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

by Clare Mulley

  * Most famous as the author of The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry flew with the French air force before his country’s armistice in 1940, and later joined the Free French air force in North Africa. He disappeared over the Mediterranean on a reconnaissance mission in July 1944.

  * In between his test flights, Wolfgang Späte still occasionally shot wild ducks at Peenemünde in 1943.

  * Although Melitta never specifically worked on V-1s or V-2s, as these used complicated navigational systems, her work contributed to their development.

  * According to Albert Speer, who witnessed an early missile test, the rocket ‘rose slowly from its pad, seemed to stand upon a jet of flame . . . then vanished with a howl into the low cloud’. On that occasion the guidance system failed, and the rocket landed just half a mile away. See Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (1971), p. 495.

  * The code name ‘Bodyline’ was taken from the cricketing term, referring to something that ‘was not only against the rules but certainly unsportsmanlike’. Ursula Powys-Lybbe, The Eye of Intelligence (1983), p. 192.

  * While not responsible for the exploitation of forced labourers, Hanna would have been aware of the practice at Peenemünde. Wernher von Braun later claimed that he ‘never knew what was happening in the concentration camps’, but admitted he could have found out. He did not comment on the forced labour camps in the rocket programme. See Arthur C. Clarke, Astounding Days: A Science Fiction Autobiography (1990), p. 148.

  * At this point Hanna was probably not aware of Japanese plans for suicide attacks.

  * Nicolaus von Below, Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant, wrote that ‘the prisoners seemed well-treated and were in good physical condition . . . but it was nevertheless a depressing sight to watch this forced-labour force, who hoped to purchase their lives by their industry’. He, too, must have known that few would survive. See Nicolaus von Below, At Hitler’s Side (2010), p. 227.

  * Orsha was liberated by Soviet troops in June 1944.

  * Over 11,000 Germans had already been killed by Allied bombing between 1940 and 1942. British casualties from all forms of German air bombardment never exceeded 61,000 between 1939 and 1945. See Max Hastings, All Hell Let Loose: The World At War 1939–1945 (2011), p. 480.

  * Asked to provide damage assessment, the eminent British engineer Sir Malcolm McAlpine commented that for the Germans ‘it would be easier to start over again’ than to salvage. See Constance Babington Smith, Evidence in Camera: The story of photographic intelligence in the Second World War (2004), p. 185.

  * Fahrner sent a copy of Alexander’s poems to Claus, who was impressed, staying up late to discuss them with his house guests.

  * Stefan George moved to Switzerland shortly after the Nazi seizure of power. His move was prompted more by illness than politics, and he died the following year. The poet had been ambiguous about the Nazi rise to power. He refused to join the Prussian Academy of Arts after it had purged anti-Nazi writers, but also disowned some of his Jewish followers who spoke against the anti-Semitism of the new regime.

  * Even in November 1943, Hanna’s friend and former colleague, Karl Baur, had felt that the Führer ‘looked tired and worn out. His hand had no strength and he could not raise his arm to salute.’ See Isolde Baur, A Pilot’s Pilot: Karl Baur, Chief Messerschmitt Pilot (1999), p. 151.

  * Nicolaus von Below had been promoted to this role by Greim and Göring.

  * In fact, production of the excellent Me 262 jet fighter had been delayed because of Hitler’s demands that it be converted for use as a bomber.

  * In interview thirty years later, Paul von Handel referred to Hitler’s HQ as being in East Prussia. In fact Hitler was then based at the Berghof.

  * The diplomat Ulrich von Hassell had sought to avert war through discussions at the British Embassy in 1939. Later he became a key figure in the German Widerstand, hoping to mediate with the Western Allies. Had the coup been successful, he might have become foreign minister in the transitional government.

  * Operation Valkyrie, or Walküre, was symbolically named after the Norse goddesses who carry the bravest fallen warriors to Valhalla in the absence of their leader, Odin.

  * Claus could not burn the papers in Berlin because his house had no chimney, and he did not want to make the caretaker suspicious.

  * Now Kętrzyn in northern Poland.

  * When Nina’s friend was arrested, family members quickly burned these documents before the house was searched. See Konstanze von Schulthess, Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg: Ein Porträt (2009), p. 73.

  * ‘Sch.’ was another abbreviation for Schnepfchen, Melitta’s nickname for Alexander.

