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| :''Eva Braun was allowed to be present during visits from old party associates. She was banished as soon as other dignitaries of the Reich, such as cabinet ministers, appeared at the table ... Hitler obviously regarded her as socially acceptable only within strict limits. Sometimes I kept her company in her exile, a room next to Hitler's bedroom. She was so intimidated that she did not dare leave the house for a walk. Out of sympathy for her predicament I soon began to feel a liking for this unhappy woman, who was so deeply attached to Hitler.'' | :''Eva Braun was allowed to be present during visits from old party associates. She was banished as soon as other dignitaries of the Reich, such as cabinet ministers, appeared at the table ... Hitler obviously regarded her as socially acceptable only within strict limits. Sometimes I kept her company in her exile, a room next to Hitler's bedroom. She was so intimidated that she did not dare leave the house for a walk. Out of sympathy for her predicament I soon began to feel a liking for this unhappy woman, who was so deeply attached to Hitler.'' | ||
| The 1943 collaborative study titled "'']''" by Professor ], Director of the ], ] ] and other academics, stated that Hitler was ] as far as ] relations were concerned. In his 1982 book, "''I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Surge''" ], indicated that Adolf Hitler was capable only of platonic relationships with women. ] wrote in his book '']'' that Eva Braun never slept in the same room as Hitler and was given her own bedroom at Hitler's Berlin residence (p.130), even in the final days, she had her own bedroom in the Berlin bunker (p.484). Another lengthy study of Hitler resulted in the 2001 book '']'' by ] and ] professor ] who concluded that Adolf Hitler was ] and that his relationship with Eva Braun was almost certainly platonic. | |||
| ==Lifestyle== | ==Lifestyle== | ||
Revision as of 20:17, 8 March 2006
Eva Anna Paula Braun (February 6, 1912 – April 30, 1945) was the longtime companion (and ultimately, wife for a night and a day) of Adolf Hitler.
Background
Born in Munich, Germany, Braun was the daughter of a school teacher and educated at a lyceum, then for one year at a business school in a convent where she had average grades, a talent for athletics and is said to have had the "dreamy beauty" of a "farmer's daughter." She worked for several months as a receptionist in a medical office, then at age seventeen took a job as office and lab assistant for Heinrich Hoffmann (the official photographer for the Nazi Party). She met Hitler there in 1929 and is said to have slipped a love letter into his pocket. He had been introduced to her as "Herr Wolff" (a childhood nickname he used during the 1920s for security purposes). She described him to friends as a "gentleman of a certain age with a funny moustache and carrying a big felt hat." Both of their families were strongly against the relationship and little is known about its first two years. Her father had both political and moral objections while Hitler's half-sister, Angela Raubal, refused to address Eva other than as a social inferior.
Relationship and turmoil
Hitler saw more of Braun after the suicide of Angela's daughter Geli Raubal in 1931 (some historians suggest Raubal killed herself because she was distraught over Hitler's relationship with Braun, while others speculate Hitler killed her, or had her murdered). Hitler was seeing other women such as actress Renate Müller (whose early death was also termed a suicide). Braun attempted suicide in 1932 by shooting herself in the neck. She attempted suicide a second time in 1935 by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. After Braun's recovery Hitler became more committed to her and bought her a villa in Wasserburgerstrasse, a Munich suburb, providing her with a Mercedes and a chauffeur.
In 1936 she came to his household at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden. Her political influence on Hitler is unknown and as a result is generally presumed to have been minimal. Some historians have inferred she was aware of at least some sordid details concerning the Third Reich's inner workings. By all accounts she led a sheltered and privileged existence and seemed uninterested in politics. They never appeared as a couple in public and there is some indication that this, along with their not having married early in their relationship, was due to a fear Hitler might lose some of his popularity among female voters. The German people were entirely unaware of Braun and her relationship with Hitler until after the war.
Albert Speer described the relationship in his book Inside the Third Reich:
- Eva Braun was allowed to be present during visits from old party associates. She was banished as soon as other dignitaries of the Reich, such as cabinet ministers, appeared at the table ... Hitler obviously regarded her as socially acceptable only within strict limits. Sometimes I kept her company in her exile, a room next to Hitler's bedroom. She was so intimidated that she did not dare leave the house for a walk. Out of sympathy for her predicament I soon began to feel a liking for this unhappy woman, who was so deeply attached to Hitler.
The 1943 collaborative study titled "Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler" by Professor Henry A. Murray, Director of the Harvard University Psychological Clinic, psychoanalyst Dr.Walter C. Langer and other academics, stated that Hitler was impotent as far as heterosexual relations were concerned. In his 1982 book, "I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Surge" Kurt G. Ludecke, indicated that Adolf Hitler was capable only of platonic relationships with women. Albert Speer wrote in his book Inside the Third Reich that Eva Braun never slept in the same room as Hitler and was given her own bedroom at Hitler's Berlin residence (p.130), even in the final days, she had her own bedroom in the Berlin bunker (p.484). Another lengthy study of Hitler resulted in the 2001 book The Hidden Hitler by historian and University of Bremen professor Lothar Machtan who concluded that Adolf Hitler was homosexual and that his relationship with Eva Braun was almost certainly platonic.
