The Women Who Flew for Hitler

496pp, Macmillan, £20, ebook £10.44

In Nazi Germany, motherhood was so fetishised that medals were awarded to women with more than five children – so it is surprising to find, in this enthralling joint biography, that two of Germany’s most courageous, talented pilots were childless women: Hanna Reitsch, a passionate Nazi who suggested to Hitler that German pilots turn kamikaze, and her arch-rival, the aristocratic (and secretly part-Jewish) Melitta von Stauffenberg. Anne Sebba