Eva Braun

by Heike B. Görtemaker

  33. See Judith H. Dobrzynski, “Russia Moves to Aid Quest for Art Taken in Holocaust,” New York Times, December 4, 1998. Hitler gave Hans Posse (1879–1942) the assignment to build the Linz Führer Museum (“Special Assignment Linz”) on June 21, 1939. Posse died on December 10, 1942, in Dresden. See Sophie Lille, Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Sammlung Wiens (Vienna, 2003).

  34. See “Originalnotizen von P. E. Schramm über Hitler, gemacht während der Befragungen von Hitlers Leibärzten, Haus Alaska, d. h. Altersheim für Lehrerinnen im Taunus, Sommer 1945, in USA-Kriegsgefangenschaft,” in Kleine Erwerbung 441–3, BA Koblenz, p. 169.

  35. See Ilse Fucke-Michels to the State Commissioner for Refugees, Ruhpolding, October 2, 1946.

  4. RISE TO POWER AT HITLER’S SIDE

  1. Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, p. 99.

  2. Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” pp. 22f.

  3. See Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler: Nach Materialien (Munich and Berlin), 1983, p. 226.

  4. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 62.

  5. See Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler: Legende, Mythos, Wirklichkeit (Munich and Esslingen, 1971), p. 318.

  6. See “Ergänzende Erklärung des Herrn Erich Kempka,” Berchtesgaden, July 4, 1945, p. 5, in MA 1298/10, Microfilm, Various Documents, DJ-13 (David Irving), IfZ Munich.

  7. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 245, where Sigmund makes reference to Albert Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher, p. 140 (Albert Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries [New York, 1976], p. 91). Susanne zur Nieden critically examines Sigmund’s methods in “Geschichten aus dem braunen Nähkästchen: Der Führer und die Frauen,” in WerkstattGeschichte 30 (2001), pp. 115–117.

  8. Speer himself noted that “by the winter of 1933” he “had been taken into the circle of Hitler’s intimates”: Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 38. In a letter to the head of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte archive, Speer stated that he met Hitler “for the first time in the summer of 1933”; see Albert Speer to Dr. Anton Hoch (Institut für Zeitgeschichte), n.p., March 3, 1981 (carbon copy), Albert Speer Papers, N1340/29, BA Koblenz.

  9. See Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries, p. 90; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 214; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 342.

  10. Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, pp. 45f. Descriptions of the apartment can also be found in Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, p. 98; Hanfstaengel, Zwischem Weissem und Braunem Haus, p. 231; Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 153; Kurt Lüdecke, I Knew Hitler (1937; London, 1938), p. 454.

  11. Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries, pp. 90. In Inside the Third Reich, Speer mentions his first visit to the Prinzregentenplatz apartment in July, 1933 (p. 28).

  12. The girl’s mother was also named Angela and was born from Alois Hitler’s second marriage, to Franziska Matzelsberger, an innkeeper’s daughter. See Wolfgang Zdral, Die Hitlers: Die unbekannte Familie des Führers (Bergisch Gladbach, 2008 [1st ed., 2005]), pp. 76ff.; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 196 and 205ff.

  13. See “Eine rätselhafte Affäre: Selbstmord der Nichte Hitlers,” Münchener Post, September 22, 1931. Cf. Adolf Hitler, Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen, vol. 4, Von der Reichstagswahl bis zur Reichspräsidentenwahl, Oktober 1930–März 1932, Teil II, July 1931–December 1931, ed. Christian Hartmann (Munich, 1996), p. 109. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 354; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 218ff.

  14. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 221, 224. In Kershaw’s opinion as well, suicide is “the most likely explanation” (Hitler 1889–1936, p. 354). Alan Bullock goes so far as to say that Geli Raubal “committed suicide in protest against [Hitler’s] possessiveness”; see Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (London, 1991), p. 234.

  15. Speech at an NSDAP meeting in Hamburg, September 24, 1931, in Hitler, Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen, vol. 4, p. 115.

  16. Diary entries from October 27 and November 22, 1931, in Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels (Munich, 1987), Teil I, vol. 2/II, pp. 135 and 154. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 226ff. and 232, where the author writes that Raubal’s death was exploited for propaganda purposes and used to Hitler’s advantage “with all possible pathos.” Likewise Manfred Koch-Hillebrecht, Homo Hitler: Psychogramm des deutschen Diktators, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1999), pp. 309f. In contrast, see Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 355, where he claims that Hitler’s relationship with Geli Raubal was “more intense than any other human relationship he had before or after.” She was “irreplaceable” for him, even if he “soon enough had Eva Braun in tow.” There are similar statements in Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, p. 205.

