The Women Who Flew for Hitler: The True Story of Hitler's Valkyries
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After a few weeks they moved on to São Paulo where Hanna had more opportunity to take part in the long-distance flights, guided by the cumulus clouds formed by warm rising air, or following the black vultures that soared the thermal upwinds.* One Sunday morning she mistook a single ‘thermal bubble’, a small pocket of warm air, for a stronger rising column capable of taking a glider up and, with her usual mix of confidence and impatience, she cast off prematurely from her motorized tow-plane. To her dismay, she quickly found herself circling back downwards, forced to search for an emergency landing site. As she approached the only obvious field in the densely populated city below, she was horrified to see it was a football pitch with a match in progress, surrounded by crowds of spectators. In Hanna’s account, it was only as she ‘swooped clean through a goalmouth’, screaming warnings in Spanish, that the players realized she was not able to pull up and ran or flung themselves to the ground. Fortunately no one was hit. Once down, her glider was mobbed by the crowd and she was only saved, she reported, by ‘a German’ who called the mounted police. Several people were injured, ‘trampled beneath the horses’ hooves’, but instead of Hanna being reprimanded, the event turned out to be the most successful PR coup of the expedition, with many local newspapers covering the ‘Strange and Marvellous Case of the Girl who Fell from the Sky!’19
Hanna spent several weeks in Brazil, and then soaring over the grassy plains of Argentina, where she landed twenty metres from the war minister after her opening display. ‘Of course’ the locals asked about Hitler, Peter wrote, as their planes ‘bore the swastika above Argentina’20 By the time the team set off for home, in mid-April 1934, Hanna had been guest of honour at numerous events, and landed in several remote villages. She had stoically rebuffed not only Heini’s advances but also the less unwelcome ones of a handsome young Spanish pilot, and she had collected the Silver Soaring Medal, the first woman ever to do so. Peter had set a new record for long-distance soaring, Wolf had achieved an unprecedented sixty-seven loops in succession, and Heini had broken the world altitude record. But ‘more importantly’, Hanna noted, ‘we had built a bridge of friendship’21
During their absence Germany had become increasingly unpopular overseas and, although their trip had not been an official goodwill mission, Hanna was delighted to have served as a voluntary ambassador for her country. At home, meanwhile, ‘Hitler seemed to be carrying everyone along with him,’ Peter wrote on his return. ‘The economy was booming, the unemployment problem had almost disappeared, the country was becoming strong again after all those years of hopelessness.’ Any earlier doubts he had harboured about the regime began to ebb away. ‘I thought Hitler must be the right man for Germany,’ he said22 Hanna emphatically agreed.
While Hanna had been away, courting publicity both for herself and for the Nazi regime, Melitta had been deliberately keeping a low profile at DVL, the German Research Institute for Aeronautics. A few years earlier, as a ‘new woman’ studying engineering, sitting astride a motorbike, or even just smoking a cigarette, she had been very visible in the Weimar Republic. But despite her unusual choice of career for a woman in 1930s Germany, as the Nazis gained support Melitta seemed discreetly to fade from view.
Melitta had always been a traditionalist at heart. Admittedly she still needed to fly as others need to breathe, but at thirty-one she was essentially socially conservative, keen on heritage, duty, and reward through hard work. She might have friends among working pilots and engineers, but now she also mixed with the aristocratic Stauffenberg brothers, rising figures in academia, law and the military, and her own siblings were flourishing in the very respectable fields of the civil service, medicine and business journalism. Melitta’s statement bob was long gone, and if she still wore trousers to work they were now part of a well-cut suit and the look was carefully softened by a silk blouse and string of pearls. She was dressing to be practical, not provocative, and this seemed to reflect her whole approach to life. Jutta saw that her sister ‘firmly declined to be dragged into the public eye’, and Melitta herself declared that she would not be ‘drawn into the shrill world of advertising in the press or radio’23 She may have been naturally reserved, but now she had another reason not to make unnecessary waves. While doors everywhere were opening for Hanna, Melitta had learned some family history that threatened not just her opportunity to fly, but also her professional life, economic well-being and even her personal relationships.
