Hitler's Girls: Doves Amongst Eagles

by Heath, Tim

  Film actress Renate Müller also caught the attentions of Hitler. As their relationship progressed to a sexual level, Hitler’s behaviour became increasingly strange. He became infatuated with her, but his sadomasochistic demands in the bedroom greatly upset her. She confided in her director, telling him of Hitler’s demands during a night spent with him in the Chancellery. The relationship ended in very suspicious circumstances when Müller was found dead, having fallen forty feet to her death from her hotel room. It is widely accepted now that Hitler certainly did have something to do with the young woman’s death. It is believed that SS assassins, under Hitler’s direction, were responsible for the murder, though suicide was the given verdict. Müller’s sister, Gabrielle, insisted that she did not commit suicide, but had died from complications following a leg operation at a clinic in the Augsburger Strasse. This is an unlikely scenario, considering the circumstances in which her sister was found. Perhaps Müller had intended to reveal Hitler’s sexual perversions or some other personal oddity. When Renate confided in her director, she mentioned that Hitler was perverted. He had expected her to do unnatural things to him, including acts where he had to be beaten, and urinated and defecated on. There are even some reports, which suggest that Hitler had insisted the woman, after kicking and beating him, straddle his face and defecate into his mouth.

  Perhaps the most well-known example of Hitler’s sexual domineering is that which he had perpetrated upon his young half-niece, the twenty-year-old Angela ‘Geli’ Raubal.

  It was in 1928 that he fell madly in love with Raubal, when she had spent time with him at his summer retreat in the Bavarian Alps, along with her two daughters Friedl and Geli. Hitler had a schoolboy infatuation with Raubal. The two soon moved into an apartment in Munich and began what many believed to have been an intense and very bizarre sexual relationship. Hitler spent a great deal of time drawing pencil portraits of Raubal, and painting her in the nude. Hitler’s domineering personality inevitably led to very heated rows as Hitler attempted to control her every move.

  Raubal had expressed an interest in opera, having dreams of becoming an opera singer. She had planned to travel to Vienna in pursuit of her dream, but this led to another violent row with Hitler who forbade her to enter what he called ‘that Babylon of races’. Events came to their inevitable conclusion on 18 September 1931, when the young Raubal was found dead in their Munich apartment, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. She had, by all accounts, shot herself with Hitler’s personal sidearm, a pistol that he had kept in a set of drawers in their apartment. Hitler never recovered from Raubal’s loss, to the extent that in the years following her death, just the mere mention of her name was enough to reduce him to tears.

  Over the years, there have been many theories as to what had happened to Raubal. Some historians and theorists believe that Hitler had ordered her murder, and that this had been carried out by members of the SS. This is a feasible theory, especially when one considers what had happened to Renata Müller. The circumstances of the two women’s deaths are very similar, but the truth of what had really happened to Geli Raubal went with her to her grave.

  Hitler’s relationship with this pretty young girl is well documented. In all respects, she must have suffered terribly as her uncle’s fascination in her increased. Raubal was forbade the company of any male other than Hitler himself. There can be no doubt that Raubal enjoyed her uncle’s company, as she could take liberties that few other women would dare. Raubal often ridiculed Hitler in front of his guests, but she would get away with it like a playful kitten. It was only when Hitler’s possessiveness intensified that her attitude towards him began to change. She could see what kind of a man he was, and that she would have little future in any long-term relationship with him. She also became aware of what little respect he really had for womenfolk in general, yet she still loved him.

  Of the sexual encounters that were alleged to have taken place between Raubal and Hitler, perhaps the most perverse was when, during one bout of intercourse, Hitler insisted that she kick him while he curled up on the floor, naked in the foetal position. He then demanded that she either urinate or defecate on him so that he could become aroused enough for intercourse to take place. There were also rumours that Hitler enjoyed wearing Raubal’s underwear; a pair of her knickers were once found amongst his personal clothing.

