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101-400: The German name is derived from Wasenkuppe, Asenberg or Weideberg and means Pasture mountain . The Wasserkuppe lies in the administrative district Fulda 5.3 kilometres (3.3 mi) north of Gersfeld . Other villages nearby are Poppenhausen (4.7 kilometres (2.9 mi) west - south west) and Wüstensachsen (5 kilometres (3.1 mi) east, part of Ehrenberg, Hesse ). It is part of

202-404: A Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (with Reitsch riding in the small plane's fuselage), escorted by twelve other Fw 190s from Jagdgeschwader 26 under the command of Hauptmann Hans Dortenmann . In Berlin, Reitsch and von Greim took a Fi 156 Storch —initially piloted by von Greim until his foot was struck by a bullet, then by Reitsch reaching over him to land on an improvised airstrip in

303-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it

404-402: A second language , and 75–100   million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220   million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90   million people, or 16% of

505-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become

606-485: A "modernist" development ideology. Reitsch's attitudes to race underwent a change. "Earlier in my life, it would never have occurred to me to treat a black person as a friend or partner ..." She now experienced guilt at her earlier "presumptuousness and arrogance". She became close to Nkrumah. The details of their relationship are now unclear due to the destruction of documents, but some surviving letters are intimate in tone. In Ghana, some Africans were disturbed by

707-744: A "ready smile". She appeared in Nazi propaganda throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s. Reitsch was the first female helicopter pilot and one of the few pilots to fly the Focke-Achgelis Fa 61 , the first fully controllable helicopter, for which she received the Military Flying Medal. In 1938, during the three weeks of the International Automobile Exhibition in Berlin, she made daily flights of

808-571: A gliding centre, and she flew with him over New Delhi . In 1961, United States President John F. Kennedy invited her to the White House . From 1962 to 1966, she lived in Ghana . The then Ghanaian President, Kwame Nkrumah invited Reitsch to Ghana after reading of her work in India. At Afienya she founded the first black African national gliding school, working closely with the government and

909-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from

1010-637: A member of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS) and became a test pilot in 1935. Reitsch enrolled in the Civil Airways Training School in Stettin , where she flew a twin-engine on a cross country flight and aerobatics in a Focke-Wulf Fw 44 . In 1937, Ernst Udet gave Reitsch the honorary title of Flugkapitän after she had successfully tested Hans Jacobs 's divebrakes for gliders. At

1111-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained

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1212-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In

1313-520: A result, the Wasserkuppe now had a gliding school, workshops for building gliders and a funded research facility. Alexander Lippisch was appointed as the managing director of the new society. Virtually every German aeronautical engineer and test pilot of note during the 1920s and 1930s spent time building, testing, and flying aircraft at the Wasserkuppe, including the Günter brothers , Wolf Hirth ,

1414-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it

1515-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as

1616-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German

1717-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic

1818-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German

1919-607: Is classified as humid continental ( Köppen : Dfb ; Trewartha : Dclo ) closely bordering on a subarctic climate ( Dfc ). The average annual temperature in Wasserkuppe is 6.0 °C (42.8 °F). The average annual rainfall is 1,106.1 mm (43.55 in) with December as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in July, at around 14.8 °C (58.6 °F), and lowest in January, at around −2.2 °C (28.0 °F). The Wasserkuppe weather station has recorded

2020-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25   million speak it as

2121-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in

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2222-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as

2323-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are

2424-728: Is offered. In winter the area is used by skiers and snowboarders. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and

2525-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and

2626-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as

2727-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German

2828-601: Is quoted as saying: And what have we now in Germany? A country of bankers and car-makers. Even our great army has gone soft. Soldiers wear beards and question orders. I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But today in all of Germany you can't find a single person who voted Adolf Hitler into power ... Many Germans feel guilty about

2929-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c.  1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period

3030-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish

3131-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers

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3232-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to

3333-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as

3434-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share

3535-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language

3636-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout

3737-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in

3838-518: The Horten brothers , Robert Kronfeld , Hans Jacobs , Heini Dittmar , Alexander Lippisch , Willy Messerschmitt , Hanna Reitsch , Peter Riedel , and Alexander Schleicher . Beverley Shenstone , who was later a key part of the design team for the Spitfire , flew gliders at Wasserkuppe in 1930. This period saw great advances in new technologies such as flying wings and rocket -powered flights. In

3939-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.  765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in

