Eva Braun

Eva Anna Paula Braun ( Munich , 6 of February of 1912 - Berlin , 30 of April of 1945 ) was the bride and wife of Adolf Hitler , whom he married on the eve of his suicide. When she was 17 years old, Eva Braun met Hitler in Munich, where she worked as an assistant and model for the personal photographer of the Nazi leader. A couple of years later they began to see each other habitually, although Braun tried to commit suicide twice at the beginning of their relationship. Already in 1936, Braun was part of Hitler’s home in the residence of the Berghof , near Berchtesgaden , where he led a life totally removed from World War II . Braun was a photographer and was the author of much of the photos and color shorts that remain of Hitler. She was one of the key figures in the Führer’s inner circle , but did not appear in public events until mid-1944, after her sister Gretl married Hermann Fegelein , SS general .

When the Third Reich collapsed towards the end of the war, Eva Braun swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler and traveled until Berlin to be to its side in the Führerbunker , located under the Reich Chancellery . In the presence of Red Army troops , on 29 April 1945 Braun married Hitler in a brief civil ceremony; She was 33 and he was 56. Less than forty hours later, they both committed suicide inside the bunker , with the ingestion of a capsule of prussic acid . The German people did not know of Hitler’s relationship with Braun until after his deaths.

Early years

Born in Munich, Eva Braun was the second of the three daughters of a schoolmaster, Friedrich “Fritz” Braun (1879-1964) and Franziska “Fanny” Kronberger (1885-1976), who had worked as a seamstress before marriage . ¹ His older sister, Ilse , was born in 1909 and his younger sister, Margarete ( Gretl ), in 1915. Eva’s parents separated in 1921 and remarried the following year, mainly for economic reasons - hyperinflation was ravaging the German economy. ²Eva Braun was educated at a Catholic high school in Munich and then studied for a year at the business school of the Convent of the English Sisters in the town of Simbach am Inn, where she obtained average marks and stood out for her talent for athletics. ³ At age 17, he got a job in the studio of Heinrich Hoffmann , an official Nazi photographer . ⁴ In principle was employed as a clerk and clerk, but soon began working as a photographer. ⁵ In October 1929 he met Adolf Hitler at Hoffmann’s studio in Munich, who was introduced as “Herr Wolff”. ⁶ His sister Gretl also began working with Hoffmann in 1932, so both rented an apartment to live together thereafter. Gretl accompanied Eva on her later trips with Hitler to the Obersalzberg area . ⁷

Relationship with Hitler

Hitler lived with his half - niece Geli Raubal in an apartment in Munich from 1929 until the death of this on September 18, 1931, ^{8 9} when he was found dead in the apartment because of a shot fired with the gun of Hitler in what It seemed to be a suicide. At that moment the Nazi leader was in Nuremberg . The relationship with Raubal had been very important to him, perhaps the most intense of his life. After Raubal’s death, Hitler began to see Braun more frequently. ¹⁰

Eva Braun herself attempted suicide on August 10 or 11, 1932, shooting herself in the chest with her father’s gun. ¹¹ Historians do not consider it a serious attempt to kill himself, but it was a wake-up call to Hitler. ^{December 13} After recovery of Eva, both moved closer still and by the end of 1932 and had become lovers. ¹⁴ When Hitler was in Munich, the two spent the night together in his apartment in the city. ¹⁵ From 1933, Braun worked as a photographer for Hoffmann, ¹⁶ a job that allowed her to travel as part of Hitler’s entourage . ¹⁷ Years later Braun also worked in the art department of the photographic studio. ¹⁸

