"Schneidige deutsche Mädel": Fliegerinnen zwischen 1918 und 1945

The first women aviators were not icons of emancipation, they followed the social, economic and political challenges of their time: in the 1920s and 1930s, they became ambassadors of Germany on their long-distance flights; in World War II, a dozen women delivered aircraft to the front as ferry pilots, while others managed repair shipyards and trained Luftwaffe recruits as flight instructors in the National Socialist Flying Corps. Evelyn Zegenhagen was able to identify about 80 female motorised and about 100 female glider pilots during her research. She researched in archives at home and abroad, interviewed female pilots, contemporary witnesses and aviation experts and was able to draw on the hitherto untapped estates of about 20 female pilots. The biographies of female pilots from the USA, England and the USSR are included for comparison. Zegenhagen provides a critical appraisal of the outstanding technical and aeronautical achievements of the female pilots - among them such prominent names as Elly Beinhorn, Beate (Köstlin-)Uhse and Hanna Reitsch - and at the same time traces their involvement in the Nazi regime. [Publisher]