4040-659: The Rhön Biosphere Reserve . The Wasserkuppe sources the spring of the river Fulda (the western source of the Weser ) and the river Lütter which joins the Fulda after 50 kilometres (31 mi). The other peaks near the Wasserkuppe are Abtsrodaer Kuppe (north, 905 metres (2,969 ft) NN), Schafstein  [ de ] (east, 831.8 metres (2,729 ft) NN) and Pferdskopf (south west, 874.9 metres (2,870 ft) NN). Wasserkuppe's climate

4141-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung

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4242-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit.   ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this

4343-590: The Ufa Film Company as a stunt pilot and set an unofficial endurance record for women of 11 hours and 20 minutes. In January 1934, she joined a South America expedition to study thermal conditions, along with Wolf Hirth, Peter Riedel and Heini Dittmar . While in Argentina, she became the first woman to earn the Silver C Badge , the 25th to do so among world glider pilots. In June 1934, Reitsch became

4444-513: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and   Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German

4545-545: The last days of the war , Hitler dismissed Hermann Göring as head of the Luftwaffe and appointed Robert Ritter von Greim to replace him. Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport into embattled Berlin to meet Hitler in the Führerbunker , arriving on 26 April when Red Army troops were already in the central area of Berlin. Reitsch and von Greim had been flown from Rechlin–Lärz Airfield to Gatow Airfield in

4646-469: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from

4747-551: The "Women's Out and Return World Record" twice, once in 1976 (715 km (444 mi)) and again, in 1979 (802 km (498 mi)), flying along the Appalachian Ridges in the United States. During this time, she also finished first in the women's section of the first world helicopter championships. Reitsch was interviewed and photographed several times in the 1970s, towards the end of her life, by Jewish-American photojournalist Ron Laytner. In her closing remarks she

4848-604: The 1930s the "Ehrenhalle" (Hall of Honor) was constructed in the Lilienthal Haus, with heavy bronze doors opening into a large hall with a stained glass window. The centerpiece is a larger-than-life bronze figure of Otto Lilienthal lying on an (empty) tomb. It is a memorial to all pilots who have died in aviation accidents. The inscription on the memorial is Lilienthal's famous last words: "Opfer müssen gebracht werden" roughly meaning: "Sacrifices must be made." In Nazi Germany , gliding activities became largely controlled by

4949-637: The DFS she test-flew transport and troop-carrying gliders, including the DFS 230 that was used at the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael . In September 1937, Reitsch was posted to the Luftwaffe testing centre at Rechlin-Lärz Airfield by Ernst Udet. Her flying skill, desire for publicity, and photogenic qualities made her a star of Nazi propaganda . Physically she was petite and very slender, with blonde hair, blue eyes and

5050-723: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In

5151-737: The Fa 61 helicopter inside the Deutschlandhalle . In September 1938, Reitsch flew the DFS Habicht in the Cleveland National Air Races . Reitsch was a test pilot on the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber and Dornier Do 17 light/fast bomber projects, for which she received the Iron Cross, Second Class, from Hitler on 28 March 1941. Reitsch was asked to fly many of Germany's latest designs, among them

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5252-399: The Fi 103R she and Heinz Kensche took over tests of the prototype Fi 103R. She made several successful test flights before training the instructors. "Though an average pilot could fly the V1 without difficulty once it was in the air, to land it called for exceptional skill, in that it had a very high landing speed and, moreover, in training it was the glider model, without engine, that

5353-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of

5454-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of

5555-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c.  1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of

5656-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by

5757-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are

5858-757: The Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German

5959-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c.  thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c.  1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy

6060-403: The School of Gliding in Grunau . While a medical student in Berlin , she enrolled in a German Air Mail amateur flying school for powered aircraft at Staaken , training in a Klemm Kl 25 . In 1933, Reitsch left medical school at the University of Kiel to become, at the invitation of Wolf Hirth , a full-time glider pilot/instructor at Hornberg in Baden-Württemberg. Reitsch contracted with

6161-433: The Soviet occupation zone, Reitsch's father shot and killed her mother and sister and her sister's three children before killing himself. After her release Reitsch settled in Frankfurt am Main . After the war, German citizens were barred from flying powered aircraft, but within a few years gliding was allowed, which she took up again. In 1952, Reitsch won a bronze medal in the World Gliding Championships in Spain ; she

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6262-464: The Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate and Berlin Victory Column . On 27 April, Hitler gave Reitsch two capsules of poison for herself and von Greim, which she accepted. Shortly after midnight on 29 April, Hitler ordered Reitsch and von Greim to fly out of Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 (which had been flown to the Tiergarten by the pilot who stowed Reitsch in his fuselage), asserting that they could get General Walther Wenck to save Berlin. Von Greim