  * Military aide Eberhard von Breitenbuch had agreed to shoot Hitler with his 7.65 mm Browning pistol at a Berghof conference on 11 March 1944. The plan was aborted when SS guards blocked his entry under new rules that aides should not be permitted in the room. Melitta’s diary reveals that she looked for Berthold unsuccessfully on 11 March, and the next day, ‘very tired and nervous’, she received a ‘sad letter from Fahrner’.

  * Although Melitta became quite fond of several of the young pilots, none, she confided in her diary, compared with Franz. (Gerhard Bracke archive, Melitta’s 1944 diary, 09.05.1944.)

  * Although female pilots had been able to join the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) to ferry RAF planes where needed since 1940, it was only in the spring and summer of 1944 that their German counterparts, such as Beate Uhse and Liesel Bach, were enlisted as members of the Luftwaffe’s aircraft ferrying units. Melitta and Hanna remained unique as female German test pilots, and Melitta was the only female aeronautical engineer.

  * Perlia could not resist contrasting Melitta with Hanna, ‘who was favoured by Hitler and could meet with him even if she had not been announced’. (See Richard Perlia, Mal oben – Mal unten [Sometimes Up – Sometimes Down] (2011), p. 194.)

  * Despite the depiction of Hanna launching a V-1 from a catapult in the 1965 film Operation Crossbow, manned V-1s were launched from under the wing of a bomber. The G-force from a catapult launch, Hanna later explained, would have ‘burst body organs, as we learned from experiments and dead pilots’. (Ron Laytner, Edit International: A portfolio of some of Ron Laytner’s greatest stories, 2010.)

  * Such high-speed descents were important to ensure that any enemy anti-aircraft fire would be practically useless.

  * As of July 1944, Otto Skorzeny believed ‘no clear-sighted man could doubt that, from a purely military point of view, we had lost the war’. However, he felt officers should conceal this truth, arguing that ‘our determination to resist [the enemy] with our last breath could be the only answer. No honourable man who loved his country could have done anything else.’ See Otto Skorzeny, Robert Messenger, Skorzeny’s Special Missions: The Memoirs of ‘The Most Dangerous Man in Europe’ (2006), p. 106.

  * Speer was probably right. Claus invited him to meetings, but he did not attend. Papers found later showed Speer’s name listed as ‘armaments minister’ for a new government. The ancillary pencil note, ‘if possible?’ saved his life. See Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (1971), p. 527.

  * The following day a faulty V-1 flew drastically off course, returning to explode close to the shelter occupied by Hitler and his aides. There were no casualties.

  * On one attempt to tip a V-1, Brown was forced to bail out when his engine caught fire. He landed in a pond, beside a very angry bull. Eventually he was saved by the farmer, who led the beast away with the soothing words, ‘Come on, Ferdinand.’ (Mail Online, Robert Hardman, ‘Hero who makes Biggles look like a wimp’, 07.05.2013.)

  * The destruction caused by the RAF and US Eighth Air Force far exceeded the impact of the V-1s.

  * The Fieseler Storch was the plane Hanna had flown along the Eastern Front, and the one in which Skorzeny had flown Mussolini to Berlin. Britain’s Wing Commander Leonard Ratcliff has described them as ‘a toy really, a sort of little runabout’ (Mulley interview, 12.12.2013). The French maquisards called t
hem mouches (flies). See Paddy Ashdown, The Cruel Victory: The French Resistance, D-Day and the Battle for the Vercors 1944 (2014), p. 98.

  * The main bunker was also having repairs undertaken that day.

  * Henning von Tresckow sent Margarethe von Oven away from Berlin for the day of the coup. ‘If we need you, I’ll send a plane,’ he told her. This precaution probably saved her life, and may also have explained why Melitta was still on standby. See Dorothee von Meding, Courageous Hearts (1997), p. 58.

  * Hitler’s photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, swore that Hitler ‘really believed’ in providence, and that he himself had witnessed ‘with my own eyes how often he escaped death by a hair’s breadth’. See Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend (2011), pp. 134–5.

  * Claus’s body would later be exhumed and burned on Hitler’s orders.

  * In December 1944, Karoline von Stauffenberg said that although she had not known the details, ‘I knew of my son’s deed and I approve of it.’ See Peter Hoffmann, Stauffenberg: A Family History, 1904–1944 (2008), p. 281.

  * Margarethe von Oven was later arrested and imprisoned. ‘I felt happy when . . . the door had shut behind me,’ she said. ‘At that point the tension was over.’ Despite incarceration, she survived the war. See Dorothee von Meding, Courageous Hearts (1997), p. 58.

  * Neither Melitta’s parents, nor any of her siblings, were arrested.

  * Alexander’s stepdaughter, Dr Gudula Knerr-Stauffenberg, later argued that although he never talked about it, her father had known about the plotting, if not in detail, since 1943.

  * Now once again Poznań, in west-central Poland.

  * Charlottenburg became a female-only prison in 1939, mainly for women involved in some sort of ‘political crime’. Several members of the Red Orchestra resistance group were held there in 1942, some before execution. In 2008, the cell scenes for The Reader were filmed there.

  * Aware that he might face prosecution after the war, Opitz recognized the potential value of Melitta’s friendship. In 1946 he wrote to Alexander, offering to discuss all he knew about 20 July, and stating that he had always been ‘in inner opposition’ to the Nazi Party. In 1967, he was prosecuted in West Berlin for his role with the Einsatzgruppen mass murders in Poland, but was not found guilty of criminal conduct.

  * In German, ‘white raven’ serves as the term for a ‘rare bird’, someone exceptional or unique.

  * ‘Know that even from a distance, your smile heals him who is unwell, who is enduring. A sad smile, which fills the empty cell, like sunset-lined clouds . . .’ Alexander wrote. ‘I feel your troubled mourning, and dull pain and torment. Persevere, hold out: we will survive, for that which our dreams have promised.’ See Alexander von Stauffenberg, Denkmal [Monument] (1964).

  * Nacht und Nebel [Night and Darkness] was Hitler’s 1941 directive that political prisoners should disappear without trace.

  * Melitta secretly hid these busts with Paul von Handel’s family, without their knowledge.

  * Mika’s file included a handwritten note to the effect that ‘she knows more than she admits’. See Reinhild Gräfin von Hardenberg, On New Ways (2002), p. 155.

  * The new name meant the children could be adopted anonymously by SS families after the ‘final victory’. Hitler’s belief was that ‘eugenically a son nearly always inherits the characteristics of the mother’: an argument he used to justify not having children himself, and which may have helped to save the Stauffenberg children. See Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend (2011), pp. 146–7.

  * Eberhard von Hofacker was the elder son of the Luftwaffe colonel Caesar von Hofacker, a cousin of the Stauffenbergs who served as liaison between the plotters and was executed in 1944. (Caesar’s father, a general in the First World War, was also called Eberhard.)

  * Göring held a Luftwaffe strategy conference in November 1944. As neither his leadership nor the Me 262 could be mentioned, little was forthcoming. He described the Luftwaffe’s ‘absolute failure’ to Goebbels in December, blaming it on personnel and technical failures. (Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels: Oktober bis Dezember 1944, Jana Richter and Hermann Graml (ed.), 07.12.1944, p. 371.)

  * The Canadian journalist Ron Laytner interviewed Hanna in the late 1970s. Asked about Nazi crimes, she reportedly replied, ‘I asked Hermann Göring one day, “What is this I am hearing that Germany is killing Jews?” Göring responded angrily, “A totally outrageous lie made up by the British and American press. It will be used as a rope to hang us some day if we lose the war.”’ There is no corroboration of this story, so it may be an inaccurate account of her meeting with Himmler. (Ron Laytner, Edit International, ‘Hanna Reitsch’, 2010.)

  * Riedel was summoned back to Germany in May 1945. Fearing former colleagues might lynch him, he refused to go. After some time in a military prison in Casablanca, he lived with his wife in Venezuela. The relaxation of immigration laws eventually enabled them to move to the USA.

  * Perhaps Melitta had also been inspired by the special 20 July Wound Badge Hitler had instituted for survivors of the bomb plot, which bore the inscription ‘20 July 1944’ along with Hitler’s signature.

  * Melitta also later told Karoline, the children’s grandmother, where they were being held.

  * Schloss Leopoldskron is famous as the film location for The Sound of Music, although the von Trapp family in fact lived in a nearby villa in Aigen, appropriated by Himmler during the war.

