On 19 February 1928, a 20-year-old German woman climbed into the cockpit of a Junkers F.13 named Kiek in die Welt — Berlin dialect for “look in the world” — and flew it for Lufthansa. She is generally credited as the first woman anywhere hired to fly for an airline.

Five years later she was dead at 25 in a room in Aleppo, and in her luggage was a submachine gun, a hundred rounds of ammunition, and a set of price lists.

It took until 2007 for anyone to explain what those were doing there.

Nobody would teach her

Her father was a captain in the Prussian Army. Both her parents died in an accident in Sicily when she was four, and she and her sister Ursula were brought up by their grandparents — her grandfather a general in the same army.

The Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule, Germany’s commercial flying school, did not accept women. So she taught herself, with support from Melitta Schiller, then an engineer at the German aviation research establishment and later one of the most remarkable and most complicated figures in German aviation in her own right.

By 19 she had a licence — the second woman in post-war Germany to hold one, after Thea Rasche. At 20 she was flying paying passengers between Berlin and Breslau, and Berlin, Stuttgart and Basel, in a corrugated Junkers F.13.

A German documentary portrait of von Etzdorf as an aviation pioneer.

Eleven days to Tokyo in a yellow biplane

In 1930, with her grandparents’ backing, she bought a Junkers A 50ce — the “Junior”, a small open two-seat sports biplane — and painted it bright yellow. Her first long-distance flight took her to Istanbul. Her second, an attempt on the Canary Islands, ended when a storm over Italy damaged the aircraft so badly it had to go back to the Junkers factory by train.

Then, on 18 August 1931, she set off east. Eleven days later, on 29 August, she landed at Haneda — the first foreigner to enter Japan through the newly completed airport. She had flown solo across Siberia. She was 24.

The journey home went badly. Taking off from a stop in Bangkok she lost height severely; the aircraft was damaged beyond repair and she was badly injured. Grounded in what is now Thailand, she became the first person to file reports of the 1932 Siamese Revolution to Europe. She got back to Berlin on 18 July 1932.

A Junkers A50 Junior flying today — the type von Etzdorf took to Tokyo.

Aleppo

Elly Beinhorn suggested Cape Town next. On 27 May 1933, attempting a stop near Aleppo, von Etzdorf lost control of her Klemm Kl 32 in heavy winds and crashed. She was not seriously hurt. She dealt with the formalities, asked for a private room, and took her own life. She died on 28 May 1933.

For decades the explanation offered was professional despair: a second aircraft written off in eighteen months would have finished her. No manufacturer would have lent her another; no sponsor would have paid for another attempt. Her flying career would simply have been over, and flying was the whole of her life.

Carrying such a weapon privately would have needed the permission of every country she overflew. Trading in them broke fundamental provisions of the Treaty of Versailles outright.

And she had come down in Syria, which France held under a League of Nations mandate. The German Foreign Office understood the danger well enough to send a diplomat to Aleppo. It is now generally assumed that fear of discovery by French officials, and of what the French government could do with the story, was among the reasons she did what she did. In the event France chose not to make anything of it after her death, and in Germany the arms smuggling went unpublished and undiscussed for decades.

On the death of a flying pioneer, and what was found afterwards.

A grave that no longer exists

She was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin, the old Prussian military cemetery where her grandfather’s world lay. In the 1970s her grave was destroyed, because the cemetery sat against the Berlin Wall and the death strip needed the ground.

What was written on the headstone survives in the record.

She is not a straightforward heroine, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. She was a genuine pioneer who did something extraordinarily difficult in an era that had arranged itself to stop her, and she was also, at the end, carrying a weapons catalogue for people who were about to make the world a great deal worse.

Both of those are true. The first woman to fly for an airline flew alone across Siberia at 24 and died at 25 in a room in Aleppo, and it took the rest of the century for anyone to say why.

Domande frequenti

Who was the first female airline pilot?

Marga von Etzdorf is generally credited as the first woman hired to fly for an airline. She began flying commercially on 19 February 1928 for the German carrier that became Deutsche Luft Hansa, operating a Junkers F.13 nicknamed Kiek in die Welt on the Berlin–Breslau and Berlin–Stuttgart–Basel routes.

How did Marga von Etzdorf learn to fly?

Largely by teaching herself. The Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule, Germany’s commercial flying school, did not accept women at the time. She received support from Melitta Schiller, then an engineer at the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt. She gained her licence at 19, the second woman in Germany to do so after the First World War, following Thea Rasche.

What was Marga von Etzdorf’s flight to Tokyo?

She flew solo from Berlin to Tokyo in a bright yellow Junkers A 50ce “Junior”, departing on 18 August 1931 and landing at Haneda eleven days later on 29 August. She was the first foreigner to enter Japan through the newly completed airport, and the first woman to fly solo across Siberia. She was 24.

How did Marga von Etzdorf die?

On 27 May 1933 she lost control of her Klemm Kl 32 in heavy winds while attempting a stop near Aleppo, in French-mandated Syria, and crashed. She was not seriously injured, but took her own life shortly afterwards and died on 28 May 1933, aged 25.

What was discovered about her in 2007?

Research by the historian Evelyn Crellin made public that von Etzdorf had entered a secret arrangement to conduct illegal arms deals. A letter in her final luggage from Ernst Heymann — an employee of the Haenel arms company and an arms lobbyist with NSDAP contacts — showed the submachine gun she carried was a sales sample, accompanied by 100 rounds of ammunition and German and English catalogues and price lists for Schmeisser submachine guns. Trading in such weapons violated the Treaty of Versailles.

What did her gravestone say?

“Der Flug ist das Leben wert” — flying is worth life. She was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin, but the grave was destroyed in the 1970s because of the cemetery’s position against the Berlin Wall.

What else did she do besides fly?

Stranded in Siam after crashing on the return leg from Tokyo, she became the first person to send reports of the 1932 Siamese Revolution back to Europe. She returned to Berlin on 18 July 1932.

Sources: Evelyn Zegenhagen, “Schneidige deutsche Mädel”: Fliegerinnen zwischen 1918 und 1945 (Wallstein, 2007); Christoph Gunkel, Der Spiegel (2021); Alice Bota, Die Zeit (2014); Lufthansa; Monash University Hargrave collection; Berlin Brandenburg Airport historical pages.