Marga von Etzdorf

Margarete (Marga) von Etzdorf (1 August 1907 - 28 May 1933) was a German aircraft pilot, notable for being the first woman hired to fly for an airline, and the first woman to fly solo across Siberia, from Germany to Tokyo, Japan.

Career

When she was 19 years old, von Etzdorf received a pilot's license, the second woman after Thea Rasche to do so after the First World War. On 19 February 1928, she became the first woman to fly for an airline. Since the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule did not accept women at the time, she was mostly self-taught, although she received support from Melitta Schiller, who worked as an engineer at the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt. She began flying a commercial Junkers F.13, nicknamed , Berliner for "look in the world," for Lufthansa, then DLH. She flew on the Berlin-Breslau and Berlin-Stuttgart-Basel routes.

In 1930, with support from her grandparents, von Etzdorf bought herself a Junkers A 50ce, "Junior," which she painted bright yellow. She flew her first long-distance flight with it, to Istanbul. Soon afterwards, she attempted to fly to the Canary Islands, but her plane suffered severe damage due to a severe storm above Italy. It had to be sent by train to the Junkers factory, to be repaired. On 18 August 1931 she began her record-breaking flight to Tokyo. After 11 days, on 29 August 1931, she landed at Haneda Airport, where she was received warmly. The construction of the airport, costing approximately half-a-million dollars at the time, had recently finished, and von Etzdorf was the first foreigner to enter Japan by that port. through the research of historian Evelyn Crellin, that it became public that von Etzdorf had entered into a secret agreement with the Nazis and that she was to initiate illegal arms deals. A letter from Ernst Heymann (retired captain, employee of the Haenel arms company and arms lobbyist with contacts to the NSDAP) was found in her last luggage. The letter from Heymann indicated that the submachine gun was not only for self-defense, but mainly for illegal negotiations for the distribution of Schmeisser submachine guns. Enclosed were accessories and 100 rounds of ammunition as well as German and English catalogues and price lists. She was supposed to earn money from possible sales. Carrying the submachine gun for private use would have been permitted only with the permission of the overflown country. However, trade in such weapons also violated fundamental provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. The Foreign Office, which had sent a diplomat to Aleppo, was well aware of the explosive nature of this situation. France had the League of Nations mandate for Syria and Lebanon at the time. Today it is assumed that one of the reasons for the suicide was the fear of discovery by French officials and of propagandistic exploitation by the French government. The latter refrained from capitalizing on the incident after the death. In Germany, arms smuggling was never publicized or discussed for decades.

She was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin, but her grave was destroyed in the 1970s, due to its proximity to the Berlin Wall. Her gravestone read , or "flying is worth life".