[1] During 1920, Bertram trained under flying instructor Paul Bäumer, a noted German aviator of World War I, at Hamburg Fuhlsbuttel Airport.

When Bertram piloted a Junkers W 33 seaplane on an around-the world flight during 1932, he became lost over a sparsely-populated part of the Kimberley region of Western Australia and made a forced landing.

The World War I aviation drama D III 88 (1939), also written by Bertram, was made with the support of Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring.

During World War II, Bertram wrote and directed two feature-length propaganda-oriented documentaries about German aviators.

[1] In 1985, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation screened Flight into Hell, a television miniseries based on Bertram's accounts of his experiences during 1932.