  There are many accounts, which state that Hitler enjoyed young women urinating upon him, claiming that he found great difficulty becoming sexually aroused during normal sexual activity. This would not be too surprising as Hitler was at that time a borderline psychopath. Many criminal psychologists will endorse the fact that large numbers of psychopaths enjoy wearing female underwear and partaking in bizarre, masochistic sexual behavior, where they often endeavour to become the victim. Hitler, however, only felt secure in becoming the victim behind the closed doors of private apartments. At any other time, grovelling, particularly to a female, was something that certainly did not fit into the Hitler persona. It appears that his perversions were most certainly some form of fantasy.

  Raubal, through no real fault of her own, must have been thoroughly horrified and ashamed of her uncle’s increasingly bizarre sexual requests. Like so many others, however, she was powerless to resist that fatal charm. Hitler often boasted openly, ‘There was no greater pleasure than that of sexually educating and deflowering a young girl.’ He tended to ignore relationships with older women, possibly viewing them as ‘mother figures’, who could not be so easily manipulated.

  There were a great many other intimate relationships that Hitler had with various women, but the most well-known of his women was Eva Braun.

  Born in Munich on the morning of 7 February 1912, Eva Anna Paula Braun first met Adolf Hitler in 1929. A relationship began soon afterwards. At first Braun’s father could not understand his daughter’s infatuation for someone he at first described as ‘an ogre’.

  As the Hitler and Braun relationship progressed, her parents and Braun’s equally attractive sisters spent much of their time enjoying the Führer’s hospitality at the Berghof, Hitler’s retreat near Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps. This helped to ensure her family’s consent to the relationship.

  Braun was a very desirable and attractive young blonde with an athletic figure. She had a bright, bubbly and very playful personality, but like Hitler, she was prone to mood swings, Hitler’s personal guards sometimes described her as being ‘grumpy’. Some also commented, cruelly, that Braun possessed a bird-like mind, and that she was very childlike in many of her ways. Either way, Eva Braun became the most envied woman in the Third Reich when she moved into the Reich Chancellery with Hitler on 16 December 1939, but here she led a secret and melancholy existence out of the Hitler limelight.

  While Hitler was away from the Berghof, Braun spent much of her time exercising, swimming, and practising her gymnastics. She became deeply unhappy and irritated as Hitler would never take her on any of his personal engagements, and when guests came to the Berghof, she was often kept out of the way. Some of Hitler’s guards immediately sensed Braun’s unhappiness and felt deeply sorry for her. However, they dared not talk about her, even amongst themselves, for fear of being betrayed by a comrade. Dieter Frischmann, at the time a member of the SS, once visited the Berghof with an adjutant in 1943.

  We travelled up the winding track to Hitler’s mountainside retreat. It was the first time that I had been there on official business to deliver maps and various other papers to Hitler. It was a pleasant sunny and warm day and when we arrived at the Berghof we were warmly greeted by senior SS officers including Himmler. Hitler collected the set of brown envelopes and asked Himmler and the other officers to follow him. They disappeared inside while I waited outside admiring the view with the other soldiers.

  While I was gazing around at the scenery, I noticed this woman staring out of one of the large bay windows. She had her arms folded and paced back and forth, occasionally glancing our way. She
wore a white and red checkered kind of dress and clearly she had a lovely figure. ‘Eva Braun, I thought to myself, there you are,’ as it was the first time I had seen her in the flesh. None of us dared acknowledge her or anything, as she was the Führer’s woman. Though I remember thinking to myself back then, as would any normal red-blooded male, that I would not have minded ravishing her myself, she was much prettier than most people gave her credit for, photographs and news films do not capture her very well. She was like a ghost, walking back and forth and one could sense her sadness and that Hitler paid her little attention. After the war I heard from other SS comrades that some had fallen for Eva and could not bear to see the way that Hitler treated her. One had hurled himself from the Kehlstein [a rocky outcrop that rises above the Obersalzberg near the town of Berchtesgaden] as he had fallen in love with her and could not be with her. One it was believed had hoped to persuade Eva to run away with him, but she would not agree to it, saying she also loved Hitler. It was very sad and what a terrible waste of a young girl when you look back. She did not really have much of a life, did she?

