Eva Braun: Life with Hitler [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Heike B. Gortemaker (Author), Damion Searls (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: October 25, 2011

In this groundbreaking biography of Eva Braun, German historian Heike B. Görtemaker delves into the startlingly neglected historical truth about Adolf Hitler’s mistress. More than just the vapid blonde of popular cliché, Eva Braun was a capricious but uncompromising, fiercely loyal companion to Hitler; theirs was a relationship that flew in the face of the Führer’s proclamations that Germany was his only bride. Görtemaker paints a portrait of Hitler and Braun’s life together with unnerving quotidian detail—Braun chose the movies screened at their mountaintop retreat (propaganda, of course); he dreamed of retiring with her to Linz one day after relinquishing his leadership to a younger man—while weaving their personal relationship throughout the fabric of one of history’s most devastating regimes. Though Braun gradually gained an unrivaled power within Hitler’s inner circle, her identity was kept a secret during the Third Reich, until the final days of the war. Faithful to the end, Braun committed suicide with Hitler in 1945, two days after their marriage.
 
Through exhaustive research, newly discovered documentation, and anecdotal accounts, Görtemaker has meticulously built a surprising portrait of Hitler’s bourgeois existence outside of the public eye. Though Eva Braun had no role in Hitler’s policies, she was never as banal as she was previously painted; she was privy to his thoughts, ruled life within his entourage, and held his trust. As horrifying as it is astonishing, Eva Braun will undoubtedly be referenced in all future accounts of this period.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Easily the best biography of Eva Braun so far written." —The Daily Beast

"[A] riveting account...Braun may not have influenced Nazi policies, but thanks to Gortemaker's groundbreaking work, it is now clear how Braun catered to Hitler, fostering his reliance on cronies and lackeys and reinforcing his tendency to shut himself off from the awful reality of what was happening to Germany and to the world." —Minneapolis Star Tribune 

"While most historians view Braun as an apolitical appendage of Hitler's paltry private life, Ms. Gortemaker shows how she played the politics of personal loyalty and inspired others, like Albert Speer, to do the same. . . . Ms. Gortemaker finally gives Braun her place in the dark history of the Third Reich." —Wall Street Journal

"Employing a detective’s skill and a journalist’s flair…[Görtemaker] reconstructs the life of Eva Braun from the petty bourgeois household of her schoolteacher father to the inner circle of the Nazi overlord." —Chicago Sun-Times

"A serious study of personal relationships and power at Nazi Germany's pinnacle. [Eva Braun] deserves a broad readership, taking us as it does behind the scenes of history's most criminal regime." —San Francisco Chronicle

"[A] solidly researched, sophisticated, and well-written biography." —Library Journal

"This meticulously-researched and documented biography is far more than the story of Eva Braun . . . Gortemaker has sifted through photographs, diaries, letters, interviews, and previous research to provide a wider perspective on not only Eva, but also many others in Hitler's circle . . . Fascinating reading." —Historical Novels Review 

"A perceptive account of a woman loyal and complaisant to the end." —Richmond Times-Dispatch 

"An utterly compelling  portrayal of the weird hidden life of the dictator...An instructively intimate peek at a man who, like some black star, destroyed all those he touched. Eva was only one of millions of his victims—but a willing one." —The Telegraph (UK)

 "A comprehensive biography…Görtemaker turns on their heads the preconceptions about Hitler and Eva." —Daily Mail (UK)

"The first scientifically researched biography to correct the image of the dumb blonde at the side of the mass murderer." —Der Spiegel (Germany)


"Although it is difficult, if not impossible, to whip up any sympathy for or to empathize with one of history’s most notorious mistresses, Görtemaker does provide a more nuanced view of this marginalized woman by examining the pivotal role she played in Hitler’s life and within his inner circle…This breakout biography is a solid contribution to the ever-increasing body of Third Reich literature and scholarship." —Booklist 
 
 
"Braun emerges as bright but vapid, energetic but soulless. As thorough and clear a look of a monster’s lover as we are likely to get." —Kirkus (starred review) 
 
 
"Having painstakingly reviewed the archives for references to Eva Braun’s relationship with Hitler, Görtemaker presents a portrait of an engaged and engaging young woman, fervently supportive of National Socialism and one of the few members of Hitler’s inner circle to never lose his trust or fall out of affection. . .This telling sheds more light on the central question of the narrative of Eva Braun: 'Did she share the political positions and basic worldview of her lover or was she merely a tragic slave who nonetheless profited from Hitler’s power?'" —Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Heike B. Görtemaker, born in 1964, is a German historian and author. She studied history, economics, and German literature in Berlin and Bloomington, Indiana. In 2005, she published a biography of Margret Boveri, a prominent German journalist from the 1930s to the 1970s. Görtemaker lives with her husband near Berlin. She is currently working on a project dealing with the legacy of Hitler’s inner circle in postwar Germany.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (October 25, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030759582X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307595829
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #255,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #38 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( H ) > Hitler, Adolf

