Rosemeyer-Beinhorn, Elly.

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Rosemeyer-Beinhorn, Elly, born 30-05-1897 in Hanover , attended in 1928 a lecture by famed aviator Hermann Köhl Koehl,_Capt._Hermann_(4728499585), who had recently completed a historic East-West Atlantic crossing. This lecture is described as the spark that ignited her interest in aviation. Köhl died age 50 on 07-10-1938 in Munich.

Hermann Köhl (15-04-1888 – 07-10-1938) was a German aviation pioneer and pilot of the first transatlantic flight by a fixed-wing aircraft from east to west. Köhl was born in Neu-Ulm, Bavaria, as one of eight children. At the age of 19, he joined the German Imperial Army to become an officer like his father. At the beginning of World War I he was a Lieutenant in the Württembergisches Pionier-Bataillon Nr.13 After being wounded in the legs, which disqualified him for further service in the engineers, Herman volunteered to join the German Army Air Service. He became a pilot and later a commander of a Bomber Squadron, and received the Pour le Mérite  in 1918. He crashed his aircraft behind enemy lines and was captured and held as a POW in France but managed to escape and returned to Germany.

After the end of World War I, he worked for the German Police and for the Reichswehr, but in 1925, he transferred to civil aviation and became the head of the Deutsche Luft Hansa Nightflight Branch in 1926.

At just 21 years old, with funds from a small inheritance, against the wishes of her parents. Elly moved to Spandau in Berlin where she took flying lessons, at Berlin-Staaken airport, under the tutelage of instructor Otto Thomsen  . Thomsen died age 30 on 23-04-1948. She soon made her solo flight in a small Klemm KL-20.  With her money running out, it was suggested that she give aerobatic displays on the weekends. She found this financially rewarding, but personally unsatisfying. Long distance flying was her real passion and in 1931 she seized the opportunity to fly to Portuguese Guinea, West Africa on a scientific expedition. On the return journey, engine failure resulted in a crash-landing in the Sahara. With the help of nomadic Tuareg tribesmen, Elly joined a camel caravan to Timbuktu. She subsequently returned to the crash site to recover parts of the plane. Word of her plight reached the French authorities and they sent a military two-seater plane to collect her. In April 1931, fully recovered, she was able to fly herself back to Berlin to a warm reception from the crowds. Soon after this, she embarked on another flight, her Klemm monoplane developing mechanical problems near Bushire, Persia. She found Moye Stephens , another pilot, in Bushire, who helped her fix the problem on her Klemm 800px-Klemm_35a_2008. Stephens died age 89 in 1995. Stephens and travel-adventure writer Richard Halliburton were flying around the world in a Stearman C-3B biplane, they called the Flying Carpet. She accompanied them on part of their flight, including the trip to Mount Everest. She flew on to Bali – and eventually Australia. In the process, she became only the second woman to fly solo from Europe to Australia, after Amy Johnson.. Having landed in Darwin, North Australia, she headed down to Sydney, arriving in March 1932. Her plane was dismantled and shipped to New Zealand, then Panama where it was reassembled. There Elly resumed her flight, following the western coast of South America. She was presented with a medal in Peru. An ill-advised trip across the Andes followed. The plane was dismantled once more in Brazil and shipped to Germany. Elly arrived in Berlin in June 1932.

On 04-03-1939, Richard Halliburton, Paul Mooney and a crew of 12 sailed from Hong Kong in a 75-foot Chinese junk to San Francisco, where the ship was to become an attraction at the city’s Golden Gate International Exposition. On March 24 they encountered a dangerous storm with gale-force winds and 40- to 50-foot waves. All were lost at sea.

