The wedding of Hermann Fegelein and Gretl Braun on June 3, 1944, was the largest social event on the calendar of Hitler's inner circle. It was stage-managed with great care by Eva Braun, and it unfolded against the backdrop of the Nazi elite's alpine retreat at Obersalzberg in southern Bavaria.
Obersalzberg was a heavily secured Nazi village built around Hitler's mountaintop home, the Berghof. Around it stood the private residences of top figures such as Martin Bormann, Hermann Göring and Albert Speer, along with guest houses for visiting officials and VIPs, vast SS barracks for Hitler's bodyguard, tea houses, staff quarters, a kindergarten and a post office.
Hitler tried to spend as much time as possible in the sealed-off alpine compound, but he was often required to be at his eastern front headquarters, the Wolf's Lair, in Berlin, or at another Führer complex. The person who was almost always present at Obersalzberg was his lover, Eva Braun, whom staff and locals called the queen of Obersalzberg.
Braun lived in a well-furnished section of the Berghof, kept out of public view; very few Germans knew she existed. At Obersalzberg she created a royal atmosphere around herself. She, her family and friends spent time in the fine buildings and were served by staff, swimming in local lakes in summer, skiing in winter, and enjoying parties at Hitler's tea houses and guest houses, including the famous Eagle's Nest.
Eva Braun had been with Hitler since 1929, when she worked as an assistant to the Nazi photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. She was 23 years younger than Hitler, who was drawn to younger women. From 1929 she grew closer to the Führer, especially after the suspected suicide of Geli Raubal, Hitler's half-niece, with whom he was believed to have had a physical relationship.
Braun truly caught Hitler's attention a year later when she shot herself in the chest with her father's pistol. That certainly drew his full attention, and by late 1932 they had become lovers. In May 1935 she tried to kill herself again, with sleeping pills, feeling Hitler was not giving her enough attention. Afterwards Hitler gave Eva an apartment in Munich, which she shared with her sister Gretl, and in 1936 a villa in Bogenhausen. She later divided her time between the Berghof and the Munich apartment.
Both of her parents were still alive during the war. Her father, Friedrich Braun, was a school teacher and reserve army officer, and her mother, Franziska, had worked as a seamstress before her marriage. Her older sister, Ilse, first worked as an assistant to a Jewish surgeon and later at Albert Speer's architectural design office in Berlin. She kept away from politics and generally stayed away from Obersalzberg. She died childless in Munich in 1979.
Unlike Ilse, Eva Braun's younger sister Gretl was at the very center of Nazi social circles. She also worked under Heinrich Hoffmann and, like Eva, was an enthusiastic photographer. A vivacious woman, she enjoyed the luxurious life that came with her sister's relationship with Hitler; flirting with military officers and partying were her preferences.
She fell in love with Hitler's SS adjutant Fritz Darges, who had fought in France and Russia. Although Gretl had a relationship with Darges, he refused to marry her despite pressure from Hitler. Hitler was somewhat old-fashioned about relationships and pushed some of his associates to marry.
After the relationship with Darges ended, the SS officer, by then a lieutenant colonel, lost his standing quite dramatically. On July 18, 1944, two days before the famous bomb plot, he incurred Hitler's wrath at a military conference at the Wolf's Lair, apparently because Hitler could not forgive his refusal to marry Gretl. A fly was buzzing around the conference room and landed on Hitler's shoulder. Annoyed, Hitler told Darges to chase the fly away. Perhaps joking, Darges replied that since it was a fly, it was the air force's responsibility and that Hitler's Luftwaffe adjutant, Colonel Nicolaus von Below, should deal with it.
Hitler immediately dismissed Darges and had him transferred to a combat post on the eastern front. The real reason for Darges's downfall may have been his relationship with Gretl Braun and his refusal to marry her despite Hitler's insistence. Darges survived the war and died in 2009 at the age of 96.
