Eva Braun.


On my previous Norway trip I borrowed a biography about Eva Braun.

This time I had enough time to actually complete the read.

I’m not too sure where to start with this one. The topic is infamous and the facts in many ways obvious. World War 2 is a theme that never goes out of fashion, but people have a tendency to gravitate towards Hitler and his men, not necessarily that much towards his girlfriend.

Eva Braun came from a traditional catholic family, where her relationship to Hitler was seen as scandalous since they weren’t married. Her father hated the nazi party and was strongly opposed to the relationship.

The Braun family removed Hitler from their photographs just like the nazi party edited out Eva from their’s, reducing her role to that of a secretary/assistant. Nobody really knew what her role was, few knew who she really was and nobody outside of Hitler’s inner circle knew that he had a woman in his life at all, as he had officially declared that he was “married to Germany”.

Eva was not allowed to be present whenever leaders from other countries visited Berghof, during official visits it was Goebbels’ wife that acted as hostess.

Hitler was officially always single which meant that Eva was pretty much hidden away most of the time.

She dreamt of being a movie star and loved photography.

Apparently she had no interest in politics and how much she knew of what was going on in terms of the nazi party has been a source of much debate.

We can assume that she knew very little, as a nazi-wife who confronted Hitler at Berghof after having witnessed a portion of the nazi-atrocities at a train station, was banned from Berghof with her husband afterwards. The lady assumed that Hitler knew nothing of what was going on and that his men were taking things too far.

Berghof was to be kept a safe haven, completely cut off from the outside world, with their own food supplies thanks to the farm that belonged to the Berghof estate,  not until Eva Braun joined Hitler in his infamous bunker, can we assume that she knew anything of value in terms of the Nazis.

Eva’s story is actually quite touching in terms of how loyal she was to her man and how much she must have loved him. Eva’s story reads out like a tragic love story more than anything, as she literally gave Hitler her life, completely and absolutely. She had two failed suicide attempts at the beginning of their relationship and eventually achieved her greatest ambition: to get married and become Frau Hitler.

Albeit short-lived, she was to commit suicide with her lover only hours after their marriage in the bunker.

An absolutely tragic love story to say the least.

The book span over 400 pages, almost 500 and is a fascinating read.

Well written, the author has succeeded in creating a biography filled with details and display her careful work in order to obtain access to Eva’s diary, her pictures, and any relevant information, from a historical character so obscure, you wouldn’t have believed she ever existed had it not been for all her photos and short films.

If you are interested in history I would claim that this is a must read.

Very interesting indeed.

I loved it.

Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Google+ photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s