Eva Braun - mistress of the devil

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: Eva Braun - mistress of the devil : : case texts: : EVA BRAUN (1912-1945) At twenty-five minutes past two on the morning of February 7, 1912, Eva Anna Paula Braun was born in Munich. Later in life she was to become the mystery woman of Hitler's Third Reich. Wife of Hitler for one day and his mistress for twelve years, she first met Hitler in 1929 while she was assistant to the beer loving Heinrich Hoffmann, the Third Reich's official photographer who had his shop at No.50, Schellingstrasse. He had already joined the Nazi party with party card number 427. Eva Braun committed suicide with Hitler on April 30, 1945, in his underground bunker in the Reich Chancellery gardens in Berlin. It was her second attempt, the first was in November, 1932 when she was found, with a bullet in her neck, by her sister Ilse. It is interesting to note that Eva never became a Nazi Party member. Outside of Hitler's close circle of cronies she was completely unknown to the general public until after the war. Eva's mother, Franziska Braun, lived to the ripe old age of 96 and died in Ruhpolding, Bavaria, in January, 1976. Her father, Fritz Braun, died on January 22, 1964. : GRETL BRAUN Youngest of the three daughters of Fritz and Franziska Braun, her real name was Margarethe and was born three years after Eva. They lived in an apartment on the second floor of No.93 Hohenzollernstrasse (the house still stands) An adventurous and carefree girl, Eva nicknamed her 'Mogerl' because she was often sulking. She spent considerable time with her sister at the Berghof which Eva loved to call the Grand Hotel. She married Hans Georg Otto Hermann Fegelein (37) a Lieutenant general in the Waffen SS, on June 3, 1944, in the Salzburg town hall. The reception was held at the Berghof and later at the tea-house on the Kehlstein (The Eagles Nest) the only real party ever held there. During the last days of the Third Reich, Fegelein tried to escape from Berlin but was discovered and arrested. Next day, Hitler ordered him shot. No effort was made by Eva Braun to save him. Gretl survived the war and gave birth to a daughter, Eva, on May 5, 1945. The name Fegelein was never mentioned again in the Braun household. : Braun, Eva (1912-45) : Hitler's mistress from 1932 and his wife during the last few hours of his life, Eva Braun was born in Munich, the daughter of a school teacher. Of middle-class Catholic background, she first met Hitler in the studio of his photographer friend, Heinrich Hoffmann (q.v.), in 1929, describing him to her sister, Ilse, as 'a gentleman of a certain age with a funny moustache and carrying a big felt hat'. : At that time Eva Braun still worked for Hoffmann as an office assistant, later becoming a photo laboratory worker, helping to process pictures of Hitler. The blonde, fresh-faced , slim, photographer’s assistant was an athletic girl, fond of skiing, mountain climbing and gymnastics as well as dancing. : After the death of Geli Raubal, Hitler's niece, she became his mistress, living in his Munich flat, in spite of the opposition of her father who disliked the association on political and personal grounds. In 1935, after an abortive suicide attempt, Hitler bought her a villa in a Munich suburb, near to his own home, providing her with a Mercedes and a chauffeur for personal use. In his first will of 2 May 1938 he put her at the top of his personal bequests - in the event of his death she was to receive the equivalent of £600 a year for the rest of her life. : In 1936 she moved to Hitler's Berghof at Berchtesgaden where she acted as his hostess. Reserved, indifferent to politics and keeping her distance from most of the Fuhrer's intimates, Eva Braun led a completely isolated life in the Fuhrer's Alpine retreat and later in Berlin. They rarely appeared in public together and few Germans even knew of her existence. Even the Fuhrer's closest associates were not certain of the exact nature of their relationship, since Hitler preferred to avoid suggestions of intimacy and was never wholly relaxed in her company. : Eva Braun spent most of her time exercising, brooding, reading cheap novelettes, watching romantic films or concerning herself with her own appearance. Her loyalty to Hitler never flagged. After he survived the July 1944 plot she wrote Hitler an emotional letter, ending: 'From our first meeting I swore to follow you anywhere - even unto death - I live only for your love.' : In April 1945 she joined Hitler in the Fuhrerbunker, as the Russians closed in on Berlin . She declined to leave in spite of his orders, claiming to others that she was the only person still loyal to him to the bitter end. 