After the relationship with Darges ended, Gretl Braun fell in love with Walter Hewel, a veteran Nazi figure and popular member of Hitler's inner circle. Hewel was a diplomat under Joachim von Ribbentrop and served as Ribbentrop's liaison at the Führer headquarters. At the start of the relationship he was about 40 and unmarried; he was the life of the party, and Hitler wanted him to marry and settle down.
Hewel initially wanted to marry Sigrid von Laffert, which Hitler approved because he found her an attractive and charming companion. Everyone in his inner circle wanted her in the fold. But von Laffert ultimately married a German aristocrat working at the embassy in Madrid, Spain. Despite Hitler's urging, Hewel was not particularly interested in marrying Gretl Braun.
According to a contemporary report, Hitler told Hewel that if he married Gretl, he would appoint him ambassador to Rome. Hewel, however, married someone else, prompting Hitler to expel him from his inner circle. Hitler later forgave him and he returned. Hewel stayed with Hitler in Berlin until his final days. After Hitler's suicide, Hewel joined one of the groups leaving the bunker but failed to escape the ruined city. On May 2, 1945, when Red Army soldiers came to capture their group in a brewery, he shot himself.
Gretl Braun then fell in love with SS General Hermann Fegelein, the liaison officer of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. A cavalry officer, he had risen before the war from jockey to the upper ranks of the Nazi regime. During the invasion of Poland in 1939, Fegelein's regiment was involved in a massacre of 1,700 civilians in the Kampinos Forest.
Fegelein was formally reprimanded for looting, because he sent various stolen items from Poland to the SS cavalry school, including trucks, Mercedes-Benz cars, a Škoda cabriolet, food, coffee, clothing and expensive furs. Himmler protected Fegelein from prosecution. During the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Fegelein's regiment took part in many battles, but was also tasked with hunting down and killing Jews, insurgents and undesirables in Belarus. Fegelein's unit killed 13,788 Jews and more than three and a half thousand men considered insurgents.
After being wounded by a sniper in December 1941, he led the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer on the eastern front. Wounded again in October 1943, he was appointed Himmler's SS liaison at Hitler's court. He was popular, arrogant, but attractive and handsome, and he received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves.
An outspoken and direct man, he became close to Hitler's cunning personal secretary and minister, Martin Bormann, and joined his regular drinking sessions. Eva Braun also noticed Fegelein and admitted to a friend that she had fallen in love with him. But Eva was prudent enough not to go against Hitler, and Fegelein, though he always flirted with the Braun sisters, was very careful to maintain the right relationship with the Führer.
Nevertheless, he soon became involved with Gretl. A womanizer, Fegelein cheated on Gretl before and after the marriage, and even tried to seduce Hitler's female secretaries. Many in Hitler's inner circle disliked the arrogant SS general; Albert Speer called him one of the most repulsive figures in Hitler's circle. Fegelein performed his duties well and showed deep respect for Hitler, but he did not hesitate to tell others that he was far too qualified for the job and was clearly bored by his responsibilities.
Despite all these problems, Fegelein decided to marry Gretl. Why? Perhaps because it would put him in an unrivaled position of power and influence right next to the Führer. Fegelein was certainly a pragmatic man with a strong instinct for survival.
The wedding on June 3, 1944, was the biggest event on the social calendar of their intimate circle. Eva Braun planned it very meticulously. The main ceremony took place in the Marble Hall of Mirabell Palace in Salzburg. Instead of Christian rites, the ceremony was in fact pagan in style, which was much favored by senior SS officers. Even Heinrich Himmler himself presided over the ceremony, and Martin Bormann was among the witnesses.
The newlyweds drove in the groom's car toward the Berghof, where they paid their respects to the Führer. A wedding reception was held at the Berghof and lasted until evening. It took place in the building's largest room, the Great Hall, which had the famous picture window overlooking the valley and mountains.
