The Lost Life of Eva Braun [Paperback]

Angela Lambert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2008

The inner lives of the top Nazis and their families, Hitler’s famous mistress---ultimately his wife---comes to three-dimensional life in this penetrating and critically acclaimed biography.

She left her convent school at the age of seventeen and met Hitler a few months later. She became his mistress before age twenty. They remained in an exclusive sexual relationship from 1932 until their joint suicides at the end of the war. Hitler’s chauffeur called her “the unhappiest woman in Germany.” The Führer humiliated her in public while the top Nazis’ wives despised her. Yet Albert Speer said: “She has been much maligned. She was very shy, modest. A man’s woman: gay, gentle, and kind; incredibly undemanding . . . a restful sort of girl.” This authoritative biography, only the second life of Eva Braun written in English, based on detailed new research, opens a new window on life at the cold heart of the Nazi leadership.

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.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Growing up sheltered in a strongly Catholic family in Munich, Braun was barely out of her teens when she met Hitler in a camera store. Determined to win his affections, Braun molded herself into his ideal woman and was ultimately able to insinuate herself in the future dictator's life. By the time of their mutual suicide in the Fuhrerbunker in April 1945, says Lambert, Hitler came to love Braun, albeit in a complicated and selfish way. Only the second biography of Hitler's mistress to be published in English, this one deserves praise for trying to understand Braun's complexities in their own right, rather than as a window into Hitler's psyche.Lambert offers a persuasive portrait of Braun as patient, dignified, occasionally jealous, and genuinely devoted to Hitler. Perhaps controversially, Lambert also concludes that, while "blameworthy" in the Catholic sense of the term, Braun knew little about the Holocaust and should not be condemned for her failure to intervene. Willing to speculate about that which is unclear from the historical record, Lambert's exuberance for her subject makes this a fascinating read. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (April 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312378653
• ISBN-13: 978-0312378653
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #622,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 58 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: Lost Life of Eva Braun, The (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.

25 of 34 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
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Lost Life of Eva Braun (Hardcover)

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.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Kind of a Let Down, April 15, 2007

By 

J. Hill (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lost Life of Eva Braun (Hardcover)

I was excited when I purchased this book and continued to be iterested until about the third chapter when the author kept inserting her mother's life in with Eva's life. She seemed to try to find any little thing in common between the two and was trying to force an association that just wasn't there. It got extremely old very quickly. If she wanted to write a book about her mother, then write it. If she wanted to write about Eva Braun, leave the personal info out. This brings me to my next issue. I wanted to read a book about WWII, not about the author's personal political views on what is happening in the current time. I was flabergasted when I saw a comment about Lindy England (sp?) in the text. Many of these opinions appeared in the lengthy footnotes that appeared on every single page. Yet again, stick to the subject! She could have written three books out the ideas she crammed into this one book. The subject has great potential, but didn't deliver in the end. It has become long winded and is no longer keeping my interest. I would advise potential readers to just look up info on the internet and save your money for a better book.