The Women Who Flew for Hitler: The True Story of Hitler's Valkyries

by Clare Mulley

  For Hanna, Göring now became the scapegoat for all of the regime’s misfortunes. Unable to contain herself, she rashly told her family about the parlous state of the Luftwaffe under the Reichsmarschall. Her Austrian cousin, Helmut Heuberger, had been invalided out of the army after being seriously wounded at Stalingrad. Once an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth, he was now the proud holder of the Iron Cross, Second Class.* Hanna’s revelations forced him to take a long look at the Party leadership. Slowly he reached the difficult conclusion that his oath of loyalty should be towards the German Reich, rather than the Führer and his deputies. Not long after, Heuberger lent his support to the Austrian resistance through a distant relative. More discreet than his cousin, he never discussed his changing views with Hanna, who remained blindly loyal to Hitler.*

  Göring’s ‘gross incompetence’, as Hanna put it bluntly, was certainly a key factor in the crisis facing the Luftwaffe, but Hitler’s interventions had not helped.37 Other factors included British air-warfare strategy and tactics. At the start of the war Sidney Cotton had been recruited into the RAF and given a team of specially modified Spitfires with which to conduct aerial reconnaissance. Two years later, this pioneering work had been significantly developed. RAF Medmenham, home of the British aerial intelligence ‘central interpretation unit’, had officially opened for business on 1 April 1941, at the ‘hideous’ former country home of ‘a pickle millionaire’, as one of the team, the future film star Dirk Bogarde, described it.38 Humorists enjoyed the fact that this vital base for military intelligence was inaugurated on April Fools’ Day, but ultimately the unit would prove as important to the British war effort as Bletchley Park. An estimated 80 per cent of British intelligence came from photographic reconnaissance and interpretation. ‘At 30,000 feet you could take pictures of a man on a bicycle,’ one pilot recalled.39 Thirty-six million photographs were taken over the course of the war. Such a resource required a considerable team of interpreters, most of whom were WAAFs. ‘Looking through a magnifying glass at minute objects in a photograph,’ Cotton said, defending the recruitment of women, ‘required the patience of Job and the skill of a darner of socks.’40

  Photoanalysts were trained to recognize objects such as planes, roads or buildings from above, from their size, shape and features such as shadows. A small brass stand holding a pair of lenses, called a stereoscope, enabled analysts to obtain 3D images by simultaneously viewing two pictures taken from slightly different positions. ‘Puzzling and tedious as it often was,’ wrote the photo-interpreter Sarah Oliver, daughter of British PM Winston Churchill, ‘there were moments of terrific excitement and discovery.’41*

  Photoanalyst Flight Officer Constance Babington Smith, a former journalist for both Vogue and the Aeroplane magazine, particularly enjoyed observing Rechlin. ‘One never knew what one was going to find there,’ she said, proving her point when she spotted an American B17 Flying Fortress on the enemy airfield, apparently being used for research.42 Having been tasked with setting up the unit’s dedicated aircraft section, then a unique appointment for a woman, Babington Smith identified the first image of a German jet aircraft by scorch marks on the grass airfield.* As her team hunched over their stereoscopes, it is highly likely that some of the dots emerging in 3D from the photos on their desks were Hanna and Melitta, walking to work across different airfields.

  Appalled by Hitler’s reckless military strategy at Stalingrad, when the battle was clearly lost Claus von Stauffenberg applied for a transfer. He was posted as a senior staff officer to the 10th Panzer Division in Tunisia. Here again, the situation for Germany was bleak. General Rommel had asked permission to retreat in November 1942, but had been ordered to hold out to the last man. Claus arrived to join the final days of the fierce battle for the Kasserine Pass through the Atlas Mountains. As he drove between units to supervise a tactical withdrawal, his car was strafed by enemy aircraft. Claus’s head, back and arms were pitted with shrapnel as he dived for cover. His left eye was destroyed, and was later removed at the war hospital in Sfax. His right hand was amputated at the wrist, and he lost two fingers from his left. Evacuated to Munich, he underwent further surgery to remove shrapnel from his knee. Claus was determined not to be personally defeated, however, and kept up his spirits by discussing a possible Bavarian–Austrian post-war solution with the operating surgeon.

