Reitsch - The sky my kingdom: memoirs of the famous German World War II test pilot

WHAT CHILD is there that lives, as I did, midway between Reality and Fairyland, that does not long sometimes to leave altogether the familiar world and set off in search of new and fabulous realms?

Such dreams have always visited Mankind, are born, first, in the open and eager minds of children and find in flying their fulfilment. My parents had shown me as a child the storks in their quiet and steady flight, the buzzards, circling ever higher in the summer air and so, when I, too, expressed a longing to fly, they took it for a childish fancy, that like so many of our youthful enthusiasms, would be forgotten with the years.

But the longing grew in me, grew with every bird I saw go flying across the azure summer sky, with every cloud that sailed past me on the wind, till it turned to a deep, insistent homesickness, a yearning that went with me everywhere and could never be stilled.

My father was an eye-specialist and head of a private eye-clinic in Hirschberg, Silesia, where we lived. From an early age, I took it in turns with my brother, Kurt, to accompany him on his daily rounds in the clinic, regaling the patients with childish gifts which I had made myself and later, when I visited them on my way home from school, with stories of my adventures, both real and imaginary.

My father was a born doctor and though I was too young to realise it then, I noticed and was impressed by the personal care and attention which he lavished on each of his patients. Later I came to know that helping and healing had so come to fill his life that his work as a doctor gave him complete happiness. Any sphere of activity, for example a University appointment, that would have deprived him of his patients he never seriously considered and offers in this direction were invariably rejected. Perhaps for that reason, he was particularly pleased to see me take an early, still quite childish, interest in his medical activities.

Thus I soon acquired an interest in my fathers work and, for his part, he spared no pains to encourage me, obtaining, for example, from the butcher the eyes of dead animals to show me their construction and how small operations could be performed.

My mother had been brought up as a Catholic and although we followed my fathers denomination and lived as Protestants, her Catholic-background retained its influence. This situation caused her some difficulties of conscience, but not wishing to upset my father, she kept them to herself and I only heard of them much later. I often used to kneel beside her when she interrupted her daily affairs to pay a short visit to church and though she did not know it, it was by her personal example that she gave her children the most convincing lessons in piety.

Once my mother had had forebodings that she would die at my birth, but when the time cameit was a stormy night in Springthey proved unfounded, for she recovered normally and was able, some years later, to have another child.

For that reason, perhaps, despite her unbounded love for my brother and sister, she felt particularly close to me, as I did to her, though I, too, loved each member of my family equally. My mother and I lived in each other, each sensing the others thoughts without need to confess or conceal, and to us, it was as natural as any other of Natures mysteries, which remain no less mysterious for being evident to all.

In our family, it was accepted as a principle, so obvious as to be unspoken, that a girl could only have one task in life, namely, to marry and become a good mother to her children. Owing to my interest in medicine, however, also to my mothers religious example and the recent experience of my own confirmation, I decided, when I was about thirteen or fourteen, that I wanted to become a doctornot an ordinary one, but a missionary doctor, and not only that, but also, and above all, a flying missionary doctor.

When my father saw the persistence with which I stressed this aspect of my future career, he took me on one side and suggested I make a pact with him. If I could succeed in not mentioning another word about flying until, in two or three years time, I had passed my school leaving certificate, then he would allow me, as a reward, to partake in a training course in gliding at Grunau, which was not far from Hirschberg and where there was a well-known School for Glider Pilots. By extracting this promise, my father hoped to make me forget the subject of flying, once and for all.

But though, from now on, I was careful not to allow them to cross my lips, my thoughts and dreams of flying continued and my father little knew how often I pedalled out secretly to Grunau, to gaze enviously from the road at the slides, hops and flights of the glider pupils on the Galgenberg.

In maintaining my self-imposed silence, a fortunate chance came to my aid. I came across a book of spiritual exercises by Ignatius of Loyola, Meditations, I think they were called, which, young as I was, made a great impression on me. They set out to teach the attainment of self-mastery and the eradication of spiritual faults by means of repeated self-examination.

These exercises I undertook with energetic zeal, determining, first, to cure my excessive use of superlatives. It cost me an enormous effort, but, after a while and in spite of many relapses, I was able to record a small improvement, which my mother, who knew nothing of these exercises, to my great joy finally noticed and commented upon.

That small book helped me also to keep silent where I had longed to speak and for a whole two years and more I never once mentioned at home the subject of flying. When I passed my final school examination, my father wanted to present me with an antique gold watch. I quietly returned it to him, reminding him of his promise. I saw him turn pale as he agreed to fulfil itthen my mother clasped me in her arms.