  17. Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, pp. 358f., 99.

  18. Ibid., p. 358.

  19. Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 14.

  20. Hermann Göring joined the NSDAP in 1922 and was a member of Parliament for the Nazi Party since 1928. Hitler named him his “political adviser” in 1930.

  21. Hitler had no official nationality at this period, having lost his Austrian citizenship after World War I, when he served in the German army. On February 25, 1932, the Braunschweig secretary of state named Hitler a senior administrative officer with a position at the Braunschweig legation Berlin, which entailed German citizenship (“Schreiben des Vorsitzenden des Braunschweigischen Staatsministeriums an den Reichsratsbevollmächtigten in Berlin, 25. February 1932 [copy],” in Albert Speer Papers, N1340/287, BA Koblenz).

  22. See Schulze, Weimar, p. 345.

  23. Goebbels, entry for January 7, 1932, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 2/II, pp. 106f.

  24. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 368f.

  25. On the campaign trips see ibid., pp. 455ff.; also Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, pp. 262ff.; Fest, Hitler, pp. 444f., 455ff.; “Electoral Campaign, 1932,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-7284, BSB Munich.

  26. See Joseph Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei: Eine historische Darstellung in Tagebuchblättern (Vom 1. Januar 1932 bis zum 1. Mai 1933), 21st ed. (Munich, 1937), p. 104. Cf. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 369. On the campaign organization, see Ralph Georg Reuth, Goebbels (Munich, 1990), pp. 215ff.

  27. See Helmut Heiber, ed., Goebbels Reden 1932–1945 (Düsseldorf, 1971), pp. xvi, 43.

  28. See Heinrich Hoffmann, Das braune Heer: Leben, Kampf und Sieg der SA und SS, foreword by Adolf Hitler (Berlin, 1932).

  29. See Martin Broszat, Die Machtergreifung, p. 151; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 370; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 215. See also Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, p. 206, where she says Hitler’s half-sister was “competent and power-hungry.” See also Florian M. Beierl, Geschichte des Kehlsteins (Berchtesgaden, 1994), p. 7.

  30. Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, pp. 300 and 485. Cf. Otto Wagener, manuscript vol. 34, pp. 2054f., IfZ Munich: in Wagener’s opinion, Eva Braun played “absolutely no role whatsoever” at this point.

  31. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 370ff.

  32. See ibid.

  33. See Sven Felix Kellerhoff, Hitlers Berlin: Geschichte einer Hassliebe (Berlin, 2005), pp. 74f. See also Stephan Malinowski, Vom König zum Führer (Berlin, 2003), pp. 554f.

  34. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 245.

  35. See Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, p. 136.

  36. See ibid., p. 137.

  37. See Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler, pp. 138ff.; Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, p. 137.

  38. Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, pp. 142ff.

  39. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 64–65. See also Maser, Adolf Hitler, p. 317. According to Maser, Ilse Braun personally confirmed this statement to him on March 18, 1969.

  40. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 386ff.

  41. Hitler left the Karlsruhe airport for Berlin shortly after 10 p.m.; see Hitler: Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen, vol. 4, Teil II, p. 145, document 54.

  42. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 388, which claims that Hitler interrupted his election campaign immediately a
fter he heard about Eva Braun’s suicide attempt on the night of November 1. Kershaw bases his claim on Maser, Hitler, p. 317. Nerin E. Gun, on the other hand, says that Hitler went directly to see Eva Braun in the hospital after he received an “explanatory farewell letter” from her in the morning mail (Eva Braun, p. 69).

  43. Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 2/III, pp. 49f. For the sequence of campaign speeches, see Adolf Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, ed. Max Domarus, vol. 1: Triumph, 1932–1938, (Würzburg, 1962), pp. 141ff.

  44. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 65–66.

  45. For example, Ian Kershaw, who speaks of “Eva Braun’s presumable suicide attempt,” says that she was in despair about Hitler, who “hardly knew she was alive” (Hitler 1889–1936, p. 388). Alan Bullock writes that “she had no better idea how to get him to care about her,” and that Heinrich Hoffmann “saw through Eva Braun’s game from the beginning” (Hitler and Stalin, p. 502). For Anton Joachimsthaler, the incident was staged in order “to blackmail Hitler” (Hitlers Liste, p. 21).

  46. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 65; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 246.

  47. Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 22. Hoffmann claims that Hitler only now started to show “greater interest in Eva Braun,” although “there was no question of it being a real relationship.” In this regard see also Gun, Eva Braun, p. 66.

