The women who flew for Hitler
Event Date: Tuesday 14th July 2026 | Time: 7pm – 8pm
Hidden Histories
About this event
The women who flew for Hitler
Prepare to be swept into one of the most gripping and unlikely true stories of the Second World War. The Women Who Flew for Hitler (longlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Prize) uncovers the astonishing lives of two trailblazing female test pilots women who soared to the very top of Nazi Germany’s aviation programme, yet ultimately found themselves on opposite sides of history.
Meet Hanna Reitsch: a brilliant, fearless aviator and Germany’s first woman to fly a helicopter. She went on to test rocket planes and even a manned version of the V1 flying bomb the infamous “doodlebug.” Devoted to Hitler until the bitter end, Hanna spent the final days of the war desperately trying to convince him to let her fly him out of besieged Berlin.
Then meet Melitta von Stauffenberg: a gifted aeronautical engineer and the chief test pilot for the notorious Stuka dive bombers. Behind her cool professionalism lay a secret Jewish heritage in a regime that condemned it. In July 1944, she became entangled in the most famous plot to assassinate Hitler. Arrested almost immediately, Melitta’s fate took a dramatic and unexpected turn.
Join us for this riveting online event as Clare unravels the intertwined lives of these extraordinary women pioneers, patriots, rivals, and, in the end, symbols of two very different Germanys.
Boundless members: stay tuned until the end of the event for a chance to win a copy of Clare’s book!
Please head over to Crowdcast to register for this event:
Meet the speaker - Clare Mulley
Clare is an award-winning author mainly focused on female experience during the Second World War. Her books include AGENT ZO, about the only woman to parachute from Britain to enemy-occupied Poland to play a key role in the resistance; THE WOMEN WHO FLEW FOR HITLER telling the remarkable story of Nazi Germany’s only two female test pilots, one of whom tried to save Hitler’s life while the other tried to kill him; THE SPY WHO LOVED about Churchill’s ‘favourite spy’, the Polish-born British special agent Krystyna Skarbek aka Christine Granville; and THE WOMAN WHO SAVED THE CHILDREN, the inspiring story of Eglantyne Jebb, the controversial founder of Save the Children. All are all under option, and widely translated. Clare writes and reviews for journals including the Spectator, TLS and BBC History Magazine, and has judged both the HWA non-fiction prize and the Slightly Foxed Biographers Club prize. Popular on podcasts such as History Hit and We Have Ways, radio including Women’s Hour and the Today Programme, she is a regular face on TV, contributing to the BBC’s Second World War commemorations, Rise of the Nazis series, Newsnight and The One Show, as well as many series for Channel 5, Channel 4, the History Channel, and Sky. Clare is a recipient of the Bene Merito cultural honour of the Republic of Poland, the Polish Foreign Ministry’s History Book Prize, and the Daily Mail Biographers Club Prize. Her work has also been shortlisted for The Women's Prize and the Historical Writers Association non-fiction prizes. She lives in Essex with the sculptor Ian Wolter, too many books, and a hairy lurcher who needs more baths. www.claremulley.com