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new, really December 6, 2011

By Geoffrey Walden

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I would actually give this book a 2.5 star rating, if such were possible. This book should have been written 25 years ago, when several of the major eyewitnesses to Eva Braun's life with Hitler were still alive. Now there are only a handful of minor witnesses left, who were on the sidelines and not part of Hitler's and Braun's inner circle. Due to the paucity of written records (because Eva Braun was not, after all, very important in the scheme of things), there is very little information left to allow much of a look at her life with Hitler, beyond her photo albums and films, and what eyewitnesses could provide. Even so, there is no evidence in the book that the author attempted to interview any of the living eyewitnesses (or even used the photo albums at first-hand). The author cites Nerin Gun's 1968 biography of EB several times, noting its anecdotal evidence and lack of documentation, but Gun at least had the advantage of having interviewed the Braun family members and several of the primary eyewitnesses.

Reviews of this book have called it "groundbreaking" and "a comprehensive biography," but it is neither, really. The author tries to reconstruct details of EB's life with Hitler, including her attitudes toward Hitler's political actions and anti-Semitism, but the author is forced to mention the "paucity of sources" (p. 65) and to admit that it is "difficult to reconstruct their relationship" (p. 87). Despite all the author's efforts to make EB and the wives of the Nazi leadership co-conspirators in the Holocaust (see esp. pp. 64-65), there simply is not any convincing period evidence to support this. This misguided attempt at constructing the past, and the lack of eyewitness interviews, are the book's main failings.

Over the past few years, several books on Eva Braun have been published; these have been mainly undocumented novelized "biographies," or "biographies" that were more of a personal look at the author's life, rather than the story of EB. Thankfully, Görtemaker's book is thoroughly footnoted, and she made use of the records of postwar denazification hearings on many of Hitler's inner circle. However, there is really not much new information here, for anyone who has read the reminiscences or biographies of Hitler's inner circle members. The author made good use of records in the Bavarian State Library and State Archives, including the Heinrich Hoffmann photo collection, but curiously, she does not even mention the large Hoffmann photo collection in the U.S. National Archives, and her bibliography does not cite Eva Braun's photo albums and films - some of the primary sources on her life with Hitler - which are in the U.S. National Archives.

The book also suffers from several errors of fact, particularly in the photo captions (some of these may have been due to the translation). The index has only persons' names, not place names - a minor point, but frustrating for someone who is interested in, say, all references to Berchtesgaden.

This book is not, unfortunately, the definitive biography of Eva Braun. The footnotes and bibliography are an improvement over previous EB biographies, but one really must use Nerin Gun's biography in tandem with this book (recognizing the shortcomings of Gun's book), to get a more detailed look at Eva Braun's life.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Clearing Away Some of the Mystery October 31, 2011

By R. Hardy HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

When Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945, the propaganda machine he had set up was still cranking out lies, and so Germans were informed that he had died fighting for them to the end. The statement said nothing of the death of the woman he had made his wife just hours before, Eva Braun. She had been essentially invisible during the fifteen years they were together, known only to the household intimates of the Führer, and she died in the same obscurity despite her attachment to the dictator. She had a fragmentary diary, but otherwise, historians have to sort though the memoirs and testimonies of those personally close to Hitler to learn about Braun's life. So many such documents were self-serving attempts to portray the authors as distant from Hitler and his activities that Braun has remained a mystery. Not all the mysteries that surround her have been cleared up in her latest biography _Eva Braun: Life with Hitler_ (Knopf) by the German historian Heike B. Görtemaker (translated by Damion Searls). Görtemaker has her work cut out for her, with fragmentary, distorted documentation that has wide gaps during which Braun's locale cannot even be placed. However, the author is frank about such lapses, and she provides commentary on the memoirs such as the famous one by Albert Speer to enable readers to sift through evidence. This volume may be as complete a picture of Braun's life as we will ever get.