  48. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 236.

  49. See ibid., p. 235.

  50. See Margret Boveri, Tage des Überlebens: Berlin 1945 (Munich, 1968), p. 122.

  51. See Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, pp. 286f. See also Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years (New York, 1994 [1st ed., London, 1957]), pp. 194f., where Hanfstaengl claims that all who took part in that evening believed that Eva Braun was merely “a friend of one of the other girls.”

  52. See Erika Mann, Wenn die Lichter ausgehen: Geschichten aus dem Dritten Reich (Reinbek, 2006).

  53. See “Protest der Richard-Wagner-Stadt München,” Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, April 16, 1933. Quoted from München: Ein Lesebuch, pp. 260ff.

  54. See Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years, pp. 194–195.

  55. Ibid. All the persons named signed his guest book under the date of January 1, 1933; see Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 247. See also Peter Conradi, Hitler’s Piano Player: The Rise and Fall of Ernst Hanfstaengl, Confidant of Hitler, Ally of FDR (New York, 2004); Ronald Smelser et al., eds., Die Braune Elite II (Darmstadt, 1993), pp. 137ff; Wolfgang Zdral, Der finanzierte Aufstieg des Adolf H. (Vienna, 2002).

  56. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 395ff.; Karl Dietrich Bracher, “Demokratie und Machtergreifung—Der Weg zum 30. Januar 1933,” in Machtverfall und Machtergreifung: Aufstieg und Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus, ed. Rudolf Lill and Heinrich Oberreuter (Munich, 1983), p. 25.

  57. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 396ff. See also Peter D. Stachura, Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism (London, 1983); Werner Bräuninger, Hitlers Kontrahenten in der NSDAP 1921–1945 (Munich, 2004).

  58. Quoted from Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 401. Cf. Hinrich Lohse, “Der Fall Strasser,” unpublished typescript [ca. 1960], Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg, sections 20–22.

  59. Adolf Hitler, “Denkschrift über die inneren Gründe für die Verfügungen zur Herstellung einer erhöhten Schlagkraft der Bewegung,” NS 22/110, BA Koblenz.

  60. Max Weber, “Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen Herrschaft,” in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, ed. Johannes Winckelmann, 7th ed. (Tübingen, 1988), p. 482. Cf. Hans-Ulrich Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus (Stuttgart, 2002), p. 61.

  61. Hitler, “Denkschrift über die inneren Gründe für die Verfügungen zur Herstellung einer erhöhten Schlagkraft der Bewegung.”

  62. Max Weber, “Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen Herrschaft,” p. 485.

  63. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 414ff.; Henry Ashby Turner, Hitlers Weg zur Macht: Der Januar 1933 (Munich, 1997), pp. 199f.

  64. According to the latest research, Joachim von Ribbentrop made contact with Adolf Hitler as early as 1927; during the Nuremberg Trials Ribbentrop stated that he first met Hitler in 1931–1932. See Philipp Gassert and Daniel S. Mattern, The Hitler Library: A Bibliography (London, 2001).

  65. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 419ff.; Turner, Hitlers Weg zur Macht, as cited in note 63, above; Wolfram Pyta, Hindenburg: Herrschaft zwischen Hohenzollern und Hitler (Munich, 2007), pp. 791ff.

  66. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 433.

  67. Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 251.

  68. Rudolf Hess to Ilse Hess, Berlin, January 31, 1933, in Rudolf Hess, Briefe 1908–1933, ed. Wolf Rüdiger Hess (Munich, 1987), pp. 424f.

  69. Estimates of the number of participants range from fifteen thousand to one million. Cf. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 433; Kellerhoff, Hitlers Berlin, p. 89.

  70. See Fest, Hitler, p. 510; Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 253.

  71. See Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, pp. 48f.; Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, pp. 251ff.; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 432; Fest, Hitler, p. 510.

  72. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 95.

  73. See Klaus Beck, “Telefongeschichte als Sozialgeschichte: Die soziale und kulturelle Aneignung des Telefons im Alltag,” in Telefon und Gesellschaft: Beiträge zu einer Soziologie der Telefonkommunikation, vol. 1 of Telefon und Gesellschaft, ed. Forschungsgruppe Telekommunikation [The Telecommunications Research Group] (Berlin, 1989).

  74. See Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 121. See also Gun, Eva Braun, p. 101: only in 1933, according to Gun, did she request a “private phone” as the “mistress of the Chancellor of the Reich.”

  75. Herta Schneider, statement of June 23, 1949, “Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Herta Schneider, geb. Ostermayr,” in Denazification Court Records, box 1670, State Archives, Munich.

