Récipient anthropomorphe "sundu"

Margret (1907-2001) & Ludwig Werner Fusbahn (1905-1958), Basel, Switzerland (collected during air expedition to Ethiopia 1932-1933)
Ludwig Werner Fusbahn’s heirs (2021)
Galerie Walu, Basel, Switzerland

Rosa Margaretha Billwiller was born on 14 July 1907 in St. Gallen (Switzerland). At the age of 20, she enrolled at the Böblingen flying school, where she became the first woman to obtain a pilot’s licence in 1928. Immediately afterwards, her husband Ludwig Werner Fusbahn, whom she inspired to fly, also obtained his licence.

In April 1930, Margret Fusbahn celebrated her first major flying success with her husband as a passenger. At that time, she reached an altitude of 4,900 metres in a Klemm light aircraft, breaking the international altitude record for small aircraft in class C.

Margret and Ludwig Werner Fusbahn were described by the press as the “flying couple”. Soon they were no longer satisfied with flying at home and wanted to conquer foreign countries and continents. In 1932/1933, they took part in the Abyssinia flight, a long-distance flight between Egypt and Abyssinia, now Ethiopia, which was unusual for the time. The flight turned out to be extremely adventurous, not only because of the gusty headwinds, which demanded a lot from them physically when holding the control stick, but also because of the dangers posed on the ground by the tribe of the supposedly “wild” Dankali in the event of an emergency landing. But the flying adventure had a happy ending.

The Fusbahn couple divorced in 1938. On 12 March 2001, Rosa Margaretha Rodrigues, as Margret Fusbahn was now known, died in Sintra (Portugal) at the age of 93.