  Nina visited Claus immediately. In spite of his wounds, she found her husband full of vigour. At thirty-six, Claus, the quintessential soldier, could no longer use a gun, but friends noted that he was far from beaten, ‘still handsome . . . [and] radiating a strong inner force and courage’.43 Claus had a devoted wife, four young children and a strong sense of honour. ‘In Africa they threw away my hand, even with my ring on it!’ he told visitors with a wry smile.44 His loyalty to his family and his country could not be tossed aside so easily. When his uncle Nüx visited, they talked about the limited German domestic resistance. ‘If the generals won’t do anything,’ Claus told Nüx, ‘then it’s up to us colonels to take action.’45 Later Claus whispered to his wife, ‘It is time I saved the German Reich.’ ‘You are in the right condition for that now,’ Nina laughed, assuming he was joking.46 Later she would come to believe that this was ‘the moment when he made the decision to actively involve himself’.47

  Claus would not be discharged from hospital until early July. When he returned to Lautlingen, photographs show that he cut a gallant figure in his crisp white shirts and black eye-patch, playing with his children under the trees. ‘He was essentially a brave man,’ Nina felt, ‘except when it came to wasps.’ Whenever a wasp flew near him, ‘he immediately disappeared under the table!’48 His children remembered their father as ‘absolutely wonderful’ and ‘extremely good-looking’, but also very determined. He firmly refused any help with his bandages, joking that he was so dextrous, he did not know what he had done with ten fingers when he had had the full set.

  Melitta greatly admired Claus, but she knew that her beloved Alexander was made from different metal. That spring, he had been transferred from Jüterbog for further training in northern France. Despite her hectic schedule, Melitta wrote every few days and flew over to visit every week. When planes weren’t available she put on her thick coat decorated with her ribbon of the Iron Cross, and her standard look of implacable determination, and took overnight trains. By now the Allies had shown they could send bombers to Berlin, and there was a marked increase in the number of air raids. ‘The English at present are making a sport out of driving as large sections of our population as possible out of their beds by air raid warnings . . .’ Goebbels wrote irritably in his diary.49 Melitta’s journeys were often delayed by air strikes, and more than once she had to leave her train to take refuge in a trench. Coming back, if she couldn’t make it to Gatow, she would stay overnight at Berthold’s Berlin flat in Tristanstrasse. She was also lobbying friends, hoping to prevent Alexander’s return to the front. When Claus heard of her efforts he wrote to her, ‘shakily with the three fingers of his left hand’, saying that neither she, nor their friends, should support such ‘protective manipulations’.50

  The next month, Melitta was assigned to supervise a twenty-four-year-old colonel, Friedrich Franz Amsinck, who had received the Iron Cross, First Class, and the Golden Wound Badge, having been injured in action. Franz had lost his right hand, like Claus, and had his left arm badly damaged, while serving on the Eastern Front. He had been lucky not to lose his life and was not expected to return to the front line, but he was still determined to serve his country. Having learned to glide as a boy, Franz was assigned to study mechanical engineering and aircraft construction, and slowly earned his pilot’s licence. Melitta, now forty, was commissioned to train him, and directed all her frustrated protectiveness towards the injured but determined young man. That summer they worked together every day. Melitta taught Franz to fly a specially modified plane, eventually observing his nosedives and collaborating with him on technical problems.

