Hanna Reitsch (March 29, 1912 - August 24, 1979)

Hanna Reitsch was a German pilot who might have been regarded as one of the most successful pilots of all time (certainly up there with Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh), if it were not for her unrepentant views of National Socialism, which she held until her death.

Reitsch trained to become a missionary doctor in Africa in her early life, but after realizing her own passion for flying, she left medical school and began her to-be great career. She served as a glider pilot and instructor, but her greatest distinctions came in competition and her work as a test pilot. Throughout the 1930s until her death, she set dozens of records in aviation and became the first woman to fly a helicopter and a rocket; in fact, it was she who demonstrated the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 (the first helicopter) to the world in an outrageously risky indoor flight. In 1943, she became the first and only woman to receive the Iron Cross, 1st Class.

Portrayed in the media as both a military hero and the model German woman, Reitsch’s daring stunts and patriotism made her a national celebrity, but she was also a genuine supporter of Hitler (and above all, Germany). She was quick to jump on the idea of Germany’s own Kamikaze unit - the Leonidas Squadron, which never came to fruition. Shortly after Hitler’s suicide, she and Robert Ritter von Greim (who she flew into Berlin as the city was overrun by the Red Army) were interrogated by American intelligence officers and reportedly repeated: “It was the blackest day when we could not die at our Führer’s side”. 

After the end of the war, Reitsch’s accomplishments continued even despite her irreconcilable association with the Nazis - she won championships, set records, opened a gliding school in Ghana, and was even invited to the White House by John F. Kennedy. And she never repented - in the 1970s, she remarked:

“I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But today in all Germany you can’t find a single person who voted Adolf Hitler into power… Many Germans feel guilty about the war. But they don’t explain the real guilt we share — That we lost.” 

She died in 1979, but not before breaking another gliding record at the age of 67, the very same year.