The Hitler home movies: how Eva Braun documented the dictator's private life

[MADem]

These images are creepily astounding--I had seen some of them, but didn't realize there were quite so many. There are links to YOUTUBE footage at the article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/27/hitler-home-movies-eva-braun

The woman who holds the key to the domestic face of Adolf Hitler was 17 when she was first introduced to the Führer, who was only identified as "Herr Wolff". This blind date had been set up by Hitler's personal photographer Heinrich Hoffman, for whom Eva Braun worked as an assistant.

Hoffman, who ran a photographic studio in Munich, had been instrumental in the making of Hitler's image. He ensured that Hitler was always seen as a determined, defiant and heroic figure, a man of iron. From the 1920s, Hoffman's photographs were duplicated by the million in the German press, and sold as postcards to the party faithful. When Hitler's mistress, Geli Raubal, committed suicide on 18 September 1931 in the apartment they shared in Munich, there was an urgent need to hush up a potential scandal, and give the Führer's private life the semblance of normality. Hoffman stepped in. Eva Braun bore a striking similarity to the dead woman, and Hitler took comfort in her company after Raubal's suicide. By the end of 1932, they had become lovers.

Braun continued to work for Hoffman, a position that enabled her to travel with Hitler's entourage, as a photographer for the NSDAP (Nazi Party). Her relationship with the Führer was troubled. Twice, in August 1932 and May 1935, she attempted suicide. But by 1936 she was fully established as the Führer's companion. Hitler was ambivalent about her. He wanted to present himself as a chaste hero. In Nazi ideology, men were leaders and warriors, women were housewives. So Adolf and Eva never appeared as a couple in public, and the German people were unaware of their relationship until after the war. According to Albert Speer's memoirs, Fräulein Braun never slept in the same room as Hitler, and always had her own quarters. Speer later said, "Eva Braun will prove a great disappointment to historians." But Speer was wrong. He had overlooked Eva's gifts as a photographer.