As a young man about to set out for university, Melitta’s father, Michael, had been baptized as a Protestant. It was in this faith that he had been raised, and would later bring up his own children. Melitta’s grandfather, however, Moses, had been a non-practising Jew. In the nineteenth century, when Posen had come under Prussian rule, a new synagogue had been built and the Jewish community developed close links with the German, mainly Protestant, population. Moses admired German culture, and when Michael was baptized, both father and son considered their Jewish roots to be behind them. They were German patriots, and either from a sense of shame, a wish to avoid discrimination or a belief in its irrelevance, the Schillers’ Jewish ancestry was never discussed. None of Michael’s friends knew that this young man was anything other than the model German Protestant that he both appeared, and considered himself, to be.
It is not known when Melitta first learned of her paternal Jewish ancestry: perhaps when she was confirmed, aged fourteen, or when Hitler came to power in 1933 and the fact became politically significant. That year the first wave of legislation came into force limiting Jewish participation in German public life, whether as students, civil servants, lawyers or doctors. She certainly knew by September 1935 when the Nuremberg Laws further codified the regime’s anti-Semitism, stripping German Jews of their citizenship, depriving them of basic political rights and prohibiting them from marrying or having sexual relations with ‘Aryans’. The Nuremberg Laws effectively ended any realistic hope the community might still have harboured for a tolerable existence within their country.
Close friends and colleagues knew that Melitta was already critical of Nazi policies. Perhaps while studying in Munich she had heard some of the early speeches in which Hitler referred to Jews as ‘vermin’, and insisted that ‘the Jew can never become German however often he may affirm that he can’24 This ‘Volkish’ ideology, the belief that blood rather than faith or legal status determined the race to which any individual belonged, had been reiterated in the two volumes of Mein Kampf, published in 1925 and 1926.* Along with many others, at that point Melitta probably still doubted that Hitler would gain power. By 1933 ‘the Nazis were in the saddle, but no one dreamed that it would be for long’, a Stauffenberg family friend wrote, before adding that ‘it was amazing to watch the speed with which the paralysing power of dictatorship and tyranny grew’25 Two years later Melitta must have paid close attention to Hitler’s introduction to the Nuremberg Laws, but here the Führer was uncharacteristically vague. In interviews afterwards he claimed that ‘the legislation is not anti-Jewish, but pro-German. The rights of Germans are hereby protected against destructive Jewish influence.’26
Michael Schiller, now seventy-four, responded with a mixture of courage and caution. At the end of 1935 he submitted a three-page article to Germany’s Nature and Spirit magazine, making the case for raising children to be ‘fully human’ by the cultivation of logical thinking and the exclusion of any belief in supernatural powers27 He was not making a stand for Jews, or for human rights in general, but simply for his own family. He could not understand how they could be defined by their ‘blood’ rather than by their obvious brains and abilities. On publication, he sent the article to his children; it would not be his last attempt to defend them.
In fact, at first, none of the Schiller family were directly affected by the Nuremberg Laws. In a painful attempt to discriminate systematically, the regime identified Jews as those who had three or four ‘racially’ Jewish grandparents, or two if they were practising Jews. Melitta and her siblings theref
ore fell outside the scope of the laws. Furthermore, initial exceptions were made for highly decorated veterans, people over sixty-five or those married to Aryans, meaning Michael was also exempt. There was no need for an anxious conversation about whether to register or try to disappear. Nevertheless, it was clear that the Schiller family were no longer quite the equal German citizens that they had once been, and now that the principles of racial segregation and discrimination were enshrined in German law, there could be no guarantee that they would not yet find themselves subject to persecution.
