Eva Braun

Infobox_Person
name = Eva Braun
residence =
other_names = Eva Hitler


imagesize = 200px
caption = Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler (right) on the veranda of the Berghof.
birth_name = Eva Anna Paula Braun
birth_date = 6 February 1912
birth_place = Munich, Germany
death_date = 30 April 1945 (aged 33)
death_place = Berlin, Germany
death_cause = Suicide
known =
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predecessor =
successor =
party =
boards =
religion =
spouse = Adolf Hitler
partner =
children =
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Eva Anna Paula Braun, died Eva Anna Paula Hitler [cite news
author=
title=Hitler's final witness
date=2002-02-04
work=BBC News
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1800287.stm
accessdate=2008-08-10] (6 February 1912–30 April 1945) was the longtime companion of Adolf Hitler and briefly his wife.

Background

Born in Munich, Germany, Eva Braun was the second daughter of school teacher Friedrich "Fritz" Braun and Franziska "Fanny" Kranburger, who both came from respectable Bavarian families. Her elder sister Ilse was born in 1909 and her younger sister Margarete "Gretl" was born in 1915. Braun was educated at a lyceum, then for one year at a business school in a convent where she had average grades and a talent for athletics. She worked for several months as a receptionist at a medical office, then at age 17 took a job as an office and lab assistant and photographer's model for Heinrich Hoffmann, the official photographer for the Nazi Party. Robert George Leeson Waite, [http://books.google.com/books?id=hW-7N2TAca0C&pg=PA225&ots=xJI53-wCkc&dq=geli+raubal&sig=Z-lrF_yDepBfDIv5AjD1VzR4P6c#PPA225,M1 "The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler"] . Consulted on August 14, 2007.] She met Hitler, 23 years her senior, at Hoffmann's studio of Munich in 1929. 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, a light-coloured English overcoat, and carrying a big felt hat." He appreciated her eye colour, which was said to be close to his mother's. Her family was strongly against the relationship and little is known about its first two years.

Relationship and turmoil

Hitler saw more of Braun after the apparent 1931 suicide of his half sister Angela's daughter Geli Raubal, with whom he may have been intimate. The circumstances of Raubal's death in Munich have never been confirmed. Some historians suggest she killed herself because she was distraught over her relationship with Hitler or his relationship with Braun, while others have speculated Hitler played a more direct role in the death of his niece. [spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk, [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERraubal.htm "Geli Raubal"] consulted 14 August 2007] [news.sawf.org, [http://news.sawf.org/Lifestyle/21224.aspx "Geli Raubal & Hitler"] consulted 14 August 2007] Braun was unaware that Raubal was a rival for Hitler's affections until after Raubal's death. Guido Knopp, [http://books.google.com/books?id=_46Cee1CH98C&pg=PA15&ots=N-wNanzuHE&dq=geli+raubal&sig=iB2z-4MwLhoTghGC_uZdTY5jroo#PPA16,M1 "Hitler's Women"] . Consulted on August 14, 2007.] Meanwhile, Hitler was seeing other women, such as actress Renate Müller, whose early death was also termed a suicide.

Eva Braun first attempted suicide in 1932 at the age of 20 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 arranged for the substantial royalties from widely published and popular photographs of him taken by Hoffmann's photo studio to pay for a villa in Wasserburgerstrasse, a Munich suburb. This income also provided her with a Mercedes, a chauffeur and a maid. Braun's sister Gretl moved in with her. Hoffmann later asserted Braun became a fixture in Hitler's life by attempting suicide less than a year after Geli Raubal's death, as Hitler wished to avoid any further scandal. Alan Bullock, [http://books.google.com/books?id=ybklscomuGQC&pg=PA221&dq=geli+raubal&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=sWWWn76ngNlEWFcitBjgVHm0bFA#PPA222,M1 "Hitler: A Study in Tyranny"] . Consulted on 14 August 2007.]

When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Braun sat on the stage in the area reserved for VIPs as a secretary, to which Hitler's sister Angela strongly objected, along with the wives of other ministers. Angela was banned from living anywhere near Braun as a result. By 1936 Braun was at Hitler's household at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden whenever he was in residence there and her parents were also invited for dinner several times. By him, Braun became his chief inheritor in 1938 to receive about 600 pounds yearly after his death. Out of the Jewish Virtual Library [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/braun.html] ] Nonetheless, Braun's political influence on Hitler was apparently minimal. She was never allowed to stay in the room when business or political conversations took place. However, 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.

