The Devil's Mistress: The Diary of Eva Braun, the Woman Who Lived and Died With Hitler (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

In Anne Frank Remembered (1987) and again in a novel about the mad daughter of James Joyce (Clairvoyant, 1992), Gold gave a moving sense of women beset by tragedy. Here, though, the tragic element is subsumed by the notoriety and pettiness of Hitler's bunkermate. A diary purchased at great cost in modern-day Munich by a representative of ``the organization'' (and based in part on a real fragment of Braun's diary from 1935) reveals the whole dreadful tale of relations between ``Herr Wolf'' and ``Fr„ulein Effie.'' The two meet in a Munich photo store in 1929: he an older, rumpled, but clearly important customer, she a pretty girl who parts her legs to give him a better look when she sees him eyeing her on the stockroom ladder. Their subsequent encounters are as intermittent as they are perverse, but by the time he becomes Chancellor, in 1933, Effie has a clear place in his life. Hitler is never seen with her in public, but he buys a villa for her in Munich, she's a regular guest at his fortress in the Alps, and Hindenburg's old Chancellery apartment in Berlin becomes her own. Meanwhile, Effie soothes her bruised ego at his slights and infidelities by shopping endlessly and by obsessive workouts on the uneven parallel bars-- but she also practices her vindictiveness regularly. As war begins, then as the tide of battle turns, she sees less of him than ever, so vermouth and sleeping pills are added to her routine. Her devotion undimmed, she returns from relative safety in Bavaria to join him as bombs rain down on Berlin, gaining in the final days her fervent desire to be not his Fr„ulein but his Frau. To turn such a brutish and banal a life into compelling fiction would require inspiration unimaginable. It's little reflection on the author's writerly skill, then, that her character study--sensitive and vivid though it is--comes up short. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

Eva Braun -- Adolf Hitler's girlfriend -- is probably the last person most readers want to learn about.

This expanded fictional version of Braun's diary, however, is sometimes fascinating in an eerie, back-streets-of-history way. You will never admire little Eva, but you will be appalled and dumbfounded.

The author calls Eva: selfish, tyrannical, racist, narcissistic, cruel, suicidal...abusive." By the end of Devil's Mistress, you can't argue with these descriptions. Maybe Hitler liked Braun because she made him look like a decent guy.

In Devil's Mistress, Hitler himself is a paranoid, obsessive, perverse fuddy-duddy. It is a match made in hell. Eva is a poor 17-year-old when she meets him, and for her, love is indeed blind.

But Hitler is her meal ticket, and against the wishes of friends and family she becomes a sex slave, a woman who never knows whether some silly war business will prevent Adolf from dropping by after a day in the bunker. Finally she and Der Fuhrer are married, and her dream of becoming somebody comes true.

Despite Eva's lack of redeeming social virtue and any human compassion, there is literary intrigue in her being a personification of disgust and contempt. She is both naive and rude, scorned by everyone. Sometimes even Hitler would not put her on the A-list.

"Not included again," she writes May 9, 1939. "This time I'm left out of the 'official' entourage visiting Mussolini."

Diary entries make up most of the book; there are lists of her possessions and who gets them when she goes, a recipe for soup, even a travel tip:

"I had to get away from so much talk about the crisis in Poland have a good time but not the Italians."

In such ways, Gold is clever. Intellectually, you know Eva could never match the insights of another diarist, a young girl in an attic in Amsterdam. Eva had not read the great books or even heard of them.

Was she a paramour with dumb luck? A partner in crime? What are we to make of this woman? Such a psychologically enigmatic Eva makes The Devil's Mistress occasionally a page-turner. -- J. Ford Huffman, Special for USA Today

It's hard to forget a novel that spreads across the imagination like a mysterious and evil stain. Based on Eva Braun's actual diary entries and fleshed out by Alison Leslie Gold's imagination, The Devil's Mistress shadows Braun.... as she schemes to keep herself in lipstick and crocodile shoes, nipping at a bottle of vermouth while waiting for the rumble of a Mercedes staff car outside her door. -- The New York Times Book Review, Sally Eckhoff

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 218 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber; First Edition edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571199232
• ISBN-13: 978-0571199235
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #276,215 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Vaguely interesting, August 27, 2001

By A Customer

As a historian I feel I have something to say about this. It's not as poor a depiction of Eva as some have said. Granted, this is a boring book and I certainly would not recommend it, unless like me, you are fascinated with all details of the horrors of the Nazis and their associates. Gold is not wrong to assume Hitler's abnormality sexually-there is plenty of real evidence to support this, so I would not make the conclusion that she is "sensationalizing". Very rarely, as any psychologist will tell you, does an individual so twisted as Hitler have a normal sexual life, because sexuality reflects a normal, loving relationship and everyone who saw Hitler and Eva together commented that he insulted her in his presence and treated her as one would a loyal dog. That means there would be a problem. Also, this is a work of fiction, so this woman needn't justify herself, although I thought she was in line with Eva's own entries. Why is everyone so quick to defend Eva? Why is it more palatable for some to assume she was not shallow? Presumably she was far less bizarre than her lover/husband, but no innocent woman could have had a relationship with such a man. By the way, who was that guy who claimed Eva and Hitler escaped in a sub?! That was hilarious! Doesn't anyone screen these reviews?

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Supremely awful and absurd, January 6, 2001

By	Candace Scott (Lake Arrowhead, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This is one of the worst books I have ever read: juvenile, pathetically poorly written, historically devoid of *any* semblance of truth and shallow beyond belief. Eva Braun did write 20 pages of a real diary in 1935 and these torn-out extracts survive and are authentic. They reveal several things: Hitler was completely normal sexually (though he did ignore her for long bouts) and he did care for her, though he wasn't passionately enamored with her. She was with him, however. They had a normal, prosaic relationship, devoid of sado-mashochism or other ridiculous perversions detailed here.

It obviously bothers people that a mass murderer could still function normally between the sheets with his mistress and for this reason, trashy books like this are written and find a market. Anyone who lays credence in the idiotic nonsense between the covers of this tome need to seriously consult a non-fiction source on Eva Braun. This is the nadir of published material on her.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dragged to the end, June 2, 2001

By	Athena "jadedathena" (Canada) - See all my reviews

This book came to me because I picked it up and was curious of this woman. I was greatly disappointed. Gold portrays Eva Braun as one of the most selfish, arrogant, stupid people of her time. Thus suiting her position with Hitler. It is bias. An author deeply analyses what a woman wants with Hitler and uses Braun's diary as a tool to use against Braun and Hitler. Eva's character is utterly unbelievable. She is the worst character I have read. Braun and Hitler are portrayed as deeply perverse at times. If the book was fact, the writing style is understandable but it is not the case. The writing style is too tedious and I only kept reading to review this. She dragged everything slowly. It seemed the 40s would never end. During this long drag of days and months, Gold depicts a horrible/loathsome-worthy Protag. Her true intention in the end. Greatly biased.

This fiction is a horrible read, if you want fact on Eva Braun, use something else.