Love Stories of Dictators: Eva Braun, Hitler’s Wife for a Few Hours

On the night of 28–29 April, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun married in Berlin, just hours before ending their lives. The marriage, kept secret and carried out as Berlin collapsed around them, came after years

in which Braun remained publicly invisible, her loyalty rewarded only at the very end.

Braun, born on 6 February 1912, was just 17 when she met Hitler, who was 40, in 1929. During their first introduction, he was referred to as “Herr Wolff”. She was working as an assistant and model with the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, who had a shop in the Bavarian city of Munich. According to reports, during their first meeting Hitler was staring at her legs. Later, however, it was discovered that the dictator, more than two decades older than her, was in love with her brown eyes. It is said their colour reminded him of his mother, whose early death had left him with a trauma he carried throughout his life.

Braun was the second daughter of a schoolteacher named Friedrich Braun. The 17-year-old thought that Hitler had a funny moustache.At the time, however, the dictator was involved with Geli Raubal, his half-niece, who also lived in his Munich apartment. They had a stormy relationship, fuelled by Hitler’s controlling nature and jealousy. He discovered her affair with his close associate Emil Maurice. According to Warfare History Network, “On September 18, 1931, Hitler forbade Geli from moving to Vienna, where she might be free of her uncle’s daily influence. A heated argument ensued. Hitler stormed out of the apartment, and the 23-year-old girl apparently committed suicide, shooting herself in the chest with his Walther pistol.” Mystery surrounds her death, as many point to Hitler’s role in it.

After her death, Hitler and Braun became romantically involved. By this point, the Nazi Party was exerting its dominance across Germany. Her father expressed shock and anger at the relationship and wrote a letter to Hitler. He is said to have told him that a girl of Eva’s age was supposed to be at home with her family. Braun, however, managed to get hold of the letter before it reached the Führer, a title associated with Hitler.

Hitler did not want their relationship to be public, believing it would reduce his appeal to women. Instead, Braun spent her days skiing and swimming at his mountain retreat, the Berghof. Much of her life there was marked by waiting. Hitler dictated when he would see her, discouraged her from discussing politics, and kept her carefully separated from his public world.

She was not involved in his political career, but lived with the dictator and was officially presented as his secretary. Braun filled her days with photography, films, fashion, and sport, creating a private world that stood in sharp contrast to the violence and ideology shaping Germany beyond the mountain retreat. According to reports, she attempted suicide in 1932, allegedly in a bid to gain Hitler’s attention. This attempt exposed her unhappiness at being kept hidden.She remained loyal to him until the end and refused to leave his Berlin bunker as the city fell to Russian forces in 1945. They died by suicide on the afternoon of 30 April.