company and this, coupled with having a father who was an engineer, spurred Hirth to explore aircraft construction. In 1928 he attained his diploma in engineering from the Technical University of Stuttgart and over the next decade would promote gliding in almost every country across the world.
    The year 1931 had brought another dramatic change in Hirth’s life: he was involved in a serious crash during a gliding demonstration tour in Hungary. Sustaining major injuries, he was confined to hospital for four