  Melitta an
d Franz also went sailing together, and often ate at the Aero Club in Berlin where she introduced him to friends like Paul von Handel, and in turn met his family. Occasionally the relationship hinted at something more than just comradeship. In July Franz gave her a copy of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Wind, Sand and Stars, a lyrical account of the celebrated French pilot’s musings on heroism, camaraderie and life’s meaning during his pre-war flights over Africa and South America. It was a poignant gift, and a rather daring one; Saint-Exupéry’s books were already banned in Vichy France.* Not long afterwards, Franz flew aerobatics ‘in front of my window’, Melitta recorded in her diary, before repeatedly telephoning her. ‘Says he wants to do something,’ she scribbled cryptically. ‘Think he can try to make someone else believe this.’51 The next day, as if suddenly self-conscious, Melitta made her first diary reference to her clothes. ‘Very bad mood, in old lady’s suit in office, suddenly Franz . . . changed, ate together.’52 She clearly enjoyed the young pilot’s company, and cared about him and his good opinion.

  A few days afterwards, the official photographs to mark the award of Melitta’s Iron Cross were taken, rather late, at the studios of Hitler’s personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. For her equivalent portraits in 1941, Hanna had turned to the camera and smiled radiantly above her medal, delighted at the whole proceedings. Melitta chose to be pictured almost in profile, against a dark background. A pearl necklace emphasizes her aristocratic appearance, and the only view of the award itself is the official ribbon on her lapel, fashioned into a small ornamental bow as commissioned by Alexander. There is no visible swastika. This is a very considered portrait, in which Melitta wears her pride at her honour with great restraint.

  That evening she attended a small party with work colleagues, including Franz. They drank sparkling wine and, after dinner, lit candles by which to keep talking. ‘Very jolly,’ she wrote before going to bed. ‘Danced a lot.’53 The following night Franz was round again, for a modest meal. ‘Violent, almost unashamed,’ Melitta wrote. They talked until the early hours, after which she wanted to lock her door.54 It is not clear on which side of the door Franz was standing. Melitta saw him almost daily throughout the rest of July and August 1943, but now she more often sailed alone, or invited Paul and other friends to join her. She continued to visit Alexander in France, and during his leave at Lautlingen they hunted fallow deer, but her diary mentions some anxiety before seeing him.55 Perhaps Franz had simply mistaken Melitta’s protective feelings towards him for something more, or maybe Melitta felt genuinely drawn to him. Either way, the two of them managed to maintain their friendship, but Melitta soon had more important concerns to occupy her.

  That summer, British Bomber Command shifted its focus from the industrial Ruhr to German cities. The carpet-bombing of Hamburg near the end of July killed over 40,000 civilians and destroyed almost the entire city, including the radar defence system. Franz witnessed the attack and, appalled, determined to return to operational duties in the defence of his country. At the same time, Melitta’s work developing ‘blind-flying’ techniques, to enable pilots to intercept without radar or directions from ground control, suddenly became a priority. The highly decorated Luftwaffe pilot Hans-Joachim ‘Hajo’ Herrmann had been working with Melitta since the spring, developing systems for his Wilde Sau (Wild Boar) unit of single-seater Me 109 fighters tasked with intercepting RAF bombers. Hajo and Melitta worked well together, both at the airfield and when discussing technical problems while out sailing. Impressed by her knowledge and ideas, Hajo kept copies of many of her reports as souvenirs. Their innovations were first tested during an RAF attack on Cologne, but the Wilde Sau had more success in August, when they brought down fifty-seven bombers during the biggest raid to date on Berlin.

  Hanna was also making some important new contacts. Among the flowers and gifts she had received after her accident had been some chocolate accompanied by a personal note from Heinrich Himmler, exhorting her to deny herself nothing that might aid her speedy recovery.56 It seemed that Himmler, a chief architect of the Holocaust and one of the most feared men in Germany, was an admirer. Over the next few months, more gifts appeared at regular intervals, always with a similar handwritten missive. Hanna found it slightly disconcerting. Himmler’s atheism, his interest in the occult and his persecution of the traditional church had led her mother, Emy, to regard him as an enemy of Christianity. Yet his notes to Hanna were ‘so simple and unaffectedly worded’, Emy felt, that she began to doubt herself.57 With Hanna’s relationship with Göring now in tatters, Emy urged her daughter to thank Himmler for his kindness in person. Opportunity came in the form of an invitation to dine with him and his officers at his East Prussian headquarters one evening in July.

