Eva Braun, 1940
The soul of man is in darkness. The soul of a loving woman is complete darkness. Why has the name of Eva Braun been preserved in history and fiction, since her role in the bloody annals of the Third Reich is quite insignificant, and she was Hitler’s wife for 30 hours? It’s just that this woman was not just faithful until her last breath, not just devoted, she loved her idol, who was 23 years older than her, to the point of unconsciousness. She loved so much that in the entire history of their relationship, she twice attempted suicide, trying to prove her selfless devotion to only one person. However, first things first.
Acquaintance in the photo studio
Eva Braun was born in 1912 to Fritz Braun, a Munich artisan teacher, and Franziska Kronberger, a dressmaker. She had two sisters, the elder Ilse and the younger Gretel. All three girls were brought up by their father very strictly: no festivities, no entertainment, and, God forbid, no boys. Only school, lessons, church, mother’s help and bedtime strictly at 10 p.m. Nevertheless, the father wanted his daughters to be educated girls. Therefore, after graduating from the convent school, Eva was sent to the Fraulein Institute, where the girl learned English, studied the basics of exact sciences and mastered typing. Her hobby in those years would be sports – Eva’s mother was engaged in skiing in her youth, and the girl herself chose athletics for herself.
Eva Braun (far right) with her parents and sisters/ © Galerie Bilderwelt, Getty Images
Another hobby of Eva was photography – in the late 20s, many girls dreamed of mastering the profession of a photographer in order to enter the world of fashion, or at least become famous in portrait photography. It was with this craft that Eva decided to connect her life after graduation. She was apprenticed and worked for the Munich photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, who runs the best photo studio in the city.
Members of the NSDAP often went there, and once Adolf Hitler, who at that time was already a very popular politician in Bavaria, visited Hoffmann’s house. But 17-year-old Eva was not interested in politics at all, so she did not pay attention to the nondescript man. But he really “fell in love” with the chubby pretty assistant photographer and began to show her signs of attention.
Hitler and Braun in 1929
Suicide attempt
Hitler courted the girl so beautifully, showered the girl with such touching compliments that Eva’s heart could not stand it and she plunged into the abyss of a new feeling. An instant metamorphosis took place – she fell in love with Hitler without looking back. To impress her boyfriend even more, Eva went on a diet, took up running again, began to swim, and in winter skied, carefully follow fashion trends and use expensive cosmetics.
Eva Braun, early 1940s
However, their relationship, having flared up like a bright torch, burned with an even fire for a long time. Hitler did not try to force events, did not propose to “little Eve”, and their meetings, although regular, always followed the same scenario – a meeting in Hoffmann’s studio, dinner in an expensive restaurant, a night spent together and in the morning he went to the party headquarters, she went to the photo studio to work.
One can imagine the state of a girl who saw herself in a married status, surrounded by children. Her lover not only did not propose to her, but also diligently hid Eva even from her party colleagues. “My fiancée is Germany! He exclaimed with pathos. “I am married to the German nation.” Apparently, this uncertain state was the reason for Eva Braun’s first suicide attempt. In 1932, she shot herself in the neck. The bullet lodged near the carotid artery and Eva was rescued. It is difficult to say now whether this was a deliberate desire or a desperate attempt to attract attention, but Hitler’s attitude towards his beloved changed after that. He rented her a house and made Eva her personal secretary so that his party colleagues would have no questions.
Another
Eva Braun and Hitler, 1940/© dw.com
Meanwhile, the party career of the future Führer was going uphill at full speed. In 1933 he became Reich Chancellor and a year and a half later President of the country. Now Hitler concentrated all power in his hands, and in principle, it was possible to show the country the woman he loved and legitimize relations with her. But no, Hitler instead moved Eva to a newly built castle-residence in the Bavarian Alps, which was called the “Mountain Court” (Berghof). The next eight years of her life passed carefree for the “hostess” of the residence.
She did not aspire to politics and was frankly bored when Hitler received high-ranking guests at the castle – presidents, ministers and foreign diplomats. But when the Führer left for Berlin, Eva had a blast. She was not at all like the ideal of the Aryan woman. Outwardly, yes: a classic blonde with blue eyes and impeccable origins. On the other hand, Eva Braun led a completely non-Aryan lifestyle. She secretly smoked (Hitler couldn’t stand women smoking), used expensive perfumes and cosmetics (during the war, this was strongly condemned). I ordered shoes in Italy, clothes in France and read Oscar Wilde, banned in the Third Reich.
In 1935, she made a second suicide attempt when she began to see that Hitler was gradually growing cold towards her. As Brown wrote in her diary, she sent a letter “resolute to herself” and took a horse dose of sleeping pills. Apparently, this was another staging, since it was quickly discovered and quickly pumped out. Hitler, however, was impressed by the act and their relationship flared up again.
Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, 1939/© dw.com
“It’s not difficult for me”
Eva Braun was not a naïve fool – when the war began to approach the borders of Germany, she understood that the end was near and it could become terrible. However, she cared little about her fate, she only cared about her status. She wanted very badly to become Hitler’s lawful wife. When his lover turned into a paranoid tranquilizer with shaking hands, when his comrades-in-arms began to leave him like rats, he was needed by only one person in the world: Eva Braun.
In the spring of 1945, she had a great opportunity to leave her residence in the Alps and go to Switzerland or France, but instead Eva Braun came to smoking Berlin in the concrete sack of the Führerbunker, to her lover.
On April 29, 1945, what she had dreamed of all her adult life happened – marriage to Adolf Hitler. And even though the rings were one size larger, even though the ceremony itself took only 10 minutes, and there were only sandwiches and two bottles of champagne on the festive table, Eva Braun was happy.
Eva Braun, 1944/ ©
Did she know of the Führer’s desire to die? Absolutely. Moreover, she approved of this decision and expressed a desire to follow her beloved. Back on April 22, when the history of the Third Reich was counting down its last days, she wrote a letter to a friend:
My dear Herta! We will fight to the last, but I’m afraid our end is getting closer and closer. I can’t tell you how much I worry about the Fuehrer. I don’t understand how we could allow all this to happen. Say hi to all my friends. I’m dying the way I lived. It’s not difficult for me. Do you know.
Hitler was glad of this devotion, and when the subject of the fateful day came up, he “reassured” Eva in his own way, assuring her that everything would happen quickly and she would not feel anything. Her only condition was a way to end her life. “I want to be a beautiful corpse… I’m going to take poison,” she told him, showing him a small box with a vial of cyanide.
At 10 a.m. on April 30, it became known that Soviet troops had reached Wilhelmstrasse. It was no longer possible to delay the end of life. At 1 p.m., the last lunch in the bunker took place: pasta with light tomato sauce. At 2:30 p.m., the Fuehrer said goodbye to his servants and entourage. Moreover, according to eyewitnesses, he looked like a somnambulist, unlike Eve. She was sweet, her eyes sparkling unnaturally and she found kind words for everyone present.
At 3:15 p.m., the couple retired to the small living room, and after a while one muffled shot rang out. It is said that Eva Braun was the first to die, having bitten into the vial of poison. A moment later, Hitler shot himself in the temple.
Soviet soldiers point to the discovery of gasoline canisters near the burning site of the bodies of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. April 30, 1945/ © Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
Did Eva really love Hitler? There are many different opinions on this. But one thing is clear: while the demon-possessed dictator was fighting the whole world, Eva Braun was fighting for Hitler himself. And she won it.