When Katharina “Käthe” Paulus met the balloonist Hermann Latteman in 1889, her great love began, not only for this man, but also for airship travel, aerial acrobatics, and parachuting. This love led her to become the first woman in Germany and the third woman in the world to do a parachute jump in 1893, and ultimately to the development of the foldable parachute, which is still used today. Käthe Paulus was born on December 22, 1868. Even as a child she liked to play acrobat, and once stretched clotheslines across…