  Apart from his black SS uniform, Himmler’s appearance was unremarkable. Only his round glasses lent some definition to his face, sandwiched between an expanse of pale forehead and a weak double chin. Hanna’s old gliding friend, now the respected aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, thought Himmler looked more like ‘a country grammar-school teacher than that horrible man who was said to wade knee-deep in blood’.58 Disarmed by his mild appearance and good manners, and having enjoyed the camaraderie around the dinner table, Hanna happily joined Himmler in the privacy of his study. Here she confessed that his name ‘had always aroused trepidation’ in her family.59 Himmler listened calmly before asking her whether she always formed her judgements so hastily. Pulling up an armchair for her opposite his own, he then ‘delivered a sharp attack on the plausibility of the Christian doctrine, showing an intimate knowledge of the Bible’.60 Only then, it seemed, did Hanna realize ‘I would not be able to persuade Himmler to change his attitude,’ but she urged him, nevertheless, to respect the views of others.61

  Hanna then turned to another issue about which she felt strongly: not Nazi racism but Himmler’s apparent attitude to women and the sanctity of marriage. Himmler supported Nazi ‘bride schools’, established to mould young women into suitable wives, and he also encouraged the fathering of both legitimate and illegitimate ‘Aryan’ children with the promise of support through the Lebensborn programme. Disconcerted by his ‘purely racial and biological standpoint, considering woman only as a bearer of children’, Hanna berated the head of the SS in a way few others would have dared.62 She was clearly not intimidated either by the man or by the regime he represented. Himmler, she later reported, assured her that ‘he shared my views entirely’.63 His policy, he told her, had been ‘misrepresented or misinterpreted . . . either unintentionally or from deliberate malice’.64 At a time when Himmler was hoping to introduce a supplementary women’s organization to the SS, he trusted that Hanna would challenge any such misconceptions in the future.

  Although she ‘did not fail to point out that, in spite of what he had said, appearances were in general against him’, Hanna seemed satisfied and directed the rest of her attention towards Himmler’s furnishings which were, she felt, in ‘the utmost good taste’.65 Her satisfaction that here, at least, Himmler bowed to her views, shines through when she noted that, after her criticism of the design of a Christmas platter, Himmler ‘pursed his lips’ and announced he would cancel the order for its manufacture.66 Without apparently noticing, she had been diverted from women’s rights campaigner to trusted adviser on tableware. She probably did not know that the porcelain factory, Allach, was exploiting slave labour from Dachau. Himmler then deftly thanked Hanna for her outspokenness, ‘which he assured me was something new to him’, and invited her to raise any future criticisms she might have, directly with him.67 The next day she returned to work, rather relieved that Himmler had turned out to be so reasonable. Himmler went to Peenemünde, the Nazi secret weapons development and testing centre that Hanna now knew well from the Me 163 programme.

  The Peenemünde facility had been established in the 1930s by Wernher von Braun. A political conformist brought up with right-wing, nationalist values, Braun had joined the Party in 1937, and the SS three years later. After gra
duating with degrees in mechanical engineering and applied physics, he persuaded the military to fund a development centre at Peenemünde: a location his mother had recommended, knowing it from her husband’s duck-shooting holidays.*

  Working with Braun was the older and somewhat paternalistic Major General Walter Dornberger, a leading proponent of the Nazis’ V-weapon programme. The ‘V’ stood for Vergeltung, or ‘vengeance’. It was ‘an appellation’, Braun wrote, ‘that already betrayed an unspoken assumption, that their moral purpose was greater than their military effectiveness could ever be’.68 These were Hitler’s much-anticipated weapons of reprisal for the Allied bombing of Germany: rocket planes, like the Me 163; the V-1 flying bombs better known as the ‘buzz bomb’ or ‘doodlebug’ in Britain; and the V-2 rocket, the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. These early ‘weapons of mass destruction’ were years ahead of Allied technology, but were needed because the Luftwaffe had never developed bomber capacity with range, payload and numbers similar to RAF Bomber Command and the US Eighth Air Force.*