Mistress of Adolf Hitler, born in Munich, SE Germany. She was secretary to Hitler's staff photographer, became Hitler's mistress in the 1930s, and is said to have married him before they committed suicide together in the air-raid shelter (the bunker) of the Chancellery during the fall of Berlin.
Eva Anna Paula Braun, later Eva Hitler (February 6, 1912 – April 30, 1945) was the longtime companion and, briefly, wife of Adolf Hitler.
Background
Born in Munich, Germany, Eva Braun was the second daughter of school teacher Friedrich "Fritz" Braun and Franziska Kronberger, who both came from respectable Bavarian families. She met Hitler there in 1929. Her father had both political and moral objections, while Hitler's half-sister, Angela Raubal, refused to address Eva other than as a social inferior.
Relationship and turmoil
Hitler saw more of Braun after the alleged suicide of Angela's daughter and (possibly) Hitler's former mistress Geli Raubal in 1931 (some historians suggest Raubal killed herself because she was distraught over Hitler's relationship with Braun, while others speculate Hitler killed her or had her murdered). Meanwhile, Hitler was seeing other women, such as actress Renate Müller, whose early death was also termed a suicide. After Braun's recovery, Hitler became more committed to her and bought her a villa in Wasserburgerstrasse, a Munich suburb, providing her with a Mercedes and a chauffeur.
In 1936 Braun came to Hitler's household at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden. Her political influence on Hitler is unknown, but is generally presumed to have been minimal.
Hitler and Eva 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 Eva Braun and her relationship with Hitler until after the war. According to the memoirs of Albert Speer, Eva Braun never slept in the same room as Hitler and was always given her own bedroom at the Berghof, in Hitler's Berlin residence and in the Berlin bunker. Speer commented:
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. She did her own darkroom processing 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 twelve years in power. 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."
In 1944 Braun invited her cousin Gertraud Weisker to visit her at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden.
On June 3, 1944, Eva Braun's sister Gretl married a member of Hitler's entourage, Hermann Fegelein, who served as Heinrich Himmler's liaison. 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.
Marriage and suicide
By early April 1945 Braun had driven to Berlin from Munich to be with Hitler at the Führerbunker. Hitler and Braun were married on April 29, 1945 during a brief civil ceremony witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann;
With her marriage her legal name changed to Eva Hitler. When Eva signed her marriage certificate, she first wrote her family name Braun, then lined this out and replaced it with Hitler. Moreover, although bunker personnel were instructed to call her Frau Hitler, Adolf Hitler himself continued to call Eva Fräulein Braun.
There was gossip among the Führerbunker staff that Eva was carrying Hitler's child, but there has never been any evidence to support this claim. Braun and Hitler apparently committed suicide together on the 30th, Braun, by swallowing a cyanide capsule, and Hitler, by shooting himself.
Their charred remains were soon discovered 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, before being exhumed in 1970, completely cremated and dispersed in the Elbe river (see also Hitler's death).
The rest of Eva 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. text-align:left;">
| April 22 Wilhelm Mohnke • Martin Bormann • Artur Axmann • Traudl Junge • | ||
| Ludwig Stumpfegger • Hans Baur • Erich Kempka • Johann Rattenhuber • Günther Schwägermann • Werner Naumann • Hans-Erich Voss | ||
| Still present when Soviet forces arrived on May 2 Adolf Hitler • Eva Braun • Joseph Goebbels • Magda Goebbels • Wilhelm Burgdorf • Peter Högl • Hans Krebs | ||
| Killed | ||
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