Women of the Third Reich

[Peter Clare]

EVA BRAUN (1912-1945)
At twenty-five minutes past two on the morning of February 7, 1912, Eva Anna Paula Braun was born in Munich. Later in life she was to become the mystery woman of Hitler's Third Reich. Wife of Hitler for one day and his mistress for twelve years, she first met Hitler in 1929 while she was assistant to the beer-loving Heinrich Hoffmann the Third Reich's official photographer who had his shop at No 50 Schellingstrasse, Munich. He had already joined the Nazi party with party card number 427. Eva Braun committed suicide with Hitler on April 30, 1945, in his underground bunker in the Reich Chancellery gardens in Berlin. It was her third attempt, the first having been in November 1932 when she was found, with a bullet in her neck. On May 28, 1935, Eva, who often complained of Hitler's neglect, decided to take thirty-five sleeping pills just to 'make certain'. Late that night she was found unconscious by her sister, Ilse, who called a doctor just in time to save her life. After her recovery, Hitler bought her a villa in Wasserburgerstrasse, Munich, and supplied her with a car and chauffeur. Although she knew about the persecucution of the Jews there is no evidence that she knew of what went on inside the concentration camps.
It is interesting to note that Eva never became a Nazi Party member and never appeared as a couple with Hitler in public. Outside of Hitler's close circle of cronies she was completely unknown to the general public until after the war.
Eva's mother, Franziska Braun, lived to the ripe old age of 96 and died in Ruhpolding, Bavaria, in January, 1976. Her father, Fritz Braun, died on January 22, 1964.

[Peter Clare]

GRETL BRAUN
Youngest of the three daughters of Fritz and Franziska Braun, her real name was Margarethe and was born three years after Eva. They lived in an apartment on the second floor of No. 93 Hohenzollernstrasse, in Munich, (the house still stands). An adventurous and carefree girl, Eva nicknamed her 'Mogerl' because she was often sulking. She spent considerable time with her sister at the Berghof, which Eva loved to call the Grand Hotel. She married Hans Georg Otto Hermann Fegelein (37) a lieutenant general in the Waffen SS, on June 3, 1944, in the Salzburg town hall. The reception was held at the Berghof and later at Hitler's mountain retreat on the Kehlstein (The Eagles Nest) the only real party ever held there.
During the last days of the Third Reich, Fegelein, concerned for his own safety, tried to escape from Berlin but was discovered and arrested soon after he left his apartment at 10/11 Bleibtreu Strasse, Charlottenburg. Next day, Hitler ordered him shot and he was taken out into the Chancellery garden and executed. An effort was made by Eva Braun to save him but to no avail. His body has never been found. Gretl survived the war and gave birth to a daughter, Eva, named after her aunt Eva Braun, on May 5, 1945. The name Fegelein was never mentioned again in the Braun household. (Eva Fegelein committed suicide in 1975 after an unhappy love affair)

[Peter Clare]

WINIFRED WAGNER
Born Winifred Williams in 1894 at Hastings, England, to an English father and German mother. When her parents died she was brought up by distant relatives in Germany. In 1915 she married Siegfried Wagner, twenty-five years her senior, and son of composer Richard Wagner. She became entranced with Hitler and his Nazi movement in the early 20s. When Siegfried died in 1930, she became a close friend and staunch supporter of Adolf Hitler whom she first met in 1923. It was rumoured that a marriage between Adolf and Winifred was in the offing, but nothing came of it. Such an event would have solicited great support from the German people. The Führer himself entertained such thoughts believing that a union of the names Hitler and Wagner would ensure the adulation of the masses for time immemorial. In fact he once proposed marriage to her but on becoming Chancellor in January, 1933, he felt there was no need now for him to marry. He felt himself already 'married' to his adopted country, Deutschland.
A frequent visitor to her home, the 'Villa Wahnfried', where her three children knew him by the nickname 'Wolf', Hitler was often seen with her at various performances during the Bayreuth Festival, the last time in the late summer of 1940 when they attended a performance of 'Götterdämmerung'. Winifred Wagner died in Uberlingen on March 5, 1980, unrepentant of her relationship with Hitler.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

Peter, Excellent thread and very informative. Is there an entry for Leni Riefenstahl or Hanna Reistch coming up??

[Peter Clare]

Originally Posted by Gotthard Heinrici

Peter, Excellent thread and very informative. Is there an entry for Leni Riefenstahl or Hanna Reistch coming up??

Thanks Gotthard. Both names will be posted in the near future.

[Peter Clare]

PAULA HITLER
Born in 1896 in Hartfeld, Austria, younger sister of the German Führer and the fifth and last child of Alios and Klara Hitler. At one time she worked as a secretary for a group of doctors in a military hospital but kept her identity a secret. When she would see a small chapel when travelling in the mountains, she would go in and say a silent prayer for her brother. Each year Hitler would send her a ticket to the impressive Nuremberg Rally. In March, 1941, Hitler was staying at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna and it was here that Paula met him for the last time. It was always her opinion that it was a pity her brother had not become the architect he always wanted to be. Paula was seven years younger than her brother, but he never mentioned her in his writings because of his embarrassment at her weak mental state.
Until the last weeks of the war, Paula Hitler lived in Vienna where she worked in an arts and craft shop and when the war ended was interviewed by US Intelligence officers in May, 1945. Reluctant to talk she said tearfully, "Please remember, he was my brother". She lived under the name of Frau Wolf (Hitler's nickname) a name he asked her to adopt after the Anschluss with Austria in 1938. After the war, it was discovered that she was once engaged to an Austrian, Dr. Erwin Jekelius, one of the Third Reich's euthanasia doctors, but when he approached Hitler for permission to marry he was promptly arrested and sent to the Russian front where he was reportedly killed. Paula lived unmarried in a two bedroom flat near Berchtesgaden, her main interest being the Catholic Church. She died on June 1, 1960 without ever being invited to the Berghof. Her grave is in the Bergfriedhof in Berchtesgaden.

[Peter Clare]

HANNA REITSCH (1912-1979)
Born in Hirschberg, Silesia, (now Jelenia Góra, Poland) she became Germany's leading woman stunt pilot and later in 1937, chief test pilot for the Luftwaffe. She worshipped Hitler and the Nazi ideology and became the only woman to win the Iron Cross (First and Second class). Hanna Reitsch spent three days in the Bunker just before Hitler's suicide on April 28, then flew out with the newly appointed Chief of the Luftwaffe, General Robert Ritter von Greim, whose orders were to mount a bombing attack on the Russian forces who were now approaching the Chancellery and the Führerbunker. Hanna Reitsch survived the war and resided in Ghana from 1962 to 1966 where she founded and ran a gliding school. She died on August 24, 1979, aged 67, in Frankfurt from a heart attack. Von Greim was arrested and while awaiting trial committed suicide in a Salzburg hospital on May 24, 1945. (The graves of Von Greim and Hanna Reitsch can be seen in the Kommunal Friedhof in Salzburg)

[Peter Clare]

LENI RIEFENSTAHL (1902-September 8, 2003)
Born Leni Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl on August 22, 1902. Ballet dancer, actress, film director and producer, she was born in Berlin and founded her own film company in 1931 to produce 'The Blue Light'. She was appointed by Hitler to produce films for the Nazi Party such as 'The Triumph of the Will' and her masterpiece 'Olympia', the famous documentary of the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin. She has always insisted that she was never a member of the Nazi party but neither was she an opponent of Hitler. Before the war her films received all the international awards but after the war Leni was castigated because of it and spent almost four years in Allied prisons. Boycotted and despised, she has never been able to make another feature film. Editing the film she says, 'nearly ruined my health'.
In 1952 she was cleared of war-crimes charges by a German court. In 1962 she travelled to Africa and spent eight months living with the Nuba tribe. At the age of 70 she undertook an underwater scuba diving course and for the next 18 years filmed hundreds of undersea documentaries. At age 90, Leni Riefenstahl became a member of Greenpeace. She regreted ever having made 'Triumph of the Will'.

[Weinrich]

Guido Knopp, a kind of (contested) super star in German history television, made an excellent documentary about Hitlers Frauen (Hitler's Women): Marlene Dietrich, Eva Braun, Zarah Leander, Magda Goebbels, Winifred Wagner, Leni Riefenstahl. Includes great archive footage but I am afraid the DVD does only have a German commentary.

[Za Rodinu]

What can you tell us about Beate Uhse?