Before the end of 1935 new legislation further marginalized German Jews: Jewish officers were expelled from the German army; Jewish students could no longer take doctorates; German courts could not cite Jewish testimony; and some cities started prohibiting Jews from municipal hospitals. Soon ‘Aryan certificates’ were required for college, work and marriage. ‘Luckily, we had all finished our studies,’ Klara later remembered, but ‘from that time on there was danger hanging over all of us like the Sword of Damocles.’28 Lili, the eldest sister, had trained as an X-ray assistant in Berlin but, already married and quietly raising a family, she was unlikely to attract attention. Jutta was also married, to a senior Nazi official. For her these were peaceful years. However, Otto, Melitta and Klara all needed certificates for their workplaces. They decided to try to hide their ancestry. The fact that their father, Michael, was officially a Polish citizen following the border change helped to delay things. In an attempt to buy some time, ‘we pretended to get our papers from Odessa,’ Klara continued29 Later, they claimed nothing could be found. Otto was now an agricultural attaché at the German Embassy in Moscow. In 1932 he had visited Ukraine to gain an insight into the famine caused by Stalin’s programme of farm collectivization, giving him unique value for the new regime. For now his position was secure. Klara had applied for and received German citizenship in 1932. That year she visited Otto in Russia, and stayed to study nutrition and then work in the north Caucasus. In 1935, probably in a deliberate strategy to keep her out of Germany, Otto helped find her work cultivating soya in Spain.
As a patriot Melitta continued to affirm her loyalty to Germany, but unlike Hanna she now saw a clear distinction between her adored country with its rich cultural heritage and the so-called Third Reich, from whom she suddenly had to hide her family history. Knowing that her aviation development work at DVL was of national importance, she focused on making sure she was regarded as an invaluable member of the team before her Jewish heritage could be revealed and her job called into question. She now spent long days on the airfield and in her office, talked a little less about politics, and very rarely mentioned her family.
Nazi interest in science and aviation had given Melitta’s institute a much-needed boost. ‘Suddenly there seemed to be an abundance of equipment, and plenty of funds for building up a new army and to carry out new scientific research projects, as well as for flying,’ her friend and colleague Paul von Handel wrote30 Between 1934 and 1936, Melitta embarked on the first of a series of test flights with clear military significance. Previously, she had been experimenting with state-of-the-art wind tunnels to assess the impact of wing flaps, slats and adjustable propellers on aerodynamics, speed and efficiency. Her pioneering design solutions became standard for commercial airlines. In 1934, however, she focused on the performance of ‘propellers in a nosedive’; test-flying, analysing and modifying designs that would later become essential for the Luftwaffe – and she was well aware of the implications of this work. Later that year when, as a woman, she was barred from participating in the German touring competition, Melitta flew the event route in an air ambulance, outside the official contest. She was the only pilot to incur no penalties. Melitta was not just making a point about her own ability, ‘she simply didn’t take seriously anything she disagreed with’, one of her sisters commented31 She was also using the opportunity to gain some practice in case air ambulances should soon be in greater demand.
That autumn Hans Baur, Hitler’s personal pilot, flew the Führer to the annual Nuremberg Rally. As his silver plane circled over the ancient city, thousands strained their eyes to watch him descend ‘from the sky like a Teutonic god’32 In March he had announced the expansion of the Wehrmacht, the return of universal conscription and the official creation of the Luftwaffe. Public ceremonies were organized, with impressive aerial displays above and military parades below. According to Hanna, this was ‘general peacetime conscription’, but she admitted that the international atmosphere was ‘extremely tense’33 Until this point, Winston Churchill later wrote, air sport and commercial aviation in Germany had hidden ‘a tremendous organization for the purposes of air war’. Now, ‘the full terror of this revelation broke . . . and Hitler, casting aside concealment, sprang forward, armed to the teeth, with his munitions factories roaring night and day, his aeroplane squadrons forming in ceaseless succession.’34 Later that year, the flying ace Ernst Udet, who had served alongside Melitta’s uncle in the Great War, demonstrated his chubby grey Curtiss Hawk and a Focke-Wulf dive-bomber at the Reich’s party conference, paving the way for a full aircraft development programme. Melitta was soon busy not only undertaking blind-flying and radio courses, but also working on the development and testing of dive-brakes for bombers. With little safety equipment it was high-risk work; between 1934 and 1937, thirteen of her colleagues were killed in accidents at DVL.
