Deep in the Bavarian Alps, Adolf Hitler maintained a private residence called the Berghof, perched above Obersalzberg. Around it, his top ministers built their own homes, including Martin Bormann, Hermann Göring, and Albert Speer. The compound also included guest houses for VIPs, massive SS barracks, a kindergarten, and a post office.
Hitler preferred spending as much time as possible in this heavily guarded Nazi alpine village. But his duties often pulled him away to the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia, Berlin, or other Führer headquarters. The person who stayed at Obersalzberg most often was Hitler’s mistress, Eva Braun, whom staff and locals called the Queen of Obersalzberg.
Eva lived in a lavishly decorated section of the Berghof, kept out of the public eye. Few Germans even knew she existed. In this mountain retreat, she created a royal atmosphere for herself, her family, and her friends. They swam in local lakes during summer, skied in winter, and partied at Hitler’s many tea houses and guest lodges, including the famous Eagles Nest.
Eva had been with Hitler since 1929, when she worked as an assistant to Nazi photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. She was 23 years younger than Hitler, who had a weakness for younger women. Her relationship with the Führer deepened after the suspected suicide of Geli Raubal, Hitler’s half-niece, with whom he was believed to have had a physical relationship.
Eva first caught Hitler’s full attention when she attempted suicide by shooting herself in the chest with her father’s pistol. That act certainly got his attention, and by late 1932, they became lovers. In May 1935, she tried again, taking sleeping pills because she felt Hitler was neglecting her.
After that, Hitler gave Eva an apartment in Munich, which she shared with her sister Gretl. In 1936, he gifted them a villa in Bogenhausen. She then split her time between the Berghof and Munich. Her father, Friedrich Braun, was a schoolteacher and reserve army officer. Her mother, Franziska, had worked as a seamstress before marriage.
Eva’s older sister, Ilse, worked as an assistant to a Jewish surgeon and later at Albert Speer’s architectural office in Berlin. She stayed away from politics and generally avoided Obersalzberg. She died childless in Munich in 1979.
Gretl Braun was the opposite. She was at the very center of the Nazi social circle. Like Eva, she worked for Heinrich Hoffmann and was an enthusiastic photographer. She enjoyed the luxurious life that came from her sister’s relationship with Hitler, flirting with military officers and partying. She fell in love with SS adjutant Fritz Darges, who fought in France and Russia.
Despite their relationship, Darges refused to marry Gretl, even under pressure from Hitler. The Führer was old-fashioned about such matters and pushed his associates to marry. After the relationship ended, Darges, then a lieutenant colonel, suffered a dramatic fall from grace.
On July 18, 1944, two days before the famous bomb plot, Darges angered Hitler during a military conference at the Wolf’s Lair. A fly was buzzing around the room and landed on Hitler’s shoulder. Annoyed, Hitler told Darges to shoo it away. Darges joked that since it was a fly, it was the Air Force’s responsibility, and Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant should handle it.
Hitler immediately dismissed Darges and transferred him to a combat post on the Eastern Front. The real reason may have been Darges’ refusal to marry Gretl Braun. Darges survived the war and died in 2009 at age 96.
After Darges, Gretl fell for Walther Hewel, a senior Nazi 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’s headquarters. He was around 40 and unmarried when the relationship began. Hitler wanted him to settle down.
Hewel initially wanted to marry Sigrid von Laffert, which Hitler approved. But she married a German aristocrat stationed in Madrid instead. Despite Hitler’s urging, Hewel showed little interest in marrying Gretl. According to one contemporary report, Hitler told Hewel that if he married Gretl, he would be appointed ambassador to Rome. Hewel married someone else instead, and Hitler expelled him from his inner circle. Later, Hitler forgave him, and Hewel returned.
Hewel stayed with Hitler until the very end in Berlin. After Hitler’s suicide, Hewel joined a group trying to escape the bunker but failed to get out of the ruined city. On May 2, 1945, as Red Army soldiers closed in on their group at a brewery, he shot himself.
Gretl Braun then fell for SS General Hermann Fegelein, Heinrich Himmler’s liaison officer. Fegelein had risen from a pre-war jockey to high rank in the Nazi regime. During the invasion of Poland in 1939, his regiment was involved in the massacre of 1,700 civilians in the Kampinos Forest. He was formally reprimanded for looting, sending stolen trucks, Mercedes-Benz cars, a Skoda cabriolet, food, coffee, clothing, and furs back to the SS Cavalry School. Himmler protected him from prosecution.
During the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Fegelein’s regiment fought in many battles but was also tasked with hunting down and killing Jews, partisans, and undesirables in Belarus. His unit killed 13,788 Jews and more than 3,500 men deemed partisans. After being wounded by a sniper in December 1941, he took command of the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer on the Eastern Front.