Now famous but in debt to the tune of 15.000 marks or more, Elly Rosemeyer was pleasantly surprised to be awarded the Hindenburg  Cup, 10.000 marks and several other monetary awards from the German aeronautical industry which enabled her to continue her career. She also continued to write articles and sell photographs of her travels to raise funds. Free of debt, she took off for Africa using a Heinkel He 71 flying down the east coast, then back up the west coast. The following year, Elly shipped the plane to Panama, then flew through Mexico and California before crossing the United States to Washington DC and Miami. Elly and the plane returned to Germany by ship, arriving in January 1935. She was now a true German heroine. On 29-09-1935 Elly attended the Czechoslovakian Grand Prix, held in the town of Brno in Czechoslovakia, at the invitation of Auto Union, she happened to be in the country on a lecture tour, by now a regular source of income. She congratulated the winner, Bernd Rosemeyer here with Ferdinand Porsche

439px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-2007-1205-501,_Bernd_Rosemeyer_mit_Vanderbilt_Cup    who seemed smitten with her. They danced together that night and were married on 13-07-1936 434px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-2007-0212,_Heirat_Elly_Beinhorn,_Bernd_Rosemeyer. A true celebrity couple – an adventurous aviator and the fearless racing driver – they were the toast of Nazi Germany. Heinrich Himmler  ordered a reluctant Bernd to become a member of the SS. Rosemeyer had probably been a member of the SS since 1932 or 1933 and was promoted to SS Hauptsturmführer on the basis of his achievements as a racing driver. Rosemeyer was greatly admired by Hitler and was considered a great folk hero in the Third Reich. They had a son, Bernd Jr., in November 1937, but just ten weeks after his birth his father was killed while attempting a speed record in his Auto Union Streamliner on 28-01-1938, age 28. He mainly drove an Adolf Hitler-sponsored Auto Union.

    As a national hero he was mourned by much of Germany. Elly received condolences from prominent Nazis, including Adolf Hitler (did you know), but requested a simple, non-political funeral ceremony. These wishes were ignored and several Nazis gave speeches at the graveside. Some accounts suggest that Elly walked off in protest at the Nazis claiming Bernd as their own and taking over what was a personal occasion.

Rosemeyer was a cousin of Joseph Rosemeyer, the cyclist and later bicycle and lamp manufacturer. Joseph Rosemeyer (Lingen, 13-03-1872 – Cologne, 01-12-1919) was a German track cyclist and inventor. He competed in the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. Rosemeyer was eighth and last in the 333.33 meter sprint on the track and fourth in the ten kilometers on the track. He had to give up in the two-kilometer time trial.Rosemeyer’s father had a workshop in Lingen, where, among other things, safes were made. After the death of his father in 1889, Joseph took over the business. From 1897 he also started producing bicycles and motorcycles and founded a cycling club in Lingen, and had a 333 m long velodrome built there. In 1897 Rosemeyer invented a new type of electric lamp called Dauerbrand-Bogenlampe, obtained the German patent on it and owned a factory from 1899-1912 that produced these lamps. After that, his type of lamp was technically obsolete and he closed the company. Rosemeyer devised another plan for a canal from the Rhine to the North Sea, but that plan proved impracticable. A few years later he was injured in an accident and died a few years later, on 01-12-1919, age 47, from the consequences.

In 1941 Elly married Dr. Karl Wittman and they had a daughter, Stephanie. After World War II she briefly took up gliding due to the ban on powered flight in Germany. But she soon moved to Switzerland to continue flying planes. In 1979, she surrendered her pilot’s licence.

Death and burial ground of Rosemeyer-Beinhorn, Elly.

In her later years, Rosemeyer lived in Ottobrunn, Bavaria, near Munich. Her son, Dr. Bernd Rosemeyer

  lives in the same area and has enjoyed a successful career as an orthopedist. Der Bernard married Countess Michaela von Castell-Ruedenhausen, who died 08-08-2011, and they have two children. 34972902_123748662348  Elly Beinhorn died on 28-11-2007, at the age of 100 in Ottobrun and is buried next to her husband on the Waldfriedhof of Dahlem, Berlin. Close to his grave, is the grave of Roland Freisler  the disputed jurist, buried in the family grave of his wife Marion Rusegger, without any recognition on the stone of Freisler’s presence. Also buried there are Ulrich Schwerin von Schwanenfeld, General der Infantrie, Walter von Bergmann, and a grave of honor for Generalmajor der Wehrmacht, Pioneer Commander, Wilhelm Runge he is buried on the cemetery of Cherntsy Russia.

34972902_123748655567  CEM46941322_125645180145

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