Despite the growing investment in research for military applications, which Melitta welcomed, Paul felt that at DVL ‘the influence of Nazi policies was, at first, barely perceptible’. Even in the army, he believed, ‘there was little political interest’35 His – and Melitta’s – friend, Claus von Stauffenberg, certainly considered himself an apolitical army officer in the best tradition of the military, although his family later said he would leave the room promptly should he hear Jews being insulted36
Inside German universities the situation was quite different. Since the Nazis had assumed power, education at all levels had become strictly controlled and directed. For Melitta’s flame, Alexander von Stauffenberg, a professor of ancient history at the University of Berlin and soon to be appointed both to the University of Giessen and as extraordinary professor at Würzburg, the imposition of a political agenda over academic history boded very ill. It was this, Paul believed, that made Alexander so ‘much more critical of the political development of Hitler’s Germany than Litta, Claus and I’37 Whether from a dreamy lack of social shrewdness or in deliberate angry defiance, Alexander repeatedly and publicly criticized the regime and its policies in a way that already few others would dare. His twin brother, Berthold, now a lawyer in The Hague, was also disturbed by the changing political climate. As early as July 1933, the Nazis had been declared the only legal political party in the country, and that October Germany left the League of Nations, prompting Berthold’s return to Berlin to work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. The regime’s lack of legal principles and disregard for international law deeply disturbed him. Nationalist patriotism and even some level of racial distinctions he could accept, but not political tyranny or institutionalized racial persecution. Unlike many of their friends and relatives, none of the Stauffenberg brothers joined the NSDAP.
Alexander quietly moved in with Melitta in 1934. Although she did not introduce him to her family, both of them clearly considered their relationship permanent. The previous September, Claus had dutifully married Baroness Nina von Lerchenfeld, an ‘extremely good-looking’ member of the Bavarian aristocracy, ‘with dark slanting eyes and glossy hair’38* Berthold was engaged to the Russian-born Mika Classen, whom he would marry not long after the death of his father in June 1936. Mika’s family had fled Russia during the revolution, but the old Count had been ‘very much opposed’ to the match because she did not come from an aristocratic German family39 Only Alexander was still officially single. It is unlikely that his father knew Melitta had Jewish ancestry, but he still had reservations about her social status.
Melitta’s
family was not immune from prejudice either, considering privilege not earned by personal merit to be vaguely ridiculous. ‘How often she was teased, with a wink, by her brother and sisters when her mother joked, every now and then, about the deeds of her own noble ancestors,’ Jutta later recalled. Noticing Melitta’s discomfort, her father maintained that coming from the once privileged classes ‘contributed to the establishment of character based in reason and responsibility’40 Melitta’s response is sadly not recorded but she had sufficient self-respect to see her prestige as a pilot as equal to that of the aristocracy. In any case, Alexander’s classical understanding of what it meant to be noble meant he could never sit idle, resting on the family laurels. In fact he was as enthralled by his vocation as Melitta was by hers. However, there was another reason for Melitta and Alexander not to apply to get married – Melitta would have to provide an ‘Aryan certificate’. Eventually she succumbed and formally applied for Aryan status for herself and her siblings, on the basis of her parents’ wedding certificate listing both parties as Protestant. Then she waited.
Hanna had returned from South America in the late spring of 1934. ‘We can’t let you leave us now . . .’ Walter Georgii had told her during the return journey, ‘you belong to us.’41 That June she joined Peter Riedel and Heini Dittmar at Georgii’s internationally acclaimed gliding research institute based at Darmstadt, just south of Frankfurt. ‘I could hardly imagine any greater happiness,’ she wrote42 The timing was good. The Nazis were investing as much in gliding as in Melitta’s aeronautical research institute, DVL, but Hanna needed training before she could become an official glider test pilot. Within a few weeks she established a new women’s world record for long-distance soaring, covering a distance of over a hundred miles. On the back of this she secured a place at the Civil Airways Training School at Stettin, which usually took only male trainees.