After organizers bowed to pressure, a Nazi pilot who was the first woman in the world to fly a helicopter will not be featured at a March 11 event in Quebec intended to attract girls and women to aviation.
The Vancouver-based Institute for Women of Aviation Worldwide (IWAW), a non-profit organization, had resisted a call from B’nai Brith Canada earlier in the week to not honour the achievements of Hanna Reitsch, an apparently unrepentant Nazi who died in 1979.
The IWAW changed its mind after a demand March 9 from the mayor of Lachute, Que., north of Montreal – where a key Canadian event of Women of Aviation Worldwide Week, an IWAW initiative, took place – that there be no celebration of a Nazi in his town.
Lachute and the municipal region of Argenteuil issued a statement that they “refuse this activity to be held [in our territory] and on city-owned lands, unless the organizing committee revises their choice in honouring this person. The city and the [region] will not tolerate at any time and under any circumstances activities that glorify people having a history associated with Nazism.”
READ: WOMEN’S AVIATION GROUP DEFENDS HONOURING NAZI PILOT
Lachute’s airfield is on municipal property.
Mayor Carl Péloquin said organizers sent the town a letter promising there would be no mention of anyone linked to Nazism.
The CJN was unable to reach the IWAW for comment. But information about Reitsch and a photo of her remained on the IWAW website as of March 10. The IWAW chose helicopter aviation as the theme of this year’s week because it is the 80th anniversary of Reitsch’s taking the controls of a new chopper as a test pilot for the Luftwaffe in 1937. She was also an early glider pilot and later flew powered aircraft.
According to the IWAW website, the week – a global annual event, now in its seventh edition – is taking place March 6 to 12 at 349 locations in 42 countries on five continents this year, and is expected to attract up to 50,000 people. The aim is to encourage girls and women to consider aviation as a career or hobby, and celebrate women’s accomplishments in the field.
Reitsch became a national heroine and was used by the Nazi regime in its propaganda. She was personally close to Hitler, and became the only woman awarded the Iron Cross First class in World War II.
Historians record her as having flown the last plane out of Berlin, leaving behind Hitler in his bunker.
In an interview before her death in 1979, Reitsch said: “I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me.” Her only regret was that Germany lost the war.
After B’nai Brith’s protest, Mireille Goyer, the founder and president of IWAW, defended her choice, arguing that Reitsch’s historic achievement and talent as an aviator, as well as her postwar work promoting aviation in Africa, are distinguishable from her politics.
“If you’re aiming to talk about her maybe controversial part in political history, to me, that’s not relevant,” Goyer told CBC News.
B’nai Brith called the Reitsch tribute inappropriate and insensitive. Regional director Harvey Levine said that “using a Nazi celebrity sets a horrific example as a role model for girls and young women, and shows a total lack of sensitivity for Holocaust survivors and their families.”
Reitsch’s story was to be told through archival videos and her image appeared on posters. The biographical information on the event’s website didn’t mention her Nazi past or even the Luftwaffe.
At the Lachute airfield, 800 people were expected to attend a day of free flights in small aircraft, conversations with commercial and military female pilots, and tours of the Bell Helicopter plant.
B’nai Brith was still not satisfied with the IWAW’s response. Said CEO Michael Mostyn: “While it is significant that the organizers caved to public pressure, reversing their decision… it is unfortunate that they are not taking the opportunity to produce a learning moment by educating the young women who will be in attendance against the evils of the Nazis.”
Air Canada, a major sponsor of IWAW, responded to the controversy before the organizers’ change of heart, saying, “We believe it is important to celebrate and promote the role of women in aviation… We were not involved in the planning and choice of theme, or consulted and advised of any people being recognized… Our support is determined on annual basis and we will be reviewing it.”
