The Lost Life of Eva Braun (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Schellingstrasse runs from west to east through the heart of Munich, parallel with the grand trio of art galleries known collectively as the Pinakothek..." (more)
Key Phrases: euthanasia programme, Eva Braun, Third Reich, Albert Speer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Lambert (whose novel, A Rather English Marriage was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize) cites the remarkable fact that while Hitler has over 700 biographies, his long-time mistress and wife (for 36 hours), Eva Braun, enjoys just two in English—the first long out of print and now this one. Since her death at age 33 in the bunker alongside her beloved Adolf, Braun has been dismissed as a vivacious but flighty and not overly intelligent companion with a perverse adoration of the fuehrer. In her magnificent, sensitive and finely written bio, Lambert does not wholly undermine this perception, but for the first time Braun emerges as a fully rounded, complex individual both liberated and imprisoned by her relationship with Hitler, a relationship assiduously dissected here and that exemplifies the meaning of "opposites attract." She was, for instance, the only person allowed to smoke in the abstemious fuehrer's presence, and she was as Catholic as Hitler was militantly self-worshiping. No one in Hitler's retinue ever understood their mutual attraction, though perhaps Albert Speer was closest when he said that for Hitler Braun was "incredibly undemanding"; as for Braun's infatuation, Lambert herself remains bemused, but her behind-the-scenes tale of an extraordinary man in love with a most ordinary woman is a revelation. 32 pages of b&w photos. (Jan.)
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From The Washington Post

Many biographies reveal as much about their authors as about their subjects, and this account of the life of Hitler's mistress can serve as Exhibit A. The British writer Angela Lambert is fascinated by Eva Braun for one key reason: Like Lambert's mother, Braun was born in Germany in 1912, grew up during Hitler's rise to power and never questioned what was happening in her country. Lambert's mother then married an Englishman and moved to Britain in 1936, but until the end of her life, she never acknowledged that her silence in the 1930s represented any kind of moral failure.

By painstakingly examining the thin trail of evidence left behind by Braun, Lambert wonders whether all German women, from the least famous to her infamous subject, should be condemned for the horrific deeds of their men. If Braun can be absolved of guilt, she suggests, so can most German women, including her mother. "Any verdict on Eva is, in microcosm, a verdict on the German people," she writes. And from there, it's a short step to this sweeping statement: "Women who love evil men need not necessarily be evil themselves."

Lambert insists that her minute examination of Braun's life proves that she has been unfairly caricatured "as a feather-brained non-entity" who partied and worried about her wardrobe while her lover set the world aflame. The woman who finally married Hitler right before committing suicide with him in his bunker in Berlin at the end of the war, Lambert argues, was caring, sensitive and, above all, loyal. She claims that the former photo shop assistant was smarter than is commonly assumed -- but "blissfully ignorant" of politics, which was considered men's business, and remained so throughout the war years she spent in Obersalzberg, Hitler's retreat in the Bavarian Alps. All she cared about was when "HE," as she referred to him in her letters, would visit.

Although Lambert concedes that even ordinary citizens couldn't be clueless about the fate of the Jews after Kristallnacht in 1938, she largely dismisses the notion that Braun and most other Germans could have known the full extent of the horrors of the deportations and the camps. She also argues that the widespread anti-Semitism of German women like her mother, who remained "unthinkably prejudiced against Jews" even after the war, didn't overshadow their positive traits, such as love of family.

As for Braun, Lambert portrays her as "blameworthy" -- not implicated in the suffering Hitler inflicted on the world, "but not innocent either." Then she adds a defense of Braun that is staggering in its implications. "It is not a crime to be shallow and fun-loving," Lambert insists, seemingly ignoring the context of such "fun": Hitler's orgy of mass murder. Even Braun's outburst against her sister, who dared to denounce Hitler near the end -- "You deserve to be lined up against the wall and shot!" -- is presented as an understandable product of blind love for her man. But Lambert is hardly doing her mother or other dangerously passive German women a service by equating their willful blindness with Braun's. This is a case of a daughter protesting too much, offering a damning indictment instead of an effective defense. After all, Hitler proved how easily willful blindness could serve the cause of blind destruction.

-- Andrew Nagorski, a senior editor at Newsweek International, is the author of the forthcoming "The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II."

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (January 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031236654X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312366544
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #760,282 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A missed opportunity, July 25, 2006

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

This review is from: THE LOST LIFE OF EVA BRAUN (Hardcover)

Angela Lambert admits in the preface that she knew nothing about Eva Braun, Hitler or World War II before commencing on this book. Sadly, the limitations show. Her main sources are books published in the past 30 years, all common titles and almost none written in the German language. It's beyond comprehension that she didn't hire a German translator to assist in the project. It's impossible to write a competent book about either Hitler or Eva without being able to read German. The author did absolutely no research on primary sources, didn't visit the archives in Munich or Koblenz and sometimes shows an almost amazing lack of knowledge about her subject's life and times.

