On June 3, 1944, Salzburg hosted a lavish wedding at Mirabell Palace. The Second World War was in its fifth year, and millions across Europe had already perished. The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe was only days away.
Adolf Hitler presided over the ceremony before moving to the Eagle's Nest high in the Bavarian Alps, where the celebration continued for three days. Despite food shortages and the bombing of major cities, the newlyweds enjoyed live music, dancing, and champagne.
The groom was Hermann Fegelein, a high-ranking SS officer and an opportunistic social climber. Albert Speer, Hitler's architect, described him as one of the most disgusting people in Hitler's circle.
The bride was the younger sister of Eva Braun, Hitler's long-time mistress and companion. She had spent the war years at the Berghof, flirting with SS officers and enjoying the luxuries of the Nazi elite. Her name was Gretl Braun.
Margarete Berta Gretl Braun was born on August 31, 1915, in Munich, then part of the German Empire. She was the youngest of three daughters and was raised in a middle-class family alongside her sisters, Eva and Ilse.
Her father, Friedrich, was a school teacher, and her mother, Franziska, worked as a seamstress. Gretl dropped out of secondary school at 16 and found work as a clerk for the photography company of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's official photographer.
Hoffmann also employed her older sister, Eva. It was through Hoffmann that Eva had first met Adolf Hitler, and Gretl soon found herself introduced to the same inner circle. The job became her ticket into Hitler's world and gave her a shared passion for photography with her sister.
Hitler and his Nazi party came into power in January 1933. Two years later, in August 1935, Hitler provided the sisters with a three-bedroom apartment in Munich near the city center, where they entertained senior Nazis between trips to the Berghof.
In March 1936, Gretl and Eva moved into a small villa at 12 Wasserburger Straße in one of Munich's most prestigious neighborhoods. Their father was not pleased with the arrangement and wrote to Hitler to protest.
Gretl spent much of her time with Eva at the Berghof, where she brightened the formal atmosphere by having fun, smoking, and flirting with SS orderlies. Hitler detested smoking and frequently lectured those around him about its dangers.
He once promised a Swiss gold watch and jewelry to any woman who could go a month without cigarettes. Eva earned her reward, but Gretl did not. Hitler personally tried to persuade Gretl 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 who surrounded the Nazi leader, Gretl was always on the lookout for a suitable and influential husband. Hitler himself encouraged young party officials, military officers, and SS members to court her.
His first choice was Heinrich, the son of his official photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. Gretl did not find him attractive and instead began a relationship with an American diplomat.
When that relationship ended, she turned her attention to Hitler's adjutant, Fritz Darges. That relationship also ended when Darges was reassigned to the Eastern Front in 1944 following a sarcastic comment made 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.
Hewel served as the liaison between Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hitler himself. Hitler promised Hewel that after marrying Gretl, he would appoint him ambassador to Rome, but Hewel did not fancy the idea.
Hewel married someone else instead, and Hitler was so furious that he refused to see him for some time. Eventually he forgave him, and Hewel returned to Hitler's inner circle.
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.
In practice, those operations often meant the systematic murder of Jews and civilians. Tens of thousands of men, women, and children were killed in areas where his units operated.
Despite this violent record, Fegelein cultivated the image of a charming and ambitious officer within Hitler's inner circle. He was accustomed to attracting attention wherever he went, had a refreshing and sometimes very dry wit, and never minced his words.
He attended the nightly parties hosted by Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, where he drank with all the important men and had all the women at his feet. On one occasion, he frankly admitted that nothing was as important to him as his career and a good life.
Many in Hitler's inner circle despised him. Albert 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. On June 3, 1944, just days before the Allied invasion of Normandy, Gretl Braun married Hermann Fegelein.
Eva had arranged the wedding, held at Mirabell Palace in Salzburg, with Hitler in attendance and witnessed by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, and Martin Bormann. Eva insisted that the wedding be perfect, as beautiful as if it were her own, supervising every aspect of the planning.
Fegelein was only too happy to marry Gretl, as it cemented his position within the Nazi hierarchy. The marriage also transformed Gretl's standing, finally bringing her out of her sister's shadow and greatly increasing her social prestige.
Despite food shortages and the bombing of major cities, the newlyweds partied for three days. Meanwhile, the Nazi leadership turned its attention to the deteriorating situation in France and Italy, where the Allies had just captured Rome.
Gretl and Fegelein 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.
On July 20, 1944, he was at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia when Oberstleutnant Claus von Stauffenberg set off a bomb in a failed bid to kill Hitler. Fegelein survived the blast, and his decision to marry Hitler's de facto sister-in-law had worked in his favor.
His career was advancing fast. Soon Gretl became pregnant and was staying 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 back and forth between Berlin and the Berghof to keep her sister company.
In January 1945, Hitler and Eva, along with most of the government and their followers, moved into the fortified Führerbunker complex in central Berlin. Gretl remained at the Berghof.
In April 1945, the Red Army had broken through the German military and was close to capturing the German capital. On April 23, 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 betrayed him.
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 Braun took their own lives in the bunker. Less than a week afterward, on May 5, 1945, Gretl Braun gave birth to a daughter whom 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. Out of love or financial desperation, she confided in him about the hidden archive. But the man was not who he seemed.
He 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, one of Gretl's cousins found her 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.