6363-411: The Wasserkuppe where it has remained popular since. Beginning in the 1970s, the newer sport of hang gliding has also found a home there. Following the reunification of Germany and demise of the Soviet Union , the surveillance and radar installations were removed in the 1990s. In 1970, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first competition, the Deutsches Segelflugmuseum (German Sailplane Museum)

6464-437: The age of 67, on 24 August 1979. She had never married. She is buried in the Reitsch family grave in the Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof. Former British test pilot and Royal Navy officer Eric Brown said he received a letter from Reitsch in early August 1979 in which she said, "It began in the bunker, there it shall end." Within weeks she was dead. Brown speculated that Reitsch had taken the cyanide capsule Hitler had given her in

6565-416: The altar of the Fatherland," referring to the Führerbunker . Reitsch dismissed assertions of Hitler's survival , saying, "He had no reason to live and the tragedy was that he knew it ... perhaps better than anyone else did." Reitsch claimed Hitler was initially motivated by a will to "make Germany healthy again", but gambled his populace. She criticised his incompetence as a leader (e.g. his selection of

6666-411: The armed forces. The West German government supported her as technical adviser. The school was commanded by J.E.S. de Graft-Hayford , with gliders such as the double-seated Schleicher K7 , Slingsby T.21 and a Bergfalke , along with a single-seated Schleicher K 8 . She gained the FAI Diamond Badge in 1970. The project was evidently of great importance to Nkrumah and has been interpreted as part of

6767-418: The competition had become an international event, drawing pilots from all over Europe and even the United States. Also in 1924 'Rhönvater' (Rhön father) Oskar Ursinus convinced the then secretary of air transport for the ministry of transportation Ernst Brandenburg  [ de ] to turn the new gliding club into a state funded research organization. This started the Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft and as

6868-499: The defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad , she accepted an invitation from Generaloberst Robert Ritter von Greim to visit the Eastern Front . She spent three weeks visiting Luftwaffe units, flying a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch . On 28 February 1944, she presented the idea of Operation Suicide to Hitler at Berchtesgaden , which "would require men who were ready to sacrifice themselves in the conviction that only by this means could their country be saved." Although Hitler "did not consider

6969-430: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with

7070-404: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in

7171-435: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of

7272-409: The first glider pilot to use an updraft rising along a mountain slope to stay aloft for a lengthy period. He then founded the world's first glider pilot school at the Wasserkuppe. The first competition was organised by Oskar Ursinus , who also built the first clubhouse on the Wasserkuppe in 1924 to replace the shipping containers that enthusiasts were using as accommodation up to that point. By 1930,

7373-694: The following extreme values: Students from the Darmstadt University of Technology , then known as Technische Hochschule Darmstadt , began flying gliders from the Wasserkuppe as early as 1911, but interest in gliding in Germany increased greatly after 1918 when the Treaty of Versailles restricted the production or use of powered aircraft in the nation. From 1920 onwards, annual gliding competitions were held, leading to records being set and broken for height, distance and duration of unpowered flight. In 1922 Arthur Martens  [ de ] became

7474-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,

7575-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of

7676-447: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Hanna Reitsch Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator and test pilot . Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg , she flight tested many of Germany's new aircraft during World War II and received many honors. Reitsch

7777-507: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted

7878-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from

7979-403: The prominence of a person with Reitsch's past, but Shirley Graham Du Bois , a noted African-American writer who had emigrated to Ghana and was friendly towards Reitsch, agreed with Nkrumah that Reitsch was extremely naive politically. Contemporary Ghanaian press reports seem to show a lack of interest in her past. Throughout the 1970s, Reitsch broke gliding records in many categories, including

8080-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation

8181-486: The rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet in 1942. And as such, she became the first and only woman in the world to fly a rocket plane. A crash landing on her fifth Me 163 flight badly injured Reitsch; she spent five months in a hospital recovering. Reitsch received the Iron Cross First Class following the accident, one of only three women to do so. She was also the only woman to have flown

8282-649: The state, and for Hitler Youth pilots and their instructors, proficiency in gliding was viewed as the first step towards the Luftwaffe . Sailplane research was also nationalised under the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS – German Research Institute for Sailplane Flight). Following World War II , a US Air Force base, radar station, and surveillance station were established there but when restrictions on German aviation were lifted in 1951, gliding soon returned to