  76. Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Reichspostdirektionsbezirk München, ed. Reichspostdirektion München as of May 1, 1934, part 1, July 1934 edition.

  77. Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 93ff.; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 248.

  PART TWO: CONTRASTING WORLDS

  5. WOMEN IN NATIONAL SOCIALISM

  1. See Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, vol. 1, Triumph, First Part: 1932–1934 (Wiesbaden, 1973), pp. 450ff.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, “Meine lieben deutschen Menschen!” (speech given at Nuremberg, September 8, 1934), in Adolf Hitler and Gertrud Schotz-Klink, Reden an die deutsche Frau: Reichsparteitag Nürnberg, 8. September 1934 (Berlin, 1934), pp. 8–16.

  4. See Christiane Berger, “Die ‘Reichsfrauenführerin’ Gertrud Scholtz-Klink: Zur Wirkung einer nationalsozialistischen Karriere in Verlauf, Retrospektive und Gegenwart” (dissertation, University of Hamburg, 2005), pp. 27f. See also Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, Die Frau im Dritten Reich (Tübingen, 1978).

  5. See Dörte Winkler, Frauenarbeit im “Dritten Reich” (Hamburg, 1977), p. 193.

  6. See Matthew Stibbe, Women in the Third Reich (London, 2003), pp. 88f.

  7. “Reichskanzlei, 4. 5.–25. 7. 1937,” in Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP: Rekonstruktion eines verlorengegangenen Bestandes, ed. Helmut Heiber et al. (Munich, 1983–1992), M 101 04741–45.

  8. “Der Führer spricht zur deutschen Frauenschaft,” in Reden des Führers am Parteitag der Ehre 1936, 4th ed. (Munich, 1936), p. 43.

  9. See Stibbe, Women in the Third Reich, pp. 85ff.; Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, pp. 262ff.

  10. Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer, His Battle with Truth (New York, 1995), pp. 193, 197. Kershaw disposes of the topic by saying that Hitler preferred “obedient playthings” (Hitler 1889–1936, p. 284).

  11. Joachim Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches: Profile einer totalitären Herrschaft (Munich, 2006 [1st ed., 1963]), pp. 359f. Fest relies primarily on Hermann Rauschning, Gespräche mit Hitler (Zü
rich, 1940), pp. 240f.

  12. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 93. “She was not political,” Speer curtly informed Sereny when she asked Speer’s wife, in Speer’s presence, about her own attitude toward the goals of the National Socialists (Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 114). See Margret Nissen, Sind Sie die Tochter Speer? (Bergisch Gladbach, 2007 [1st ed., Munich, 2005]), pp. 20, 157f., and 182. Speer himself later admitted to Fest that his family did not have a presence in his memoirs “because it didn’t have a presence in my life” (quoted in Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 144).

  13. Margret Nissen, Sind Sie die Tochter Speer? (Bergisch Gladbach, 2007 [1st ed., Munich, 2005]), p. 182.

  14. Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 112. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 10.

  15. Margarete Mitscherlich, “Anti-Semitism—A Male Disease?” in her The Peaceable Sex: On Aggression in Women and Men (New York, 1987), pp. 192–208, quotes from p. 203. See also Mitscherlich’s “Die befreite Frau: Nachdenken über männliche und weibliche Werte [The Liberated Woman: Reflections on Male and Female Values],” Frankfurter Rundschau, September 26, 2000, p. 20.

  16. See Knopp, Hitlers Frauen, p. 83.

  17. See Kathrin Kompisch, Täterinnen: Frauen im Nationalsozialismus (Cologne, 2008), pp. 74ff. and 155ff.; Gudrun Schwarz, Eine Frau an seiner Seite: Ehefrauen in der “SS-Sippengemeinschaft,” 2nd ed. (Berlin, 2001), pp. 281f.; Karin Windaus-Walser, “Frauen im Nationalsozialismus,” in Töchter-Fragen. NS-Frauen-Geschichte, ed. Lerke Gravenhorst and Carmen Tatschmurat (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1990), pp. 59ff.; Sybille Steinbacher, ed., Frauen in der NS-Volksgemeinschaft, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, vol. 23 (Göttingen, 2007), p. 18. See also Dieter Schenk, Hans Frank: Hitlers Kronjurist und Generalgouverneur (Frankfurt am Main, 2006), pp. 39–45, 179f. and 244–253, where Schenk also analyzes the role of Frank’s wife, Brigitte Frank.

  18. See Schwarz, Eine Frau an seiner Seite, pp. 8ff.

  19. Quoted in Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 193.