{"id":19624898,"date":"2026-09-03T11:21:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T09:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/melitta-von-stauffenberg-luftwaffe-test-pilot-stuka-dives\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T08:41:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T06:41:45","slug":"melitta-von-stauffenberg-luftwaffe-test-pilot-stuka-dives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/melitta-von-stauffenberg-luftwaffe-test-pilot-stuka-dives\/","title":{"rendered":"Melitta von Stauffenberg: The Test Pilot the Reich Could Not Spare"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid 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Then she would do it again. On a good day, fifteen times.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Melitta von Stauffenberg flew somewhere between two and two and a half thousand of these dives during the war &mdash; historians differ on the exact figure, and none of them find a comparable record anywhere else. She sometimes blacked out under the g-load and came round in time to pull out.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>The Reich that decorated her for it had also classified her, by its own race laws, as someone who should not have been in a cockpit at all.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 22px;margin:24px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.8\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:600;font-size:17px\">Quick Facts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Born:<\/strong> Melitta Klara Schiller, 9 January 1903, Krotoschin, Province of Posen<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Qualification:<\/strong> Diplom-Ingenieur, Technische Hochschule Munchen, 1927, with distinction<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Title:<\/strong> Flugkapitan, conferred 28 October 1937 &mdash; the second woman in Germany to hold it<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Test dives:<\/strong> roughly 2,000 to 2,500, mainly on the Junkers Ju 87 and Ju 88<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Decorations:<\/strong> Iron Cross 2nd Class, 22 January 1943, pinned on by Goring a week later; military pilot&rsquo;s badge in gold with diamonds and rubies<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Race classification:<\/strong> Judischer Mischling ersten Grades, 1940; exempted in 1941 as war-essential<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Died:<\/strong> 8 April 1945, aged 42, shot down flying a Bucker Bu 181 near Strasskirchen, Bavaria<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The engineer who learned to fly her own tests<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>She was an engineer first. She studied mathematics, physics and flight mechanics at Munich, graduating in 1927, and joined the German aeronautical research establishment at Berlin-Adlershof, where she spent around eight years on propeller behaviour and variable-pitch research.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>She learned to fly in 1929 for an entirely practical reason: so she could conduct her own flight tests rather than hand her work to somebody else. She ended up holding licences for every class of powered aircraft, the aerobatic licence, and every glider rating there was.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>In 1936 she was pushed out of the research establishment because of her Jewish grandparents. She moved to the Askania works in Berlin, where she worked on automatic flight control, blind-flying equipment, and a dive-bombing sight for the Stuka. In October 1939 she was conscripted and seconded to the Luftwaffe test centre at Rechlin.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/junkers-ju-88-a-1-preparing-for-takeoff.jpg\" alt=\"A Junkers Ju 88 A-1 being prepared for take-off\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A Junkers Ju 88 being prepared for take-off. Along with the Ju 87 Stuka, this was the type she took into repeated near-vertical dives. Photo: Bundesarchiv, CC BY-SA 3.0 de<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Useful enough to protect<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>In 1940 the Reich office for genealogical research classified her as a Mischling of the first degree. Her father, Michael Schiller, came from a Jewish fur-trading family and had converted to Christianity at eighteen; under the Nuremberg Laws that was enough. In 1941 she was granted an exemption &mdash; almost certainly because her work had been rated essential to the war.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>So the arrangement was explicit on both sides. She was permitted to exist, and to work, for exactly as long as she was indispensable. She responded by becoming more indispensable.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Melitta would test a Stuka dive bomber 15 times in a single day. She did over 2,000 tests during the course of the war. No one else came anywhere near her, so really she was working at the limit of what was humanly possible.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Clare Mulley<\/strong> &mdash; Biographer, author of The Women Who Flew for Hitler (2017), speaking to the Imperial War Museums<\/div><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Not Hanna Reitsch<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The two women are constantly confused, and the confusion does Melitta a disservice. <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hanna-reitsch-luftwaffe-test-pilot-explained\/\">Hanna Reitsch<\/a> was the first woman to hold the Flugkapitan title and the first to receive the Iron Cross; she was also a committed Nazi who never repudiated the regime in three decades after the war.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Melitta was a qualified engineer who designed the equipment and then flew the tests herself, was married into the family that tried to kill Hitler, and was arrested by the Gestapo. They knew each other. They did not like each other.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;For Hanna Reitsch it was blind patriotism, for Melitta it was patriotism for her nation Germany but not for the Nazi regime which she fought to actually help bring down.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Clare Mulley<\/strong> &mdash; Biographer, on the difference between the two women<\/div><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">July 1944<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>She had married Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg in 1937. He was the twin of Berthold and elder brother of Claus &mdash; which made her sister-in-law to two of the men at the centre of the 20 July plot.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>How much she knew is still not settled. Her diary places her at Berthold&rsquo;s Berlin flat on 16 July 1944, four days before the bomb. Some accounts hold that Claus asked her to fly him out and she agreed; others find no proof either way. She is reported to have given one answer when the question came up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;If I am called, I will be there. I have no fear of death.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Melitta von Stauffenberg<\/strong> &mdash; As recalled by her friend Paul von Handel, on whether she would fly Claus von Stauffenberg on the assassination mission<\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>In the event she did not fly him. Claus and Berthold were executed. She was arrested on 25 July under Sippenhaft, the law of kin liability, along with roughly a dozen relatives. She was released on 2 September, after about six weeks, because her work was still needed. The Reich dropped the Stauffenberg name from her official style.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>She then used her position and a Fieseler Storch to fly food, medicine and bedding to imprisoned members of her husband&rsquo;s family, and negotiated the right to see him once a month.