According to a fragment of Braun’s diary and an account of biographer Nerin Gun, Braun’s second suicide attempt took place in May 1935. On that occasion he took an overdose of sleeping pills because Hitler spent no more time in his life. ¹⁹ In August of that year, the Führer provided Eva and her sister with a three-room apartment in Munich ²⁰ and the following year a villa in Bogenhausen. ²¹ In 1936 Eva Braun began to accompany Hitler in her stays in the Berghof , the Alpine residence of the Nazi dictator near Berchtesgaden , although most of the time she lived in Munich. ²² Braun also had a private apartment in the new Chancellery of the Reich in Berlin, designed by the architect Albert Speer . ^{2. 3}

Braun first attended a congress of the Nazi Party in Nuremberg in 1935 as part of the Hoffmann team. Hitler’s half-sister, Angela Raubal - mother of the late Geli - was disgusted by the presence of Hitler’s mistress there and shortly afterwards was dismissed from her position as housekeeper of the residence of Berchtesgaden. Historians have not been able to determine whether their aversion to Braun was the sole reason for their departure, but no doubt from that moment other members of Hitler’s entourage began to see Eve as untouchable. ²⁴

Hitler wanted to cultivate an image of a chaste hero; In Nazi ideology political leaders and fighters were men, while women were housewives. ²⁵ The Führer considered himself sexually attractive to women and wanted to remain single to take advantage of it. ^{26 27} Therefore, Hitler and Eva Braun never appeared together in public and the only occasion they were seen in a photo of the press was when she sat next to him at the 1936 Winter Olympics . The German people did not know of the couple’s relationship until after World War II. ¹² According to Albert Speer in his memoirs, Braun never slept in the same room as Hitler and also had his own stays in the Berghof, the Führer ‘s residence in Berlin and even the bunker in which he ended his days. The architect went so far as to write that “Eva Braun would be a great disappointment to historians.” ²⁸

Biographer Heike Görtemaker points out that women did not play an important role in Third Reich politics. ²⁹ Braun’s influence on Hitler’s decisions seems minimal; She was never allowed to intervene in political or business conversations, ²⁵ and was to leave the room when the ministers of the Nazi government or other high dignitaries were present. ³⁰ In addition, he was not a member of the Nazi party. ³¹³² His hobbies were sports, music and film, and all historians agree that led a sheltered and privileged existence, with no interest in politics. ³³ Braun showed no interest in government issues until 1943, shortly after Nazi Germany set about launching a total war economy , something which, among other things, involved a possible ban on cosmetics and luxury goods. women. According to Albert Speer’s memoirs, Braun addressed Hitler “very indignantly” on this subject, so that the Fuehrer then instructed Speer, who was then Minister of Armament, so that he would only temporarily paralyze the production of cosmetics instead To order their total ban. ^{3. 4}

Braun continued to work for Hoffmann even after starting his relationship with Hitler. He made numerous photographs and short films of the members of the German dictator’s closest circle and some of them were sold by Hoffmann at very high prices. Braun received a salary from the photography studio until 1943 and also held the post of private secretary to the Führer , ³⁵ a position that allowed her to enter and leave the Reich Chancellery without accreditation, although she used a side entrance and a back stairs. ^{36 37} Görtemaker points out that Braun and Hitler led a normal sex life; Her friends and family describe how in 1938 she laughed at a picture of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sitting on a couch in Hitler’s flat in Munich on which it was written: “If I only knew what that sofa has seen.” ²⁹

On June 3, 1944 Eva’s sister, Gretl, married Hermann Fegelein , Gruppenführer of SS and liaison between the team Hitler and Reichsführer-SS , Heinrich Himmler . Adolf Hitler used this wedding as an excuse to allow Eva Braun to appear in official events, in which she was introduced as Fegelein’s sister-in-law. ³³ When Fegelein was arrested trying to flee Germany in the last days of the war, Hitler ordered his execution ^{38 39} and was shot in the garden of the Chancellery of the Reich on April 28, 1945. ⁴⁰

