Canada-Man
Reviewer
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2015
- Messages
- 2,289
MONTREAL – A Canadian organization that promotes women in aviation is facing criticism from a Jewish rights group and questions from sponsors after deciding this year to honour a pioneering helicopter pilot who was also a notorious Nazi.
“Let’s Swirl. 80 Years of Female Helicopter Pilots,” reads the theme for this year’s Women of Aviation Worldwide Week. “Hanna Reitsch, first woman to pilot a helicopter, 1937.”
The short biography on the event’s website mentions that Reitsch, who died in 1979, became a test pilot in Germany in 1937, flew an Fa 61 helicopter that year, and in later life established gliding schools in India and Ghana.
But it leaves out the war years of 1939-45, when Reitsch was a Luftwaffe test pilot and personal favourite of Adolf Hitler, who awarded her the Iron Cross for bravery.
Though she was the first woman to pilot a helicopter, her most famous flight may have been a trip in the final days of the Second World War, when she came under Red Army fire as she landed in the heart of Berlin on a mission to take the new head of the Luftwaffe, Robert Ritter von Greim, to Hitler’s bunker.
She spent two days inside the bunker before flying out with von Greim and was one of the last people to see Hitler alive before he killed himself.
After being captured by the Americans, Reitsch reportedly said she regretted not having died at Hitler’s side and told her interrogators: “We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before the altar of the Fatherland.”
Steven Slimovitch, legal counsel for B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights, called the choice of Reitsch to promote the aviation week unacceptable.
“As far as they’re concerned, the fact that she was an incredible pilot, that’s sufficient for them,” he said. “The fact that she appeared in Nazi propaganda in the ’30s and ’40s, that doesn’t seem to bother them too much.”
“Let’s Swirl. 80 Years of Female Helicopter Pilots,” reads the theme for this year’s Women of Aviation Worldwide Week. “Hanna Reitsch, first woman to pilot a helicopter, 1937.”
The short biography on the event’s website mentions that Reitsch, who died in 1979, became a test pilot in Germany in 1937, flew an Fa 61 helicopter that year, and in later life established gliding schools in India and Ghana.
But it leaves out the war years of 1939-45, when Reitsch was a Luftwaffe test pilot and personal favourite of Adolf Hitler, who awarded her the Iron Cross for bravery.
Though she was the first woman to pilot a helicopter, her most famous flight may have been a trip in the final days of the Second World War, when she came under Red Army fire as she landed in the heart of Berlin on a mission to take the new head of the Luftwaffe, Robert Ritter von Greim, to Hitler’s bunker.
She spent two days inside the bunker before flying out with von Greim and was one of the last people to see Hitler alive before he killed himself.
After being captured by the Americans, Reitsch reportedly said she regretted not having died at Hitler’s side and told her interrogators: “We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before the altar of the Fatherland.”
Steven Slimovitch, legal counsel for B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights, called the choice of Reitsch to promote the aviation week unacceptable.
“As far as they’re concerned, the fact that she was an incredible pilot, that’s sufficient for them,” he said. “The fact that she appeared in Nazi propaganda in the ’30s and ’40s, that doesn’t seem to bother them too much.”
