Page 44 - All About History - Issue 180-19
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isolated cottage on the shore of Tegernsee, Bavaria.
There he ranted and raved to Rudolf Hess, yelling
about how his political career was over and that
his life was no longer worth living. According
to one story, Hess had to grab a pistol out of his
friend’s hand before he killed himself.
Geli may not have been Hitler’s first infatuation,
and certainly not the first of his lovers to attempt
suicide (although very little is known about these
earlier women), but it was her death that affected
him the most, with some even blaming it for some
of Hitler’s darker policies. Nonetheless, time heals
most wounds, and Hitler would soon move on.
It just so happened that his next love would be
someone he had already met.
In 1929, Heinrich Hoffman had a young
assistant in his studio. Just 17, she was a keen
worker and eager to please as both an assistant
and a model. Then, on one November day, Eva
Braun’s life changed forever. There at the door
of the photography studio was a man who Eva being serenaded
introduced him as ‘Herr Wolf’, and the rest, as by members of the
they say, was history. Third Reich © Alamy
It’s impossible to know much about the early
years of their relationship as all of Hitler’s personal photography studio, and even sometimes took her
correspondence was burned the week before his to the opera.
death in 1945. What we can infer, though, is that In 1930, things seemed to be going Eva’s way.
she became jealous – after all, she was only 17 and Hitler invited her to dinners at Osteria Bavaria,
the man she wanted was obsessed with another his favourite restaurant, along with others from
woman: Geli. His half-niece took up his spare time, his inner circle, and it’s thought that while Hitler
but that didn’t stop Eva from flirting with Hitler, was jealous of the company Geli was keeping,
and he brought her gifts when he visited the the feeling may have been mutual. Theirs was a
strange, mixed-up relationship, after all. The man
who was showering her with affection – however
distasteful his bedroom requests may have been –
Eva was used
to posing for was shifting his attention to a girl just one or two Braun and Hitler were
the camera, but years her junior. never seen together at
it’s something Hitler’s ‘type’ was clear – he once commented: public events
she only really
did behind “A girl of 18 to 20 is as malleable as wax. It should
closed doors as be possible for a man … to stamp his own imprint A Berghof party, with Eva in
Hitler gained on her. That’s all the woman asks for.” He didn’t the front row, standing next
more power to Hitler three in from the left
like girls who argued with him, or who were more
intelligent than him, and with both of his main
relationships being with girls in their late teens
and early 20s, it certainly seems that dominance
was important to him. At the beginning, Geli
didn’t resist, and neither did Eva.
After Geli’s death it seemed as though Hitler
would never be able to get over her. Her room
in Munich was never touched while the dictator
lived, and his grief was deep and real. But it didn’t
last for long. Eva, still living in Munich, was about
to turn 20, and she was eager to grow up. She
spent her nights at cafes, nightclubs and the evidence of their relationship – letters, documents,
cinema, staying out until the early morning. photographs – were destroyed in 1945, so figuring
She was enjoying everything the city had to out what happened has been a lot of guesswork
offer, but there was just one problem – she and interviews with Hitler’s inner circle after the
was still obsessed with Hitler. war. For instance, it’s unclear if their relationship
Eva never let up in her flirting, and had a sexual element or not (although Eva’s
eventually it paid off. An invitation biographer claims they were definitely sexually
to the Troubadour, one of Hitler’s active), and we’ll never know just how emotionally
favourite cafes, turned into more nights attached they were to one another.
at the opera. Then it was a full-blown What we do know, however, is that while Eva
affair – or so we think. Any primary didn’t like to take money from her lover, she
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