“Udet seemed impressed by my youthful enthusiasm for aviation and offered to take me for a flight at Halle, south of Berlin. There we drove up to a Bücker Jungmann two-seat trainer, where he put me in the front cockpit and took particular care to see I was securely strapped in-the reason for this solicitude becoming obvious to me later. It was a glorious day and Udet proceeded to put this jaunty little trainer through its aerobatic paces, and at the same time checking in his broken English that my stomach and nerves were still in good shape. After about half an hour we rejoined the airfield circuit, and on the final approach he suddenly rolled the Jungmann on to its back and we glided inverted to within what I estimated was my approaching demise-but was actually some 50ft up-when he rolled it right way up and then held off to land. I was speechless but he roared with laughter, hit me smartly between the shoulder blades with a great yell of ‘Hals und Beinbruch’, the German fighter-pilots’ greeting. From that moment I was unswervingly dedicated to achieving that goal.”
— Wings on My Sleeve: The World's Greatest Test Pilot tells his story (Phoenix Press) by Eric Brown
Towards the end of WW2 Ernst Udet was reported to have been killed as a result of an aircraft accident in which he ran into compressibility issues while testing a new aircraft. In fact he had shot himself in the head. When this fact leaked out the demoralization it caused in the Luftwaffe was wide spread and there are historians who say that was the triggering event for the decline and fall of the organization. When Udet's autobiography was published (posthumously), it was clear that the final chapter was not by his hand, but had been addedn by those who had encouraged him to take his own life. A tragic end to one of history's great aviators.