Braun, from lower-middle-class parents, was a shopgirl in a photography studio when Hitler met her in 1929. Hitler, then forty, was clearly interested in Braun, then seventeen. He visited the studio frequently thereafter, bearing presents for the shopgirl. It seems, except for the age difference, a fairly normal meeting and courtship. Part of the strangeness in reading this volume is that much is not very strange. Görtemaker writes, for instance, that in 1935, it was at an inn near Munich, that Hitler "was allegedly introduced to his girlfriend's parents there for the first time." Except for the secrecy, with the relationship hidden from the public, there is no evidence that the relationship between Hitler and Braun was anything but normal; Hitler personifies evil for us, but not everything he did was a perversion. Braun seems never to have had any influence in political matters, and maybe no interest in them. She was, however, increasingly confident in her role of domesticity, and at mealtimes would talk freely and supply the latest gossip about movie stars. When Hitler would get on one of his hobby-horses and hog the conversation, she would intervene and bring his monologue to an immediate halt. "Eva Braun thus seems to have been the only person who dared to put a stop to his well-known talkativeness; no other member of the mealtime group at the Berghof would have done so." Even within their final home, Hitler's bunker in Berlin, she attempted to keep up domestic appearances, and influenced Hitler to make a show of normalcy, too. Perhaps this was one of the supports that kept him going (and kept soldiers and civilians dying) as the war in Europe drew to a close.

When even Hitler realized that doom was upon them, he arranged their marriage on 29 April 1945. It is impossible to know what he wanted from that ceremony, except that there was no more need to pretend to have an ascetic's image. His political testament, dictated shortly before, expressed his "wish that she go with me into death as my wife." The day after the marriage, in his private quarters, she took cyanide, as did he, and he also shot himself. She was thus just another of his millions of victims, although a willing one. Görtemaker has expanded the book to descriptions of the domestic life in Hitler's circle, with biographical sketches of Speer, Bormann, Goebbels, and others. She has given us, however, the first scholarly biography of a woman who, because of the peculiar nature of her position, is still a strange and somewhat inexplicable character. Surely part of the mystery about Eva Braun's life is just that it partakes of the larger inexplicable monstrosity: How can all of this have happened?

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars `Who was this woman, actually, and what perspective does she open up onto this "criminal of the century"?' March 27, 2012

By J. Cameron-Smith TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Eva Anna Paula Braun was born on the 6th of February 1912, married Adolf Hitler on the night of April 28th 1945, and died on the 30th of April 1945. Eva Braun was the second of three daughters of Fritz Braun, a Munich school teacher and Franziska, a former seamstress, and met Hitler in the autumn of 1929. Hitler was apparently so taken with her that he immediately had her investigated to make sure that she had no Jewish ancestry.

But what was her role in his life? What influence did she have over him? How much did she know about the Holocaust? She never joined the Nazi Party, but we probably can't draw too many conclusions from that as apparently Hitler wouldn't allow his sister to join the party either.

Ms Görtemaker's book suggests that Braun was more important than has previously been considered. She was largely kept hidden from the German public in order to maintain the illusion that the Führer was married to his people. Twice, apparently, her relationship with Hitler drove her to attempt suicide. There are occasional glimpses of a woman who loved dogs, expensive clothes, photography and skiing. And at the end, instead of staying in Munich, she chose to return to Berlin where, 36 hours after marrying, she and Hitler committed suicide.

`I want to be a beautiful corpse. I will take poison.'

The problem with writing a biography about a person like Eva Braun is that very little information can be verified, few sources exist and fewer can be relied on. We have some photographs, but little context although Eva Braun sought to have her private letters saved for posterity. On 23 April 1945 she wrote an urgent letter to her younger sister, Gretl, urging her to take `all the letters from the Führer' and the `copies of her replies' and put them in a `water-resistant packet'. Gretl was to bury them if necessary, but absolutely not to destroy them. Eva also insisted that `on no account must Heise's bills be found,' referring to the fashionable Berlin dress designer Annemarie Heise. She didn't get her wish. We know about Eva's profligacy at the dressmaker but her correspondence with Hitler has never been found.

I found this biography both interesting and dissatisfying. Interesting because I've never really thought much about the woman who married Hitler just before they both died, dissatisfying because I have no real sense of any substance to the woman herself. Instead, there's a sense of frivolity which, while it might seem appropriate for many young women of her age seems inappropriate for a woman so closely associated to Hitler. What did Eva Braun stand for? She smoked, drank wine, listened to jazz, was obsessed with sport and movies, read Oscar Wilde and spent a lot of money on clothes. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this book is the light that it sheds on those who were part of Hitler's most intimate circle and his curious lifestyle.

Was Eva Braun one of Hitler's victims? If she was, it seems that she was a willing one.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith