- Summary
- "Despite Hitler's dictates on women's place being in the home, two fiercely defiant female pilots were awarded the Iron Cross during the Second World War. Other than this unique distinction and a passion for flying that bordered on addiction, these women could not have been less alike. One was Aryan Nazi poster-girl Hanna Reitsch, an unsurpassed pilot, who is now best-known for being the last person to fly into Berlin-under-siege in April 1945, in order to beg Hitler to let her save him. He refused and killed himself two days later. The other pilot was her antithesis, a brilliant aeronautical engineer and test-pilot Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg who was part Jewish. She used her value to the Luftwaffe as a means to protect her family. When her brother-in-law, Claus von Stauffenberg, planned the Valkyrie attack to assassinate the Fuehrer, she agreed to provide the transport. Both women repeatedly risked their lives to change the history of the Third Reich--one in support of and the other in opposition. Mulley shows, through dazzling film-like scenes suffused in glamour and danger, that their interwoven dramas are a powerful forgotten story of conformity and resistance and the very strength of women at the heart of the Second World War"-- Provided by publisher.
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Mulley, Clare, author.
- Published
- New York : St. Martin's Press, [2017]
- Locale
- Germany
- Edition
- First U.S. edition
- Contents
-
Preface: Truth and lives
Longing for freedom, 1903-1932
Searching for the fabulous, 1912-1933
Public relations, 1933-1936
Public appointments, 1936-1937
Hovering, 1938
Descent, 1938-1939
Women at war, 1939-1941
Defying gravity, 1942-1943
Under attack, 1943
Operation Self-Sacrifice, 1943-1944
Operation Valkyrie, 1944
In the camps, 1944
In the bunker, 1945
Final flight
Liberation and detention, 1945-1946
Reputations
Epilogue: A time of contradictions.
- Notes
-
Includes bibliographical references (pages 435-453) and index.
Preface: Truth and lives -- Longing for freedom, 1903-1932 -- Searching for the fabulous, 1912-1933 -- Public relations, 1933-1936 -- Public appointments, 1936-1937 -- Hovering, 1938 -- Descent, 1938-1939 -- Women at war, 1939-1941 -- Defying gravity, 1942-1943 -- Under attack, 1943 -- Operation Self-Sacrifice, 1943-1944 -- Operation Valkyrie, 1944 -- In the camps, 1944 -- In the bunker, 1945 -- Final flight -- Liberation and detention, 1945-1946 -- Reputations -- Epilogue: A time of contradictions.