8383-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,

8484-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in

8585-538: The war situation sufficiently serious to warrant them ... and ... this was not the right psychological moment", he gave his approval. The project was assigned to Gen. Günther Korten . There were about seventy volunteers who enrolled in the Suicide Group as pilots for the human glider-bomb. By April 1944, Reitsch and Heinz Kensche finished tests of the Me 328 , carried aloft by a Dornier Do 217 . By then, she

8686-541: The war. But they don't explain the real guilt we share – that we lost. In the same interview, she is quoted as saying, I asked Hermann Göring one day, "What is this I am hearing that Germany is killing Jews?" Göring responded angrily, "A totally outrageous lie made up by the British and American press. It will be used as a rope to hang us someday if we lose the war." Reitsch died of a heart attack in Frankfurt at

8787-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during

8888-537: The world's biggest glider, the Messerschmitt Me 321 Gigant (Giant). She was instrumental in having a second pilot added to the Me 321. She was also the first woman in the world to fly a jet fighter (Me 262), and the only woman in the world to have flown a cruise missile ( Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg ). She was also likely to have been the first woman to fly a dive bomber (Ju 87). In February 1943 after news of

8989-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching

9090-536: The wrong persons for office) and argued repeatedly that never again must an individual have so much control over any country. Reitsch was held for eighteen months; von Greim killed himself on 24 May 1945. Evacuated from Silesia ahead of the Soviet troops, Reitsch's family took refuge in Salzburg . During the night of 3 May 1945, after hearing a rumour that all refugees were to be taken back to their original homes in

9191-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of

9292-573: Was among the very last people to meet Adolf Hitler alive in the Führerbunker in late April 1945. Reitsch set more than 40 flight altitude records and women's endurance records in gliding and unpowered flight, before and after World War II. In the 1960s, she was sponsored by the West German foreign office as a technical adviser in Ghana and elsewhere, and founded a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah . Reitsch

9393-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially

9494-755: Was approached by SS - Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny , a founding member of the SS- Selbstopferkommando Leonidas ( Leonidas Squadron ). They adapted the V-1 flying bomb into the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg , including a two-seater and a single-seater with and without the mechanisms to land. The plan was never implemented operationally, "the decisive moment had been missed." In her autobiography Fliegen, mein Leben Reitsch recalled that after two initial crashes with

9595-603: Was born in Hirschberg , Silesia , on 29 March 1912 to an upper-middle-class family. She was daughter of Dr. Wilhelm (Willy) Reitsch, who was an ophthalmology clinic manager, and his wife Emy Helff-Hibler von Alpenheim, who was a member of the Austrian nobility . Despite her mother being a devout Catholic , Hanna was raised a Protestant . She had two siblings, brother Kurt, a Fregattenkapitän (frigate captain), and younger sister Heidi. Reitsch began flight training in 1932 at

9696-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which

9797-536: Was opened on the plateau, with Neil Armstrong a guest of honour at the ceremony. The museum gained a new building in 1987. The Wasserkuppe is also the home of the Oldtimer Segelflugclub (OSC – Oldtimer Gliding Club), dedicated (as its name suggests) to flying vintage sailplanes . Next to the long tradition of sailplanes the Wasserkuppe has become a sports and weekend centre offering a wide selection of activities. Paragliding as well as Snowkiting

9898-582: Was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamer Platz and to make sure Himmler was punished for his treachery in making unauthorised contact with the Western Allies regarding surrender terms. Troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army , which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten from the north, tried to shoot the plane down fearing that Hitler was escaping in it, but it took off successfully. Reitsch

9999-458: Was soon captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by U.S. military intelligence officers. When asked about being ordered to leave the Führerbunker on 29 April 1945, Reitsch and von Greim reportedly repeated the same answer: "It was the blackest day when we could not die at our Führer's side." Reitsch stated, "We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before

10100-581: Was the first woman to compete and in 1955 she became German champion. She continued to break records, including the women's altitude record (6,848 m (22,467 ft)) in 1957 and her first diamond of the Gold-C badge. During the mid-1950s, Reitsch was interviewed on film and talked about her wartime flight tests of the Fa ;61, Me 262 and Me 163. In 1959, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru invited Reitsch, who spoke fluent English, to start

10201-671: Was usually employed." In October 1944, Reitsch claimed she was shown a booklet by Peter Riedel which he had obtained while in the German Embassy in Stockholm, concerning the gas chambers . She further claimed that while believing it to be enemy propaganda, she agreed to inform Heinrich Himmler about it. When she did, Himmler is said to have asked whether she believed it, and she replied, "No, of course not. But you must do something to counter it. You can't let them shoulder this onto Germany." "You are right," Himmler replied. During

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