  The last sentence of Dieter Frischmann is very poignant when one reflects on Eva Braun’s life. The old question arises time and again: why did this young girl, who already had everything that she needed to live a happy life, commit herself to such a selfish and manipulative ogre as Hitler? Again, one possible answer is the attraction of power. Eva Braun was not interested in personal gain. She was genuinely in love with Hitler, to the extent that she tolerated his unreasonable behaviour and rejection, and increasingly weird sexual demands. Eva Braun was Hitler’s ultimate plaything, epitomizing everything that the pure Aryan woman should be physically. Her interests lay solely in physical fitness and gymnastics, plus she was there for whenever Hitler wanted her.

  The intimate details of the Hitler and Braun relationship are not exactly clear, but one would imagine that Hitler would have retained his sadomasochistic traits even where the lovely Eva Braun was concerned.

  Hitler had affairs with at least two other women during his relationship with Braun. Most of these rendezvous took place at midnight, the girls leaving during the early hours of the morning. One of these, as already mentioned, was Renata Müller. The other was filmmaker, photographer, actress, dancer, and ostensible propagandist, Helene ‘Leni’ Riefenstahl, who continued to visit Hitler at the Reich Chancellery until the outbreak of war in 1939.

  As the war progressed, the situation turned increasingly against Germany’s favour, through a mixture of poor decision-making and interference from Hitler himself. The dictator had no real understanding of military matters, and behind the scenes, he began to consume huge amounts of drugs that had the inevitable negative effect on his libido. Some who were close to both Braun and Hitler insist that he was never able to fully satisfy the young woman who always had boundless energy. This was almost certainly the case late in the war, as Hitler became a severe manic-depressive, addicted to thirty different kinds of prescription drug, while suffering from chronic insomnia. As Hitler’s mental and emotional state became increasingly more bipolar, he was physically incapable of performing any sexual activity. One of those who witnessed his behavioural changes in later years, including the last days in the Führer’s bunker, commented:

  We heard many funny stories, but dared not ever repeat them, even to our close friends or family. I once heard that Eva Braun could not even rouse Hitler’s desire with her hands [masturbation] or mouth [oral sex]. He became totally and utterly impotent, yet that gorgeous young woman still stayed with him. There were many men close to Hitler who secretly lusted after Eva, though it was foolish to even think of taking things any further, if one valued one’s own life and family. The truth about Hitler’s sexuality lies with those who were closest to Hitler himself, his personal adjutants [photographer Heinrich] Hoffmann and [Julius] Schaub, who were the kind of men Hitler trusted to keep things quiet. Even after the war, few of them, apart from Gerhard Boldt [Rittmeister der Reserve Boldt, seconded to the bunker] have ever talked, and he had never really mentioned anything of a sexual nature that I know of.

  Only when their whole world was collapsing did Hitler begin to pay any attention to Braun, the ultimate insult was the offering of his hand in marriage, something that he had always denied her. His offer of marriage to Braun was a meaningless gesture, a kind of last act, and maybe one both symbolizing and acknowledging his personal failings and defeat. By that time, the Hitler that Eva had met and fallen in love with all those years ago, was a broken old man, who spent his last hours either sleeping, eating cake, rambling to himself, or cursing his staff for their failings. The Hitler-Braun marriage was a prerequisite to suicide, ratifying the end. Only when Hitler had lost everything else, would he finally marry Eva Braun.

  Even the act of wreaking vengeance on those who had conspired and failed to assassinate Hitler in the briefcase bomb plot on 20 July 1944 had mildly sexual overtones, indicating a degree of perverseness.

  Well before those deemed responsible for the plot were put on trial, Hitler had decided the inevitable outcome that fate would determine for the eight men. Hitler wanted them strung up from piano wire on meat hooks, just like slaughtered cattle. He wanted them to die as slowly as possible, insisting that the whole execution be filmed.

  The men were brought into a special execution cell where, and one-by-one, they were stripped to the waist before being hoisted up into the air on piano-wire nooses wrapped tightly around meat hooks suspended from the ceiling. The meat hooks had been specially brought to the prison cell from a local butcher. It was a horrific spectacle, the men making dreadful gagging noises as they slowly died, twitching and convulsing violently. After the execution, the film was handed over to Hitler who was most eager to watch it. During the course of the showing of the film, Hitler found it particularly enjoyable when the dying men’s trousers slid down to their ankles, leaving them completely naked as they gagged and writhed on the wire. One of the men who had witnessed Hitler’s reaction to the film commented:

  It seemed as if he had at one stage become almost sexually aroused by the spectacle of the dying men, especially when their trousers came off during their execution. He sat through it with a smile on his face; it was a vile and disgusting picture, which even Joseph Goebbels could not sit through in its entirety. Hitler watched it frequently while taking tea and eating cakes until he eventually became bored with it.

