Born in Hirschberg, Silesia, she became Germany's first leading woman stunt pilot and later chief test pilot for the Luftwaffe. Hanna�s father was an opthamologist and wanted her to be a doctor.


Above all else, Hanna really had a strong and willful desire to fly. As a result of these influences, young Hanna planned to be a flying missionary doctor. However, over time, the flying influence won out. Hanna started with gliders. She became the twenty-fifth pilot and first woman to earn the Silver Soaring Medal (for a cross-country flight of fifty kilometers). She set the Women's World Record for distance and the Women's World Altitude record for gliders. She flew in South America, Finland, Portugal, and here in the U.S. at the National Air races at Cleveland, Ohio in 1938. By this time she had moved to powered flight and had flown the first practical helicopter, the FW61 - indoors even, she also demonstrated this revolutionary aircraft for Charles Lindbergh.


The Luftwaffe gave her the Military Flying Medal for this and accomplishments with other aircraft. She was the first ever woman to receive this medal .


When Germany went to war, she became a test pilot for the Fatherland. She nearly lost her life testing a barrage balloon cable cutter mounted on the wings of a Dornier 17. In recognition of her achievements she received the Iron Cross, Second Class, the second woman in Germany's history to receive this award.


The fastest plane she flew was the top secret German rocket plane. First she flew the prototype without the motor, the Me 163A. Then she flew the militarized version, the Me 163B, Komet. The undercarriage was designed to fall away on take off, but on one test flight it stayed attached instead. She managed to land it in a plowed field, but the sudden deceleration slammed her face into the gun sight. Some precautions on her account could have lessened her extensive injuries; nevertheless, she received further recognition for her flying efforts. As she was recovering from her injuries, she was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, the only woman to receive this medal.


When Hanna met Heinrich Himmler, she was still a believer in God, she discovered that Himmler was not. But soon her faith began to shift from God to the Fatherland. This shift of allegiance led Hanna, in the waning days of the Third Reich, to call for suicide missions against the Allies. Adolf Hitler and others were against this idea, but allowed a test program to start. Hanna test-flew the most likely candidate, a piloted V-1 bomb. However, with the Allies pushing across Europe from Normandy, there were no longer any high-payoff targets within range of the V-1. The suicide program never became operational.


Hanna ended up undertaking a dangerous flight to Hitler's bunker in Berlin. She flew in with Robert Ritter von Greim. Hitler named Greim head of the Luftwaffe, but when it looked like he could not leave, he and Hanna planned to commit suicide with Hitler. At the last moment Hitler ordered them to leave, and somehow they got out. She was one of the last to see Hitler alive.


Hanna survived the war, but she found herself somewhat alone. Greim committed suicide, and her father had killed her mother, her sister, and her sister's children. Then he turned the rifle on himself.


She wrote her memoirs, Fliegen, mein Leben (1951), which were translated in 1954 as Flying is My Life. In this book she presents herself as a patriot, and makes no judgments about Adolf Hitler Or N.S. Germany . After the war she was unrepentant. She continued to wear her Iron Crosses proudly , and, at the age of 65, the year before she died, she set a new women's distance record in a glider.


Hail The Spirit of the Strong Aryan Woman
Vicky WAU Ireland..