Born in Etzdorf, Marga von Etzdorf (1907 – 1933) lost her parents in an accident when she was only four years old. She was a very athletic woman with interests in fencing, riding and hockey. At the age of nineteen, she decided to become a pilot.
After earning a pilot licence, she became the first female airline pilot in the world when she got a job as a Lufthansa co-pilot in 1927 and flew passengers on the Berlin-Breslau and Berlin-Sttugart-Basel routes in Junkers F-13 aircraft.
In 1929, she took some gliding training and became one of the first women in the world to earn a glider pilot licence. One year later, with the help of her grandparents, she bought a Junkers A 50 CE airplane. She participated in the first German Women Aerobatic Championship and got fourth place. In late 1930, she flew to the Canary Islands. In 1931, she took off from Berlin towards Tokyo. She flew over the Urals and Siberia before reaching Tokyo 12 days later becoming the first woman to fly over Siberia.