Hanna Reitsch - Postwar Remarks

Postwar Remarks

Although she kept a low profile after the war, she was interviewed and photographed several times in the 1970s, toward the end of her life, by US photo-journalist Ron Laytner. His report on her last interview suggests a lack of contrition on her part about her Nazi involvement. In her closing remarks she is quoted as saying:

And what have we now in Germany? A land of bankers and car-makers. Even our great army has gone soft. Soldiers wear beards and question orders. I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But today in all Germany you can't find a single person who voted Adolf Hitler into power... Many Germans feel guilty about the war. But they don't explain the real guilt we share — that we lost.

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