'Better that ten thousand others die than he be lost to Germany', she would constantly repeat to friends. : On 29 April 1945 Hitler and Eva Braun were finally married. The next day she committed suicide by swallowing poison, two minutes before Hitler took his own life. On Hitler's orders, both bodies were cremated with petrol in the Reich Chancellery garden above the bunker. Her charred corpse was later discovered by the Russians. : The rest of Eva Braun's family survived the war. Her mother, Franziska, who lived in an old farmhouse in Ruhpolding, Bavaria, died at the age of ninety-six, in January 1976. : In München begegnete er einem hübschen Mädchen - Eva Braun. Aber da war noch Geli Raubal, die Halbnichte des Parteiführers. Eines Tages war sie tot. Hitler durchlitt eine Krise. Eva verschte, die geliebte Geli zu ersetzen - sie wurde seine Gefährtin. : Sachlich und ohne Vorurteil führt der Verfasser das Leben dieser Frau durch die Zeit, der es an Turbulenz und Tragik wahrlich nicht fehlte. Die Liebe zum Kanzler des Deutschen Reiches brachte neben dem Glücklichsein auch Seelennot und Neid, brachte auch Eifersucht. In ihrem eigenen Zwiespalt aber, katholisch erzogen, ließ Eva Braun stets das gelten, was nur eine bedingungslos liebende Frau gelten lassen kann: Zuerst kommt die Liebe und dann die Moral. Wie war dieses Leben zu meistern? Wie stand die Frauenprominenz des Dritten Reiches zur Freundin und Geliebten des Führers? Wie erfolgreich war die Damenwelt des In- und Auslands von Film, Theater und Diplomatik? Die Verlockung, bei "Hof" gesehen zu werden, war groß. Eva aber mußte zusehen, wie andere Frauen an diesem "Hof" verkehrten. Was hielt sie bei dem Mann, der mit Zutun seiner Gegner die Welt erschütterte? : Als das junge Mädchen Eva Braun Adolf Hitler kennenlernte, war er bereits ein bekannter Politiker. Als sie seine Gefährtin war, jubelte ihm das deutsche Volk zu, das Ausland achtete ihn. Sie jedoch mußte sich im Hintergrund halten. Als die Mauern Berlins barsten und er am bitteren Ende war, starb sie mit ihm. : In the middle of the campaign, Hitler's girlfriend Eva Braun shot herself in the neck during a suicide attempt. Hitler was still haunted by the suicide of his beloved niece a few years earlier. Eva Braun was deeply in love with Hitler but didn't get the attention she craved. Hitler rushed to the hospital and resolved to look after her from that moment on. : But Hitler is her meal ticket, and against the wishes of friends and family she becomes a sex slave, a woman who never knows whether some silly war business will prevent Adolf from dropping by after a day in the bunker. Finally she and Der Fuhrer are married, and her dream of becoming somebody comes true. : Despite Eva's lack of redeeming social virtue and any human compassion, there is literary intrigue in her being a personification of disgust and contempt. She is both naive and rude, scorned by everyone. Sometimes even Hitler would not put her on the A-list. : "Not included again," she writes May 9, 1939. "This time I'm left out of the 'official' entourage visiting Mussolini." : woman who not only stayed loyal to Hitler for so many years, but also flew to Berlin against the Führer's express instructions to marry him and commit suicide. The placid, dependent Eva sketched in this supposed diary lacks the passion and determination that the real Eva must certainly have possessed. : : +++ Jan's analysis : '…describing him to her sister, Ilse, as 'a gentleman of a certain age with a funny moustache and carrying a big felt hat…' ; the most characterizing trait of Eva seems to be her childlike naivity. Her use of funny nicknames seems to fit into this picture of 'take-care-of-me-childishness' too. We can see this archetypical character structure enlarged in the popular 'dumb blonde' caricature. Her diary is a list of simplistic thoughts like travel tips and lists of personal items. Hitler sometimes seems to have been a bit ashamed by her presence when other people were there; that's why he didn't take her with him when visiting important meetings. She needed strong men to support her; in a way reminiscent of Marlyn Monroe. Second I find remarkable her relative pacific attitude, passively awaiting what Hitler would suggest or direct her to do. She was so dependent on her authority person that when he didn't visit her enough she manipulated him into feelings of guilt by suicidal acts or by complaining. This last thing combined with her care for her appearance (seductive; especially towards important persons) suggests that she is a Devoted (primary) and Dramatic (secundary) character. Her relative submissivness and un-conspicuous life make Devoted Style the primary choice when classifying her personality. She was non-assertive when Hitler decided to let execute the man of her sister who had tried to flee Berlin. She must have feared losing her relationship when she had protested. : Because devoted style characters need other persons so badly there is a strong element of interpersonal supportive altruism and emotional merging which is often labeled as 'mutual comfort operation'(MCO) or co-dependent behavior. Ultimately this lead her into decidiing to come to Hitler and die with him (despite his explicit orders not to go to Berlin.) : There could be a genetic element; all of Eva’s sisters had a ‘father complex’; dating men much older than themselves. Eva was 20 years younger than Hitler. Devoted style persons often feel attrackted to partners with strong narcissistic traits. : Jan

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