Hitler and Braun 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 Hitler's fear that he would lose popularity among female supporters. The German people were entirely unaware of Braun and her relationship with Hitler until after the war. According to Albert Speer's memoir, "Inside the Third Reich", Braun never slept in the same room as Hitler and had her own rooms at the Berghof, in Hitler's Berlin residence and in the Berlin bunker. Speer wrote:

:"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."

Speer later said, "Eva Braun will prove a great disappointment to historians." [The Independent, " [http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article350707.ece The Eva Braun story: Behind every evil man...] ", 2 March 2006, retrieved 18 December 2007]

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. Unlike most other Germans she was reportedly free to read European and American magazines and watch foreign films. Her affection for nude sunbathing (and being photographed at it) is known to have infuriated Hitler. She reportedly accepted gifts which were stolen property belonging to deposed European royal families. Braun 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 of silver (black and white) stills and most of the extant colour stills and movies of Hitler 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 of his 12 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". [ [http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=943 World History | Stalin's secret files on Hitler | ] ]

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, Braun 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.

On 3 June 1944 Eva Braun's younger sister Gretl (1915-1987) married Hermann Fegelein, who served as Heinrich Himmler's liaison on Hitler's staff. 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. Gretl was eight months pregnant with a daughter at this time and after the war named the child Eva Barbara Fegelein in remembrance of her beloved sister (Eva Fegelein committed suicide in 1975).

After learning about the failed July 20 plot to kill Hitler, Braun wrote to him, "From our first meeting I swore to follow you anywhere even unto death. I live only for your love."

Marriage and suicide

In early April 1945 Braun travelled by car from Munich to Berlin to be with Hitler at the Führerbunker. She refused to leave as the Red Army closed in, insisting she was one of the few people loyal to him left in the world. Hitler and Braun were married on 29 April 1945 during a brief civil ceremony which was witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann. The bride wore a black (some accounts say dark blue) silk dress.

With Braun's marriage her legal name changed to Eva Hitler. When she signed her marriage certificate she wrote the letter "B" for her family name, then lined this out and replaced it with "Hitler". Although bunker personnel were instructed to call her "Frau Hitler", her new husband continued to call his wife "Fräulein Braun". [Johnson, Daniel, arlindo-correia.com, " [http://www.arlindo-correia.com/300406.html Review of The flirtatious Fraulein by Angela Lambert] ", retrieved 18 December 2007]

There was gossip among the Führerbunker staff that she was carrying Hitler's child, but there is no evidence she was ever pregnant.

Braun and Hitler committed suicide together on 30 April 1945 at around 3:30 p.m. The occupants of the bunker heard a gunshot and the bodies were soon discovered. She had bitten onto a cyanide capsule (most historians have concluded Hitler used a combination method, shooting himself in the right temple immediately after biting a cyanide capsule). Braun was 33 years old when she died. Their corpses were burned in the Reich Chancellery garden just outside the bunker's emergency exit.

The charred remains were found 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. All of these remains were exhumed in April 1970, completely cremated and dispersed in the Elbe river. [ [http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/death_of_adolf_hitler1.htm ::The Death of Adolf Hitler:: ] ]

The rest of 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 at age 96 in January 1976, having lived out her days in an old farmhouse in Ruhpolding, Bavaria. [hh.schule.de, " [http://www.hh.schule.de/gybu/fachbereiche/geschichte/frauen/NSZeit/html/bio.html Biographie: Eva Braun] " (in German), retrieved 18 December 2007]

Fictional portrayals

Eva Braun has been portrayed in many films about Hitler's life. She was portrayed by Zoe Telford in "", Juliane Köhler in "Der Untergang" and Denica Fairman in the controversial sitcom "Heil Honey I'm Home!"

ee also

* Death of Adolf Hitler

References

Further reading

* Lambert, Angela "The Lost Life Of Eva Braun": 2007--St. Martin's Press
* "In de ban van Hitler: Maria Reiter, Geli Raubal, Unity Mitford, Eva Braun" by Alex Alexander - 2005
* "Eva Braun: Hitler's Mistress" by Nerin E. Gun, 1969

External links

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Persondata
NAME= Braun, Eva
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Braun, Eva Anna Paula; Hitler, Eva
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Longtime companion and briefly wife of Adolf Hitler
DATE OF BIRTH= 6 February 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH= Munich, Germany
DATE OF DEATH= 30 April 1945 (aged 33)
PLACE OF DEATH= Berlin, Germany