Just days before the Allied invasion of Normandy, Adolf Hitler presided over a lavish wedding ceremony at Mirabell Palace in Salzburg, Austria, on June 3, 1944. The celebration continued for three days at the Eagle’s Nest in the Bavarian Alps, complete with live music, dancing, and champagne, despite the food shortages and bombing raids that had become common across Europe. The groom was Hermann Fegelein, a high-ranking SS officer whom Hitler’s architect Albert Speer once described as one of the most disgusting people in Hitler’s inner circle. The bride was Gretl Braun, the younger sister of Eva Braun, Hitler’s long-time mistress, who had spent the war years enjoying the luxuries of the Nazi elite at the Berghof.
Margarete Berta Gretl Braun was born on August 31, 1915, in Munich, the youngest of three daughters in a middle-class family. Her father Friedrich was a school teacher, and her mother Franziska worked as a seamstress. Gretl left secondary school at 16 and found work as a clerk for the photography company of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s official photographer, the same company that employed her sister Eva. Through Hoffmann’s business, Eva had first met Hitler, and Gretl soon found herself introduced to the same inner circle.
The job became her ticket into Hitler’s world, allowing her to develop a shared passion for photography with her sister. After the Nazis came to power in January 1933, Hitler provided the sisters with an apartment in Munich where they entertained senior Nazi officials between trips to the Berghof. In March 1936, Gretl and Eva moved into a small villa in one of Munich’s most prestigious neighborhoods, a decision that displeased their father, who wrote to Hitler to protest. Gretl spent much of her time at the Berghof, where she brightened the formal atmosphere by smoking and flirting with SS officers, despite Hitler’s well-known hatred of cigarettes.
Hitler once promised a Swiss gold watch and jewelry to any woman who could give up smoking for a month. Eva earned her reward, but Gretl did not. Hitler personally tried to persuade her to quit, telling her, “Give up cigarettes and I will offer you a villa. ” Gretl replied, “My Führer, a villa would be a great joy to me, but only one, whereas smoking gives me 20 little satisfactions every day.
Satisfactions that last and multiply. ”
Like many young women around Hitler, Gretl was always on the lookout for a suitable and influential husband. Hitler encouraged party officials, military officers, and SS members to court her. His first choice was the son of his official photographer, but Gretl did not find him attractive and instead began a relationship with an American diplomat.
She later turned her attention to Hitler’s adjutant Fritz Darges, but that relationship ended when Darges was reassigned to the Eastern Front in 1944 after making a sarcastic comment in front of Hitler. Rumors circulated that Gretl was pregnant with Darges’ child and that his refusal to marry her had angered the Führer. Hitler also tried to persuade Walter Hewel, a member of his inner circle, to marry Gretl, promising him an appointment as ambassador to Rome. Hewel declined and married someone else, and Hitler was so furious that he refused to see him for some time before eventually forgiving him.
Gretl then became involved with Hermann Fegelein, the SS liaison officer to Hitler. Between September 1939 and the autumn of 1943, Fegelein and the cavalry units under his command participated in so-called anti-partisan operations in Poland and the Soviet Union, operations that in practice often meant the systematic murder of Jews and civilians. Tens of thousands of people were killed in areas where his units operated. Despite this violent record, Fegelein cultivated the image of a charming and ambitious officer.
He attended the nightly parties hosted by Martin Bormann, Hitler’s private secretary, where he drank with important men and had women at his feet. He once frankly admitted that nothing was as important to him as his career and a good life. Many in Hitler’s inner circle despised him. Speer called him one of the most disgusting people in Hitler’s circle.
Fegelein had worked his way into Heinrich Himmler’s favor through flattery and manipulation, gaining choice assignments, promotions, and decorations despite horrific casualty rates among the units he commanded. For Gretl, marrying Fegelein meant escaping her sister’s shadow and securing her place in Hitler’s inner circle. Eva arranged the wedding at Mirabell Palace, insisting it be as beautiful as if it were her own. Hitler attended, and Himmler and Bormann served as witnesses.
Fegelein was only too happy to marry Gretl, as it cemented his position within the Nazi hierarchy. The couple had little time together before the war entered its final catastrophic stage. Just a week after the wedding, on June 10, 1944, Fegelein was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS. In July 1944, he survived the bomb blast at the Wolf’s Lair when Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to kill Hitler, and his marriage to Hitler’s de facto sister-in-law continued to work in his favor.
Gretl became pregnant and stayed at the Berghof, far from the bombing and combat. During the last months of 1944, Fegelein headed the investigation into the July 20 plot while Eva traveled between Berlin and the Berghof to keep her sister company. In January 1945, Hitler, Eva, and most of the government moved into the fortified Führerbunker complex in central Berlin while Gretl remained at the Berghof. By April, the Red Army was close to capturing the German capital.
On April 23, 1945, Eva Braun wrote her final letter to Gretl, asking her to destroy most of her correspondence while preserving and burying a small portion of her personal papers. None of these documents were found after the war. With defeat closing in, Fegelein tried to escape Berlin and flee to Sweden or Switzerland. When Himmler attempted to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies, Hitler flew into a rage and ordered Fegelein’s arrest, believing he had been betrayed.
A commando squad found Fegelein at home, reportedly drunk and dressed in civilian clothes. On the night of April 28, 1945, as Fegelein was court-martialed and executed for desertion, Hitler finally married Eva Braun. Two days later, on April 30, 1945, Hitler and Eva took their own lives in the bunker. Less than a week afterward, on May 5, 1945, Gretl gave birth to a daughter she named Eva Barbara Fegelein in memory of her dead sister.
The Second World War in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. After the war, Gretl cut ties with her family. She hid Eva Braun’s photograph albums, private films, and personal letters in the grounds of her late husband’s mansion. At some point, she met a German refugee whom she came to trust, and out of love or financial desperation, she confided in him about the hidden archive.
The man turned out to be an agent of the American Counterintelligence Corps. He persuaded her to reveal the hiding place, and the entire archive was sent to Washington, where the photographs were distributed to intelligence services around the world. In February 1954, Gretl married Kurt Balinger in Munich, but the marriage produced no children. Tragically, her only child, Eva Barbara Fegelein, committed suicide in April 1971 at the age of 25 after her boyfriend was killed in a car accident.
In the late 1970s, a cousin found Gretl living in Bavaria, but by then she had Alzheimer’s disease. Gretl Braun was 72 years old when she died on October 10, 1987, in the small town of Steingaden, West Germany. The secrets of her correspondence with her sister were buried with her.