Lifestyle
Even during World War II Braun apparently lived a life of leisure spending her time exercising, reading romance novels, watching films and early German television (at least until around 1943) along with later helping to host gatherings of Hitler's inner circle. Her affection for nude sunbathing (and being photographed at it) is known to have infuriated him. She had a lifelong interest in photography and their closest friends called her the Rolleiflex Girl (after the well-known camera model). She did her own darkroom processing and most of the colour stills and movies of Hitler in existence are her work.
Otto Günsche and Heinz Linge, during extensive debriefings by Soviet intelligence officials after the war, said Braun was at the centre of Hitler's life for most his twelve years in power. It was said that in 1936,
He was always accompanied by her. As soon as he heard the voice of his lover he became jollier. He would make jokes about her new hats. He would take her for hours on end into his study where there would be champagne cooling in ice, chocolates, cognac, and fruit.
The interrogation report adds that when Hitler was too busy for her, "Eva would often be in tears."
Linge said that before the war, Hitler ordered an increase of the police guard at Braun's house in Munich after she reported to the Gestapo that a woman had said to her face she was the Führer-whore.
Hitler is known to have been opposed to women wearing cosmetics (in part because they were made from animal by-products) and sometimes brought the subject up at mealtime. Linge (who was his valet) said Hitler once laughed at traces of Braun's lipstick on a napkin and to tease her, joked, "Soon we will have replacement lipstick made from dead bodies of soldiers."
In 1944 Braun invited her cousin Gertraud Weisker to visit her at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden. Decades later, Weisker recalled that although women in the Third Reich were expected not to wear make-up, drink or smoke, Eva did all of these things. "She was the unhappiest woman I have ever met," said Weisker, who informed Braun about how poorly the war was going for Germany, having illegally listened to BBC news broadcasts in German. Weisker also claimed neither of them knew anything about the concentration camps, although both were keenly aware that Jews in Germany were severely persecuted.
Also in 1944, Eva Braun's sister Gretl married a member of Hitler's entourage, Hermann Fegelein, who served as Heinrich Himmler's liaison. Hitler used the marriage as an excuse to allow Braun to appear at official functions. When Fegelein was caught in the closing days of the war trying to escape to Sweden with another woman, Hitler personally ordered his execution and Braun is said to have deliberately refrained from interceding on her brother-in-law's behalf.
Marriage and suicide
By early April 1945 she had driven to Berlin from Munich to be with Hitler at the Führerbunker. She refused to leave as the Red Army closed in, insisting she was one of the only people loyal to him left in the world and Hitler married her on April 29, 1945 during a brief civil ceremony (the bride wore a blue silk dress) witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann, after which staff were instructed to address her as Frau Hitler instead of Fräulein Braun. There was gossip among the Führerbunker staff that Eva was carrying Hitler's child although there has never been any evidence to support this claim. They committed suicide together on the 30th, she by swallowing a cyanide capsule first. She was 33. Their corpses were burned with gasoline in the Reich Chancellery garden.
Their charred remains were soon discovered by the Russians and secretly buried at the SMERSH compound in Magdeburg, East Germany along with the bodies of Joseph and Magda Goebbels and their six children before being exhumed in 1970, completely cremated and dispersed in the Elbe river (see also Hitler's death).
"It was a suitable conclusion," Gertraud Weisker said later. "She had nothing. He ripped her out of her job and damned her to loneliness in the mountains. It was an unavoidable end and the logical result of everything that had gone before."
The rest of Eva Braun's family survived the war including her father, who worked in a hospital and to whom Braun sent several trunks of her belongings in April, 1945. Her mother, Franziska died aged 96 in January 1976 having lived out her days in an old farmhouse in Ruhpolding, Bavaria.
Eva Hitler?
In 1945, a German bride either kept her maiden name or replaced it with her husband's family name. For example, Braun would not have used the Anglo-Saxon forms Eva Anna Paula Braun Hitler or Eva Braun Hitler had she lived (or married Hitler earlier). When Eva signed her marriage certificate, she first wrote her family name Braun, then lined this out and replaced it with Hitler. Moreover, bunker personnel were instructed to call her Frau Hitler during those final 24 hours, so there is ample evidence she chose Eva Hitler as her legal name. However, since she spent her lifetime as Eva Braun, historical references to her overwhelmingly involve events which happened when she was named Braun and further, to avoid giving a mistaken impression that Adolf Hitler was married for any meaningful length of time during his political career, the consensus among historians has been to use her maiden name.
References
- The Hidden Hitler - Lothar Machtan (2001) ISBN 0465043089
- I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Surge - Kurt G. Ludecke (1982) ISBN 040416904X
- Inside the Third Reich – Albert Speer (1970) ISBN 0684829495
- Cornell University Law Library - "Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler" Cornell University lawschool. Readers can download a PDF version of the whole document HERE