Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg

Countess von Stauffenberg died after being shot down by an American fighter plane on 8 April 1945.

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.

She took off early on 8 April 1945, flying low to the ground along the line of the railway to navigate. An American fighter looking for trains to attack along the line attacked near Straßkirchen, Bavaria. She crash-landed the aircraft and was conscious when civilians arrived to help. She asked for assistance to get out of the aircraft, and was extracted from the aircraft alive. The civilians reported her most serious injury appeared to be a broken leg.

In September 1945 Alexander arranged to have her exhumed and transported to the Stauffenberg estate at Lautlingen where she was interred in the family crypt on 8 September 1945.

She was the second German woman to be awarded the honorary title of Flugkapitän (English: flight captain) and also flew over 2,500 test flights in dive bombers, the second most of any Luftwaffe test pilot. Von Stauffenberg was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class and the Gold Front Flying Clasp for Bombers with diamonds, for performing over 1,500 test flights in dive bomber aircraft. In 1944, she was arrested with other Stauffenberg family members on suspicion of conspiring with her brothers-in-law to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but she was later released to continue her test flight duties.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Melitta passed the diploma for university entrance in 1922 and accepted a place at the Technical University of Munich. There she studied mathematics, physics and engineering, eventually specialising in aeronautical engineering. In 1927 she graduated cum laude.

With the end of World War I Krotoschin became part of Poland. In October 1919 Melitta began attending boarding school across the border in Hirschberg, Silesia.

Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg (née Schiller; 3 January 1903 – 8 April 1945) was an aviator who served as a test pilot in the Luftwaffe before and during World War II.