After the reception, the Fegeleins and their guests — except Hitler — headed for the Eagle's Nest lift, where Martin Bormann himself drove them up the mountain. They then took Hitler's luxurious lift inside the mountain to the Eagle's Nest, officially the Kehlstein Mountain Diplomatic Reception House, where they celebrated for three days. The main hall of the Eagle's Nest, where the wedding party was held, remains almost the same today and is currently used as a restaurant.
But on June 6, 1944, the party came to an abrupt end when news arrived that the Allies had landed in Normandy. On July 14, 1944, Hitler left the Berghof for the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia and never returned there. His liaison officers and staff went with him, including Hermann Fegelein. Six days later, Count von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in the Wolf's Lair conference room, and Hitler narrowly survived. Fegelein was present at the time of the explosion and suffered a minor wound to his left thigh.
In the final months of the regime, Fegelein remained on Hitler's staff, moving between various Führer headquarters, and rarely saw his pregnant wife. By January 1945, with the failure of the Ardennes offensive in the west and the massive Soviet winter offensive in the east, Hitler moved to his last headquarters in Berlin. On January 19, Gretl arrived at the Reich Chancellery with Eva Braun. To save the two women from the danger in the city, Hitler sent them to Berchtesgaden on February 9, but Eva eventually returned to stay with Hitler.
In late April 1945, with Soviet troops encircling the city, Fegelein's situation became dire. Trapped in the Führerbunker with a mentally unbalanced Hitler, he decided to save himself, since Hitler had by then rejected all possibility of leaving the capital. On April 23, Gretl received a final letter from Eva Braun asking her to destroy all her business correspondence. Personal letters from Hitler and her letters to the Führer were to be sent to Fegelein's brother, SS Colonel Waldemar of the 8th Cavalry Division, and were probably to be hidden at Fischhorn Castle, possibly on Hermann Fegelein's orders. Perhaps as a bargaining chip with the Allies in the future. At the end of the war, Hermann Göring was at Fischhorn Castle under American guard, and at that time Eva Braun's letters were lost forever from the castle during the American occupation.
Three days before Hitler's suicide, on April 27, 1945, Fegelein tried to flee Berlin without permission. When Hitler summoned Fegelein during a conference, he was nowhere to be found in the bunker or the Reich Chancellery. A group of Hitler's bodyguards went to an apartment in the city and found the general drunk in bed with his mistress. The young woman managed to escape through the bathroom window, but Fegelein was arrested and brought back to the bunker; with him were the evidence of his flight — suitcases full of money, civilian clothes and false identity papers.
Eva Braun pleaded on his behalf, asking Hitler to forgive Fegelein because he was the father of her sister's unborn child. Hitler forgave him for the time being. But on the evening of April 28, news arrived of Heinrich Himmler's secret peace talks with the western Allies. Hitler was furious and ordered Himmler's arrest. In reality, Himmler was then at liberty in northern Germany with loyal bodyguards and associates. But Hitler could at least take revenge on Fegelein, who was Himmler's SS liaison and was believed to have been involved in a conspiracy with his boss.
Fegelein was brought before a hastily convened military court in the bunker, which found him guilty of desertion and sentenced him to death. Many medals and honors were stripped from his uniform, his shoulder insignia were torn off, and Hitler's RSD bodyguards dragged him upstairs in extreme humiliation. Amid Soviet shelling in the Reich Chancellery garden, an SS officer shot him in the neck. His body was kicked into a shell crater and hastily covered with earth and debris.
Then on April 29, 1945, a second Nazi wedding was held, this time between Hitler and Eva Braun, which also ended in death in the bunker the following afternoon. As for Gretl Fegelein, she gave birth to a daughter on May 5, 1945, in Obersalzberg, named Eva in memory of her sister. Gretl married businessman Kurt Berlinghoff in 1954 and lived peacefully in Munich. Her daughter Eva killed herself in 1975 after her boyfriend died in a car accident. Gretl Berlinghoff died in October 1987 in Steingaden, Bavaria, at the age of 72.