Hanna Reitsch, German soldier and pilot (b. 1912)
Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator and test pilot. Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight tested many of Germany's new aircraft during World War II and received many honors. Reitsch was among the very last people to meet Adolf Hitler alive in the Führerbunker in late April 1945.
Reitsch set more than 40 flight altitude records and women's endurance records in gliding and unpowered flight, before and after World War II. In the 1960s, she was sponsored by the West German foreign office as a technical adviser in Ghana and elsewhere, and founded a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah.