On the night of April 28–29, 1945, with Soviet forces only kilometers from the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony. Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann served as witnesses. When Braun signed the marriage certificate, she began to write her maiden name, then crossed out the B and replaced it with Hitler. After fifteen years of waiting, she was finally Eva Hitler.
Within hours, Hitler signed his last will and testament, explaining his decision to marry at the end of his life. He wrote that the girl who, after years of faithful friendship, entered the besieged city of her own free will would go with him into death to escape the disgrace of deposition or capitulation. He ordered that their bodies be burned immediately after their deaths. Eva Anna Paula Braun was born on February 6, 1912, in Munich, then part of the German Empire.
She had an older sister, Ilse, and a younger sister, Margarete, called Gretel. Their father, Friedrich Braun, was a strict schoolteacher who monitored his daughters’ free time, checked their mail, and insisted they be in bed by ten o’clock. Eva was often described as disobedient and stubborn, with average grades. She dreamed of becoming a film actress and reaching Hollywood.
After finishing her secondary education, she drifted through several jobs until she found work that changed her life. Because she loved photography, she applied for an apprentice position at a photographic shop. In the summer of 1929, Eva Braun began working for Heinrich Hoffmann, who was the personal photographer and close friend of Adolf Hitler. On October 7, 1929, a man in his forties appeared at the shop after closing hours, claiming he wanted to pick up some photographs.
Seventeen-year-old Eva had stayed late to finish administrative tasks. Hoffmann referred to the customer as Herr Wolf, a man who could not take his eyes off the young woman. After he left, Hoffmann asked Eva if she knew who the man was, whether she recognized him from photographs. She shook her head.
Surprised, Hoffmann told her it had been Hitler, their Adolf Hitler. Over the following months, Hitler occasionally invited Eva Braun to dinner, to the movies, or to the opera. By 1930, Hitler had Martin Bormann investigate the Braun family’s ancestry to avoid any potential scandal or contradiction with Nazi racial laws. According to Hoffmann’s recollections, Hitler saw Eva merely as an attractive young woman.
Despite her seemingly frivolous demeanor, or perhaps because of it, he found relaxation and comfort in her company. Yet in his voice, looks, or gestures, he never displayed any sign of deeper affection. At the time he met Braun, Hitler was already involved with his niece, Geli Raubal, who was nineteen years younger than he was. Hitler was obsessively controlling and possessive of Geli, imposing strict limits on her social interactions and personal freedom.
Geli complained that her uncle subjected her to jealousy and sexual perversions for his satisfaction. On September 18, 1931, Geli Raubal shot herself with her uncle’s pistol. Her death remained one of the darkest points in Hitler’s personal life. He later told friends that Geli was the only woman he had ever truly loved and that he had wanted to marry her.
He was devastated and depressed, and the tragedy deeply affected his personal relationships. In August 1932, Eva Braun also attempted suicide by shooting herself in the chest, in an effort to get Hitler’s attention. After a quick recovery, Hitler became more committed to her, and by the end of 1932 they had become lovers. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg.
He then focused on consolidating power, eliminating political opposition, opening concentration camps, and establishing a totalitarian regime. His priorities included reviving the economy, rearming Germany, and expanding its territory through aggressive foreign policy. Running the Third Reich left him little attention for Eva Braun. Feeling neglected, she attempted suicide a second time in May 1935 by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.
After her second suicide attempt, Hitler finally began taking Eva Braun seriously. In August 1935, he provided her and her sister with a three-bedroom apartment in Munich. The next year, the sisters were given a villa in Bogenhausen, one of Munich’s most prestigious neighborhoods. Braun also had her own apartment in the new Reich Chancellery in Berlin, completed to a design by Hitler’s chief architect, Albert Speer.
While Eva Braun lived in luxury, German Jews faced severe persecution. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped Jews of their citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with non-Jews. Jewish economic and social life became increasingly restricted. When Hitler was appointed Chancellor, approximately 523,000 Jews lived in Germany.
Between 1933 and 1939, roughly 282,000 fled the country, seeking safety in places like the United States, Palestine, and the United Kingdom. Those who remained were removed from the economic life of Germany, as Jewish-owned businesses and properties were transferred to non-Jewish ownership, often at a fraction of their value. Once economically marginalized, Jews were systematically deported to concentration and extermination camps and killed. Eva Braun’s relationship with Hitler was kept hidden from the public.
They were rarely seen together, except at the secluded Alpine retreat, the Berghof. There she attended gatherings with his inner circle, wearing elegant Italian high heels and diamond jewelry, always seated to Hitler’s left during dinners. Guests were served individual portions of butter, fresh salad, sausages, white bread, roast pork, braised beef, omelets, apple strudel, imported oranges, soda, fruit juice, vermouth, cognac, and Braun’s favorite champagne, which she enjoyed daily. This opulence stood in stark contrast to the grim reality faced by prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, where inmates starved.
Despite her luxury, Eva Braun’s cousin described her as the unhappiest woman she ever met. Although she was Hitler’s long-term companion, Braun often felt neglected and isolated. Hitler believed he was sexually attractive to women and wished to remain single to exploit this for political gain, maintaining an aura of mystique and making himself appear more connected to the women of Germany. Despite the substantial age difference, Braun and Hitler enjoyed a normal sex life.
Braun’s friends and relatives recorded her giggling over a 1938 photograph of Neville Chamberlain sitting on a sofa in Hitler’s Munich flat, remarking that Chamberlain would never know what had gone on on that sofa. Braun’s political influence on Hitler was minimal. She was never allowed to remain in the room when business or political conversations took place, and she was sent out when cabinet ministers or dignitaries were present. When the Second World War began on September 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland, Braun spent most of the war at the Berghof, swimming and skiing while Hitler was invading countries and orchestrating the mass murder of millions of Jews.
She often felt bored, indulged in champagne, changed outfits up to seven times a day, and waited for phone calls from the Führer. The propagandistically significant position of First Lady was taken by Magda Goebbels, wife of the propaganda minister, and Emmy Göring, wife of the Luftwaffe commander-in-chief. Emmy Göring openly despised Eva Braun and was ultimately no longer invited to the Berghof. By 1943, Germany had switched to a total war economy, and everyday life for German citizens became increasingly challenging.
Food shortages were common, rationing was strictly enforced, and essentials like meat, dairy, and bread were limited. Eva Braun remained largely uninterested in politics and often unaware of events in Germany and the world. But she did take notice when the war economy threatened a ban on women’s cosmetics and luxuries. Outraged, she confronted Hitler, who instructed Albert Speer, then armaments minister, to halt production of these items rather than imposing a complete ban.
Existing stocks could still be sold and used, but no more would be manufactured. Speer later remarked that Eva Braun would prove a great disappointment to historians. Braun was fully aware of her unique position and the influence her relationship with the most powerful man in Europe gave her. She took advantage of that access for financial benefit, capturing numerous photographs and films of Hitler and his inner circle and selling them to her former employer, Heinrich Hoffmann, for extremely high prices.
In early April 1945, Eva Braun traveled from Munich to join Hitler in his final stronghold, the underground bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. The Hitler she found there was a different man from the one she had met at Hoffmann’s studio in 1929. With the Russians advancing and Berlin descending into chaos, Hitler was a trembling wreck, desperately consuming cake to stay calm. His mental health had deteriorated rapidly under immense pressure and imminent defeat.
Paranoia, anxiety, and fits of rage had replaced his former composure. When it was suggested that Eva go into hiding, she refused. She said she would stay with him until his last moment. On April 23, 1945, Joseph Goebbels delivered a broadcast urging Germans to remain loyal to the Führer and fight to the last man, depicting the Allies as satanic and barbaric enemies.
Over the next days, Hitler learned that Benito Mussolini had been captured and executed by Italian partisans, and that Heinrich Himmler had betrayed him by attempting to negotiate a surrender with the Allies. Many of Hitler’s close associates began preparing to evacuate or go into hiding. Eva Braun remained. On April 30, 1945, Eva Braun had her last lunch with Hitler, spaghetti with tomato sauce.
After saying farewells to staff and members of the inner circle, the couple locked themselves in a private room. Later that afternoon, several people reported hearing a loud gunshot. When attendants entered, they found Hitler dead, having shot himself in the right temple with his pistol. Eva Braun, who had paid attention to her appearance until the last minute and was still alive, had committed suicide by biting into a cyanide capsule, as instructed by Hitler.
Their corpses were carried up the stairs and through the bunker’s emergency exit to the garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were burned while the Red Army was only a few hundred meters away, bombing the area. Eva Braun was thirty-three. Adolf Hitler was fifty-six. The German public was unaware of Eva Braun’s relationship with Hitler until after their deaths.
Hitler had once said that a highly intelligent man should take a primitive woman, imagining the interference that would come if he had a woman who meddled in his work. Eva Braun’s great virtue in his eyes was her unquestioning loyalty and submissiveness. In recognition of this, he legally married her, finally making her Eva Hitler, just in time for both of them to die together.