2 Hélène Dutrieu – Air Guard of Paris

Born in 1877 the Belgian soon received public attention as she became the first World Champion for cycle racing in 1896. After she had changed to aviation she won the „Coppa del Rei“ in Florence in 1911 an international championship and the New York endurance flight competition for women. She became a member of the French Legion of Honor for her achievements in aviation in 1913. After a severe flight accident she only reentered the cockpit when her home country was threatened in the First World War. She served in the Air Guard of Paris and performed reconnaissance flights for the French Army. But when aerial warfare was intensified, her permission was withdrawn.
To serve for the defense of her country nevertheless she worked for the Red Cross and organized the transportation of wounded. According to other sources her career as a female pilot ended with the beginning of the War because the French military didn’t accepted female pilots. In her time as ambulance driver she came up with an idea that is nowadays known as “medical evacuation”, the evacuation of severely wounded soldiers by air, even though the technical means wouldn’t allow that in those days.
In the years 1915 and 1916 the minister of war General Gallieni sent her on a propaganda mission to the United States, to bring the US on France side into the war. Probably her image as a heroic female military pilot was created during this journey, and was exaggerated by the press.
After the First World War she returned to the medical service. Aviation had become too expensive and too advanced technologically for her to entertain it by her private means. She became an ambulance driver and was the head of a military hospital in the Second World War.
 

Literature:
Lebow, Eilen F.: Before Amelia. Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation . Dulles (Virginia) 2002, p.25ff.
Marck, Bernard: Frauen erobern die Lüfte, aus dem Französischen von J. Grube/ F. Weyer, Paris 2009, p. 43ff.
Probst, Ernst:  Königinnen der Lüfte . Biographien berühmter Fliegerinnen. Probst, Mainz 2002, p. 137ff.

Questions:
1) How can you explain that women in the Age of the First World War have been pushed in the role of helpers or paramedics?
2) What contradicts women as combatants from a moral position?
3) The Term of “gunwoman” (ger: “Flintenweiber”) is used up until today with a cynical connotation, where lie the roots to this aversion – are male deprived of the traditional role of Fighter if he is decoupled from his power to fight and his physical strength?

Compare this with the verdict that forced the Bundeswehr to accept female recruits in 2001. There has been a discussion in Germany, whether it was morally acceptable that female medics served in the military.
Further literature:
Seidler, Franz: Frauen zu den Waffen? Marketenderinnen, Helferinnen, Soldatinnen, Bonn 1978.

Compiled by Christian Taube.