Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg spouse Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
Aviation experience
Melitta started working for the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (DVL), an experimental institute for aviation, in Berlin-Adlershof in 1927. In July 1929 she began flying lessons at Staaken and obtained her provisional flying license with a few months and her full license by mid-1930.: 13–5 In 1936 she was forced from her job as Ingenieurflugzeugführerin (aeronautical engineer) because of her paternal grandfather's Jewish origins, despite her father having converted to Christianity at the age of 18.
On 11 August 1937 at Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Melitta married the historian Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, and on 28 October 1937, she was given the honorary rank of Flugkapitänin, or "flight captain", a rank reserved for test pilots in Germany at the time, and became only the second woman in Germany, after Hanna Reitsch, to achieve this. She eventually gained licences for all classes of powered aircraft, the aerobatic flying licence, and the glider licence.World War II
At the beginning of World War II, Melitta wanted to work for the Red Cross but was ordered to become a test pilot for the Luftwaffe at the central Erprobungsstelle test facility in Rechlin, Mecklenburg. Still a civilian, she was officially seconded from Askania. She did test dives in warplanes, up to 15 times a day, from a height of 4,000 metres.
From 1942, Melitta continued her test-flights at the Luftwaffe's technical academy in Berlin-Gatow. She was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class on 22 January 1943; the medal was pinned on her by Oberkommando der Luftwaffe Hermann Göring on 29th. She made her dissertation for her Masters qualification in 1944, and received an A grade. She then became technical chief of the Versuchsstelle für Flugsondergeräte, another test institute, in the same year.
When the 20 July plot failed, she was arrested with the rest of the Stauffenberg family. Her two brothers-in-law, Claus and Berthold, were executed. She and her husband, as well as the other adult members of the family, were sent to concentration camps. However, she was released on 2 September, because of the military importance of her work. As the name von Stauffenberg was anything but popular among the Nazis, she was now officially addressed as "Gräfin Schenk" instead of "Gräfin Schenk von Stauffenberg". Her sisters-in-law, one of them pregnant, were confined in concentration camps and the Stauffenberg children were taken away from their mothers. Melitta used her prominent position to help as much as she could.
Melitta felt loyal to Germany, but not to the Nazis. She therefore supported the Luftwaffe, but she confessed in her diaries that this moral conflict tormented her.Melitta maintained contact with the incarcerated members of her extended family, even though they were imprisoned in concentration camps. Her status, and the possibility that the prisoners might be useful in a bargain with the Western Allies when Germany finally fell, kept them moderately well looked after. She flew several times to Buchenwald concentration camp once she learned in March 1945 that her husband was there. As research facilities in Berlin were dispersed to other locations ahead of the Soviet advance, Melitta's activities were moved to Wurzberg, where she found that a RAF raid had destroyed her house.: 301
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