  * The Victory Column originally had three tiers to represent three military victories. In 1939 the Nazi regime increased its height, and relocated it from in front of the Reichstag to the Tiergarten, as part of a redesign for the future capital of the Reich.

  * There are slight discrepancies in the accounts of the last days in the bunker. This account comes from Hanna’s published memoirs. Her US interrogation report states, for example, that Hitler came to Greim in the operating room, but the gist is consistent.

  * Conversely, Hitler’s secretary, Traudl Junge, said that Magda Goebbels ‘hardly had the strength to face her children with composure now’, and on leaving them usually burst into tears. See Traudl Junge, Until the Final Hour (2002), p. 174.

  * Goebbels’ right foot was deformed due to a congenital disorder, which childhood operations had failed to correct. Hanna’s was a pathetic insult for a man guilty of so many crimes, but appropriately Nazi in its equation of biology and value.

  * Rudel had visited the bunker himself a week earlier. He survived the war, surrendering to US forces in May 1945.

  * Koller disputed that Hanna had had no option, saying that Greim had not wanted her to join him but Hanna herself had insisted.

  * Although the hanging of their bodies upside down was intended to humiliate, the petticoat skirts of Mussolini’s mistress, Clara Petacci, were pegged together between her legs, so they would not fall and reveal her underwear.

  * Hanna later recounted the contents of Eva Braun’s letter, as she remembered it, to American intelligence officers.

  * 27 January 1945 was the same day that Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia fell into the hands of the Soviet army, and that Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated.

  * Anni von Lerchenfeld’s body was buried at a nearby estate belonging to Melitta’s family, almost certainly at the suggestion of Alexander.

  * The staff came from the top-secret Unit 00400, headquarters of the V-weapons programme. Bad Sachsa was close to the notorious Mittelbau underground rocket factory that produced V-2s after the bombing of Peenemünde.

  * Marienbad is now the town of Mariánské Lázně in the Czech Republic.

  * Dietrich Bonhoeffer first wrote his name in his volume of Plutarch, and left it with the other prisoners. It was returned to his family after his execution.

  * Lieutenant Norboune later reported his aerial victory in the region of Regensburg at 7.40 a.m., 8 April 1945. The Focke-Wulf 190 has a similar airframe and rudder shape to a Bücker Bü 181 Bestmann, especially when seen from behind, hence his mistake. Norbo
une was later killed while serving in Korea.

  * Coincidentally, Melitta was only fifty miles from the site where Franz Amsinck had crashed the year before.

  * Himmler had recently ordered the execution of all concentration camp inmates too sick to march away from the front line, but neither he nor Hanna was thinking of prisoners when they talked of the shedding of German blood.

  * Himmler was captured on 21 May. Two days later he bit his cyanide capsule, dying within fifteen minutes.

  * Willy Reitsch was one of thousands of civilians from eastern Germany making the same choice.

  * Full of self-confidence, Eric took up a Komet not long after this. Accelerating rapidly to 450 mph, he felt as though he were ‘in charge of a runaway train’. Once he had touched back down safely, he and the ground crew went for a celebratory stiff drink. See Eric Brown, Wings on My Sleeve (2007), p. 112.

  * By contrast, when Göring was captured on 9 May, he reportedly had sixteen matching suitcases with him.

  * Hanna later denied the accounts published from her testimony, claiming she had never authorized or signed her interrogation reports. In fact it was not standard practice for such reports to be signed or approved by their subjects.

  * Göring would also later kill himself with cyanide, just hours before he was due to be hanged on 15 October 1946.

  * Some of the SS guards were reportedly later ambushed by partisans, and hanged.

  * Fey was eventually reunited with her Italian husband and sons, all of whom had survived the war. They settled together in Italy, where she later wrote her memoirs.

  * Margarete Schiller’s body was never found, and she was officially declared dead in 1962.

  * Gretl is short for Margarethe, and Böss appears as Margarethe Böss in the American papers.

  * Der Tag is German for ‘the day’, the implication being that this was ‘the day’ when National Socialism would rise again.

  * Rudel went to Argentina in 1948, from where he organized support for fugitive Nazi war criminals including the former SS ‘doctor’ from Auschwitz, Josef Mengele. He also worked as a regional military adviser and arms dealer, and supported the German far right until his death in 1982.