Eva Braun

Eva Anna Paula Braun (February 6, 1912 – April 30, 1945) was the longtime companion (and ultimately, wife for a night and a day) of Adolf Hitler.

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. Her affection for nude sunbathing (and being photographed at it) is known to have infuriated him. She had a lifelong interest in photography and their closest friends called her the Rolleiflex Girl (after a well-known camera). She did her own darkroom processing and most of the colour stills and movies of Hitler in existence are her work.

Related Topics:
World War II - Romance novels - Television - Sunbathing - Camera - Darkroom

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Otto Gunsche 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 his twelve years in power. It was said that in 1936,

Related Topics:
Otto Gunsche - Heinz Linge

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He was always accompanied by her. As soon as he heard the voice of his lover he became jollier. He would make jokes about her new hats. He would take her for hours on end into his study where there would be champagne cooling in ice, chocolates, cognac and fruit.

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The interrogation report adds that when Hitler was too busy for her, "Eva would often be in tears."

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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 Fuhrer-whore.

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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."

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In 1944 Braun invited her cousin Gertraud Weisker to visit her at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden. Decades later, Weisker recalled that although women in the Third Reich were expected not to wear make-up, drink or smoke, Eva did all of these things. "She was the unhappiest woman I have ever met," said Weisker, who informed Braun about how poorly the war was going for Germany, having illegally listened to BBC news broadcasts in German. Weisker also claimed neither of them knew anything about the concentration camps, although both were keenly aware that Jews in Germany were severely persecuted.

Related Topics:
Gertraud Weisker - Berghof - Berchtesgaden - Third Reich - BBC - Concentration camps - Jew

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Also in 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 and Braun is said to have deliberately refrained from interceding on her brother-in-law's behalf.

Related Topics:
1944 - Hermann Fegelein - Heinrich Himmler - Sweden - Execution

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