The most irritating aspect of the book is a questionable literary device, where Lambert interjects her mother into every chapter. I hate to break it to the author, but no one cares to slog through pointless stories about her mother when the book is supposed to be about Hitler's mistress. The lack of an editor is glaringly apparent in this area. This is by far the book's more crippling downfall.

However, there are some strong points to the book. Lambert's depiction of the early courtship between Hitler and Eva is excellent. In fact, her characterization of Eva is flawless throughout. It's too bad she didn't rely on interviews of Herta Schneider, Eva's best friend and confidante; these would have strengthened the book immeasurably.

Lambert also sensibly dismisses the ridiculous rumors that Hitler was gay, impotent, sado-maschochistic or perverted in bed. He was none of those things and she wisely proves this with abundant anecdotal evidence. Hitler's relationship with Eva was perfectly normal, though hardly of Latin intensity.

Nerin E. Gun's out of print biography of Eva remains the "must read" regarding Hitler's mistress. Lambert gives it the old college try, but lack of research ultimately compromises this biography. It's a fairly good book but the definitive look at Eva Braun has yet to be written.

21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A footnote, too far!, February 25, 2007

By	Agatha Comberton (Boston, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

1/2 of this book is footnotes. Brava to the author for her extensive research...but, she did not need to footnote every piece of paper she read to write this book.

I agree with another poster. No one gives a fig about the author's mother's childhood in Germany. That made the reader become lost in the story of Eva Braun. The two women were not girlhood friends. There was no point to including her mother's life.

I was looking forward to this book and was very disappointed.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evan Braun: Seduced by a Dracula of Cold Evil this banal woman died at the feet of her false god Adolf Hitler, February 7, 2007

By	C. M Mills "Michael Mills" (Knoxville Tennessee) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Angela Lambert is an English novelist and non-fiction writer who has written this new biography of Hitler's mistress and wife (for the last 36 hours of her short life of 33 years) Eva Braun (1912-April 20, 1945 dying in the Berlin Bunker after ingesting a poison capsule).
Eva Braun was one of three sisters whose father taught school. The family was middle class practicing Roman Catholicism. The Brauns came from Bavaria one of the most conservative areas of Germany. Eva was the middle child. Eva was a lifelong hedonist who enjoying dressing up and having fun. Eva enjoyed skiing, hiking and gymnastics. It was when she was working as a photographer's assistant in the shop of Henreich Hoffmann in Munich that she first set eyes on Adolf Hitler. Hoffmann was a friend of Hitler whose photographs of the Nazi founder were widely published adding to Hitler's growing fortune. The printing of Mein Kampf also made a fortune for Hitler.
Eva was a virgin who was instantly besotted by Hitler. This foolish fraulein had a "thing" for strong, reticent, cold and controlling men like her own distant father. Hitler and Eva first had sex following the death of Hitler's niece Geli Raubel his niece and the daughter of his half-sister Angela. Geli committed suicide after Hitler discovered her affair with his chaueffeur Emil Maurice. Hitler and Geli had in all probability been intimate. His loss of Geli made him suicidal but the devotion given him by the unthinking Eva brought him back from the brink. One wishes that this evil man had committed suicide!
Eva was always kept in the background by Hitler who wanted people believe that his true love was the German people. Miss Braun was kept by Hitler in a small home he bought for her in Munich. Eva also spent a good
deal of time at Hitler's Alpine retreat the fortress Berghof. She never had the children or family she longed for.
Eva Braun was nonpolitical. She lived in a dreamworld in which looking pretty for her lover; dancing and having a good time were high priorities. She was not without virtues. Eva had a coterie of lifelong friends; was good to her parents (even though they despised Hitler and considered it shameful that their daughter had become his mistress); kind to others and loved animals. She probably did not know of the death camps. Her innocence and fatuous worship of Hitler is astounding to contemplate.
Hitler choose Eva because he felt inferior to well born, more intellectual and politcally engaged women such as Magda Goebbels. He was pursued by kooky ladies like the Englishwoman Unity Mitford but their relationship was platonic. Eva was a nurturing woman who gave Hitler unquestiioned loyalty, love and did not challenge him mentally or morally.
She comes across as shallow and less than bright. Her life was wasted on a mountain where she had leagued her soul to the unholy Satan who ruled Europe with cruel and vicious hatred.
Lambert's own mother was born in Hamburg in 1912 which was also the natal year of Eva Braun. Throughout this long biography of Braun she shares similarties between the way her mother was raised and the way Eva Braun grew to womanhood. Some readers may find this intrusive to the main story of Eva Braun but I thought it added insight into German life in the early twentieth century and the post World War I of high inflation, poverty and despair.
Angela Lambert's new work on Braun is only the second in English on the first lady of the Third Reich. I read the earlier 1969 work by Neren Gunn and found this new book much more intimate and revealing of a young girl seduced by the devil.
Eva Braun was more complex than I thought but in the end one has little sympathy with someone so politically naive and stupid as to fall for Hitler. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in World War II
and the role of women in the Third Reich.