Wounded again in October 1943, he was appointed as Himmler’s SS liaison to Hitler’s court. Fegelein was popular, arrogant, handsome, and a womanizer. He received the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves. He became close to Martin Bormann and joined his regular drinking sessions.
Eva Braun noticed Fegelein too and admitted to a friend that she had fallen for him. But she was too shrewd to cross Hitler. Fegelein, while flirting with the Braun sisters, was careful to maintain the right relationship with the Führer. Soon enough, he became involved with Gretl.
Fegelein cheated on Gretl before and after the wedding 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 people in Hitler’s circle. Fegelein performed his duties well and showed deep respect for Hitler, but he also made no secret that he felt overqualified for the job and was bored with it.
Despite all this, Fegelein decided to marry Gretl. Why? Likely because it placed him in an unmatched position of power and influence right next to the Führer. Fegelein was a pragmatist with strong survival instincts.
The wedding on June 3, 1944, was the biggest event on the social calendar of their intimate circle. Eva Braun planned it meticulously. The main ceremony took place in the Marble Hall of Mirabell Palace in Salzburg. Instead of a Christian rite, the ceremony was pagan in style, favored by senior SS officers. Heinrich Himmler himself officiated, and Martin Bormann was among the witnesses.
The newlyweds drove to the Berghof, where they paid tribute to the Führer. A reception followed in the Great Hall, the largest room in the building, with its famous picture windows overlooking the valley and mountains. After the reception, the couple and their guests, excluding Hitler, headed for the Eagles Nest lift. Martin Bormann drove them up the mountain himself.
They took Hitler’s luxurious elevator through the mountain to the Eagles Nest, officially called the Kehlstein Mountain Diplomatic Reception House. There, they celebrated for three days. The main hall where the wedding party took place remains nearly unchanged today and now serves as a restaurant.
The party ended abruptly on June 6, 1944, when word arrived that the Allies had landed in Normandy. Hitler left the Berghof on July 14, 1944, for the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia and never returned. His liaison officers and staff went with him, including Hermann Fegelein.
Six days later, Colonel Count von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in the Wolf’s Lair conference room. Hitler survived by chance. Fegelein was present during 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 Führer headquarters. He 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. Hitler sent both women to Berchtesgaden on February 9 to keep them safe from the city’s dangers. But Eva eventually returned to stay with Hitler.
By late April 1945, Soviet troops had surrounded the city, and Fegelein’s situation became dire. Trapped in the Führerbunker with a mentally unstable Hitler, he decided to save himself. Hitler had ruled out any chance of leaving the capital.
On April 23, Gretl received a final letter from Eva Braun, asking her to destroy all business correspondence. Personal letters from Hitler and her letters to the Führer were to be sent to Fegelein’s brother, SS Colonel Waldemar, and possibly hidden at Fischhorn Castle on Hermann Fegelein’s orders. Perhaps they were meant as bargaining chips with the Allies. At war’s end, Hermann Göring was under American guard at Fischhorn Castle, and Eva Braun’s correspondence disappeared forever during the American occupation.
On April 27, 1945, three days before Hitler’s suicide, Fegelein tried to flee Berlin without permission. When Hitler called for him during a conference, he was nowhere to be found in the bunker or the Reich Chancellery. A group of Hitler’s bodyguards went to his apartment in the city and found the general drunk in bed with his mistress. The young woman escaped through a bathroom window, but Fegelein was arrested and brought back to the bunker.
With him was a suitcase full of evidence of his planned escape: money, civilian clothes, and forged identification papers. Eva Braun pleaded with Hitler to forgive Fegelein because he was the father of her sister’s unborn child. Hitler temporarily spared him.
But on the evening of April 28, news arrived of Heinrich Himmler’s secret peace negotiations with the Western Allies. Hitler flew into a rage and ordered Himmler’s arrest. In reality, Himmler was free in northern Germany with loyal bodyguards and associates. But Hitler could at least take revenge on Fegelein, Himmler’s SS liaison, who was suspected of being complicit in his boss’s conspiracy.
Fegelein was brought before a hasty military court in the bunker, convicted of desertion, and sentenced to death. His medals and honors were stripped from his uniform, his shoulder boards were torn off, and he was dragged upstairs in utter disgrace by Hitler’s RSD bodyguards. In the Reich Chancellery garden, amid Soviet shelling, an SS officer shot him in the neck. His body was kicked into a shell crater and hastily covered with dirt and debris.
The next day, April 29, 1945, a second Nazi wedding took place, this time between Hitler and Eva Braun. It ended in death the following afternoon in the bunker.
Gretl Fegelein gave birth to a daughter on May 5, 1945, in Obersalzberg. She named the child Eva, in memory of her sister. Gretl later married businessman Kurt Berlinghoff in 1954 and lived quietly in Munich. Her daughter Eva committed suicide in 1975 after her boyfriend died in a car accident. Gretl Berlinghoff died in October 1987 in Steingaden, Bavaria, at age 72.