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">8 April 1945<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>In the last weeks of the war she was searching for Alexander, who had been moved out of Buchenwald. On the morning of 8 April 1945 she was flying a Bucker Bu 181 trainer at treetop height, navigating by the railway line, when she was attacked and came down in a field near Strasskirchen in Bavaria.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>She was pulled out alive. A local doctor was turned away by military personnel. She died in hospital at Straubing roughly two hours later, aged 42.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Who shot her down was argued over for decades. Rumour said a German fighter, feeding a story that the Gestapo had finally settled with her. The weight of research now points to an American reconnaissance Mustang whose pilot logged a kill nearby that morning and mistook the little Bucker for something else. It has never been proved beyond doubt.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/stauffenberg-family-grave-lautlingen.jpg\" alt=\"The Stauffenberg family grave at Lautlingen\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The Stauffenberg family grave at Lautlingen. Melitta, nee Schiller, 1903-1945, lies alongside the family whose name she was forbidden to use. Photo: Andreas Praefcke<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>Clare Mulley&rsquo;s account of both women, filmed by the Imperial War Museums:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RDY1WMaLtuI\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>A longer discussion of the research behind the book:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8JDaZaoTq9c\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>And a further interview on the two pilots and their politics:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kyKnajdqS7k\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\n\n\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>Who was Melitta von Stauffenberg?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">A German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, born Melitta Schiller in 1903. She held a Diplom-Ingenieur from Munich, designed dive-bombing equipment, and then flew the tests herself, completing somewhere between two and two and a half thousand dive tests on the Junkers Ju 87 and Ju 88.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Was she related to the Hitler assassination plot?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">By marriage. She married Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg in 1937, making her the sister-in-law of Claus and Berthold von Stauffenberg, two central figures in the 20 July 1944 plot. She was arrested under Sippenhaft, the law of kin liability, and released after about six weeks because her work was still needed.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Was Melitta von Stauffenberg Jewish?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Under Nazi race law she was classified in 1940 as a Mischling of the first degree, because her father came from a Jewish family and had converted to Christianity at eighteen. She was granted an exemption in 1941, almost certainly because her work had been rated essential to the war.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How is she different from Hanna Reitsch?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The two are constantly confused. <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hanna-reitsch-luftwaffe-test-pilot-explained\/\">Hanna Reitsch<\/a> was a committed Nazi who never repudiated the regime. Melitta was a qualified engineer who designed the equipment she tested, was married into the family that tried to kill Hitler, and was arrested by the Gestapo. They knew each other and did not like each other.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What decorations did she receive?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Iron Cross 2nd Class on 22 January 1943, pinned on by Goring a week later, and the military pilot&rsquo;s badge in gold with diamonds and rubies. She had been given the title Flugkapitan in October 1937, the second woman in Germany to hold it.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How did she die?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">She was shot down on 8 April 1945 while flying a Bucker Bu 181 trainer at low level near Strasskirchen in Bavaria, searching for her imprisoned husband. She was pulled out alive and died in hospital at Straubing about two hours later, aged 42. The weight of research points to an American reconnaissance Mustang, though it has never been proved beyond doubt.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who was Melitta von Stauffenberg?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"A German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, born Melitta Schiller in 1903. She held a Diplom-Ingenieur from Munich, designed dive-bombing equipment, and then flew the tests herself, completing somewhere between two and two and a half thousand dive tests on the Junkers Ju 87 and Ju 88.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Was she related to the Hitler assassination plot?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"By marriage. She married Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg in 1937, making her the sister-in-law of Claus and Berthold von Stauffenberg, two central figures in the 20 July 1944 plot. She was arrested under Sippenhaft, the law of kin liability, and released after about six weeks because her work was still needed.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Was Melitta von Stauffenberg Jewish?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Under Nazi race law she was classified in 1940 as a Mischling of the first degree, because her father came from a Jewish family and had converted to Christianity at eighteen. She was granted an exemption in 1941, almost certainly because her work had been rated essential to the war.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How is she different from Hanna Reitsch?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The two are constantly confused. Hanna Reitsch was a committed Nazi who never repudiated the regime. Melitta was a qualified engineer who designed the equipment she tested, was married into the family that tried to kill Hitler, and was arrested by the Gestapo. They knew each other and did not like each other.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What decorations did she receive?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Iron Cross 2nd Class on 22 January 1943, pinned on by Goring a week later, and the military pilot\u2019s badge in gold with diamonds and rubies. She had been given the title Flugkapitan in October 1937, the second woman in Germany to hold it.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How did she die?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"She was shot down on 8 April 1945 while flying a Bucker Bu 181 trainer at low level near Strasskirchen in Bavaria, searching for her imprisoned husband. She was pulled out alive and died in hospital at Straubing about two hours later, aged 42. The weight of research points to an American reconnaissance Mustang, though it has never been proved beyond doubt.\"}}]}<\/script><p><em>Sources: Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 22 (2005); Clare Mulley, The Women Who Flew for Hitler, 2017; Imperial War Museums; Richard Whittle, Air &amp; Space Quarterly, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hanna-reitsch-luftwaffe-test-pilot-explained\/\">Hanna Reitsch: The Test Pilot Who Flew Everything the Reich Built<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/white-rose-of-stalingrad-lydia-litvyak\/\">The Girl Who Painted a Lily on Her Fighter<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hans-ulrich-rudel-stuka-ace-most-decorated\/\">The Stuka Ace Who Wouldn&rsquo;t Stop<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An engineer classified as part-Jewish under Nazi race law, Melitta von Stauffenberg flew thousands of Stuka dive tests, won the Iron Cross, and was arrested after the 20 July plot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":19624574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19624898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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