Lifestyle

Between 1934 and 1936 a small holiday house that Hitler had bought in the mountainous area of ​​Obersalzberg in 1933 was reformed and expanded. The original residence was added a large wing and in the vicinity new constructions were erected. The land was fenced and the rest of the mountain houses were bought by the Nazi party and demolished. There, in the so-called Berghof , Eva Braun and the rest of Hitler’s entourage were isolated from the outside world. Speer, Hermann Göring and Martin Bormann had houses built inside the complex. ⁴¹

Hitler’s personal service chief, Heinz Linge , states in his memoirs that Hitler and Braun had two rooms and two bathrooms intercommunicated with doors in the Berghof, and that almost every night the Fuehrer stayed alone with her in his study before going to sleep. She wore a robe and drank wine while he drank tea. ⁴² In public they did not show affection or physical contact, even within the Berghof. ⁴³Braun played the role of hostess with the usual visitors, although she did not participate in the management of the residence. Braun frequently invited friends and family to accompany her to the Berghof, the only guests who had permission to do so. ⁴⁴

When he learned of the attack on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Braun wrote to him: “From our first meeting I swore to follow you to death. I only live for your love. ⁴⁵ Hitler mentioned Eva Braun in his will to receive 12,000 Reichsmark after his death. ⁴⁶ He was very fond of her and worried when Eva participated in sports competitions or late for tea. ⁴⁷

Braun loved his two Scottish terrier dogs , called Negus and Stasi, both of which had sheds. Braun kept them both estranged from Hitler’s German shepherd bitch , Blondi , ⁴⁸ who was killed on 29 April 1945 by Hitler’s order to test the prussic acid of the capsules with which he and Eva Braun planned to commit suicide each day following. ⁴⁹ Eva’s two dogs and Blondi’s puppies were shot and killed by Hitler’s dog trainer, Fritz Tornow, on 30 April. ^fifty

Marriage and death

In early April 1945, Eva Braun traveled from Munich to Berlin to be with Hitler in the Führerbunker . Once there he would not leave despite the proximity of Red Army troops , ⁵¹ who began the siege of the German capital in the middle of the month. After midnight from 28 to 29 April, Hitler and Braun married in a modest civil ceremony inside the bunker. ⁵² Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann witnessed the link. Later, Hitler arranged a modest breakfast with his new wife. ⁵³ With marriage, Eva Braun was renamed Eva Hitler. When he signed the marriage certificate he wrote the letter B of his family name, but he immediately crossed it out and replaced it with the surname Hitler . ⁵³

After 13:00 hours on April 30, Braun and Hitler were dismissed from staff and members of their closest circle. ⁵⁴ About a couple of hours later several witnesses say they heard the sound of a shot, ⁵⁵ so that after a few minutes two assistants of the Führer , Heinz Linge and Otto Günsche , entered the small study and found the dead bodies of Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler on a couch. She had ingested a capsule of prussic acid and he had shot himself in the right temple with his pistol. ^{56 57} The bodies up the stairs and were removed from the bunker by the emergency exit to the garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were partially burned. ⁵⁸ Eva Braun was 33 years old when she committed suicide.

The Soviets found their charred remains and secretly buried them in the Soviet Union counter - intelligence unit’s SMERSH complex in Magdeburg , East Germany , along with the bodies of Joseph and Magda Goebbels and their six children. On April 4, 1970, a Soviet KGB team with detailed plans for the location of the tombs secretly exhumed five wooden boxes with what remained of the bodies, incinerated and crushed the remains and threw the ashes into the affluent Biederitz River Of the nearby river Elbe . ⁵⁹

Eva Braun’s entire family survived the war. His mother Franziska lived on an old farm in Ruhpolding , Bavaria , ⁴⁵ and died in January 1976 at the age of 96. His father, Fritz, had died in 1964. His sister Gretl had a daughter on May 5, 1945 and baptized Eva. He later married Kurt Beringhoff, a businessman; Died in 1987. ⁶⁰ Eva’s older sister, Ilse, was not part of Hitler’s close circle; Married twice and died in 1979. ⁶⁰

References