  It is also widely believed that Hitler enjoyed pornography. There is mention that his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, prepared many lewd movies especially for Hitler, which he could watch in his private theatre by himself.

  Hitler, it was said, had never expressed concern over the preoccupation of manhood size, as the personality cult that had become his hallmark attraction far outweighed such issues. Besides, Hitler once argued privately in a rare moment that ‘it were not just the Luftwaffe that were the Third Reich’s greatest phallic symbol, but the new generation of virile and aggressive young Germans’.

  Although the sexual exploits of the Führer were largely unknown to the ordinary German people, the sexual excesses of other leaders within the various organizations reached out like a cancer. In some cases, older girls of the Jung Madel and the BDM became affected by the improper behaviour of certain individuals within their ranks.

  Lesbianism, however, was not exactly rife within the Jung Madel, as the girls were of a much younger age group than that of the senior Bund Deutscher Madel, and were therefore less inclined to having any feelings of a sexual nature. The problem mainly concerned certain individuals placed in charge of the girls; individuals who would sometimes exploit their positions of authority over the young girls. This was something not unique to the Jung Madel, BDM or indeed any other youth organization anywhere else in the world at the time. There will always be those deviants who will exploit certain situations to their own advantage.

  Kirsten Eckermann:

  There was one woman whose name is known to me even
now, and I will not mention it as she may still have living family or relatives somewhere. She held the rank of a senior leader and was often present when the girls were washing, changing and showering and things. She just always seemed to be around and was always keen to give advice on personal matters and things which we felt we could not discuss with our parents. Her interests in some of the girls stretched beyond that of a purely platonic level. She was irritating sometimes and she annoyed me when she once put a towel around me so tight that I could not move and kissed me on the lips and touched me down below. I was very angry as I knew what she was doing was wrong, but had I reported her it would have been my word against hers, wouldn’t it? Some of the other girls said that she had touched them also and I told them she had tried to kiss me, but dared not say that she actually did. I was thirteen at the time and it was my last year with the young maidens. I certainly did not have any sexual feelings at that age, girls tended to come of age much later back then than they do now. When things like that went on you just had to keep quiet.

  German society at the time did not permit its women to express their sexuality. Young girls and women were told, quite explicitly, that that was for common prostitutes and those of the lesser races such as Jews, gypsies, Communists and blacks.

  When girls were considered old enough to take a male partner, they often attended church hall dances. The dances were much like those that young people attended in England at the time, where the girls’ parents were always present to make sure that there was no chance of anything happening between the opposite sexes. Girls were not even allowed to hold hands with their male companions and kissing was absolutely out of the question. In fact, there were few real chances for girls and boys to meet on their own. There were a few exceptions to the rule, as will be looked at later.

  In all, the Third Reich did not need its women to express their sexuality as this was achieved through the showcasing of their strength, power and aggression. Some photographs taken of Jung Madel and BDM girls, however, even now seem to hold a degree of sex appeal, and would not be out of place on some modern-day advertising boards. The press often photographed the girls after their performances at Nazi Party rallies, when they could be photographed in a way to best capture their physical prowess. There are many photographs that show girls posing proudly in their white swastika-adorned vests and black shorts. Often, the photographers asked the girls to kick off their sports shoes to reveal their white socks to further enhance the clean gymnastic lines of the subject. More likely, though, it was to enhance the sexuality of the image. Even now, when one looks at some of the many hundreds of photographs taken of the Jung Madel and BDM, there are those that may be deemed sexually provocative in the context that they were originally taken. The press did not want photographs of big-boned or ‘butch’ girls – the pretty, petite and cute-looking girls were naturally preferred. The cute image of Nazism was much easier to sell to the non-fascist outside world.