Hana Reitsch and Melitta von Staufenberg were talented, brave, and moreover attractive women who had to fight against conventions to make a name for themselves in aviation, a field dominated by men in Germany in the 1930s. With the onset of war, both became pioneers among test pilots and both received the Iron Cross for their service to the Third Reich. However, there were no two women in the world with more differing opinions, and neither had a single good word for the other. Hanna came from the middle class, was temperamental, and was the epitome of the Aryan type, while the darker and rather shy Melitta had a Prussian noble family as her ancestors. Both were driven by a deep conviction of honor and patriotism. However, while Hanna was asking Hitler in April 1945 to allow her to take him to safety, Melitta was secretly supporting the most famous assassination attempt on the leader. Their intertwined life stories provide a vivid insight into Nazi Germany from within and its approach to women, classes, and races. Acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley gets under the skin of both remarkable and unconventional women and presents a comprehensive – until now largely unrecognized – picture of their different yet strangely parallel lives against the backdrop of the 1936 Olympics,…
