In the original German edition, Heike Görtemaker cites sources in German, including German translations of English original texts. For this English-language edition, sources originally written in English (e.g., Nerin E. Gun’s biography of Eva Braun and Ian Kershaw’s biographies of Hitler) are quoted from the English texts. Selected major sources for which there are English translations, such as Speer’s memoirs, are also cited from the existing English translations, but no attempt has been made to use an extant translation of every German-language source.
1. See Lew Besymenski, Die letzten Notizen von Martin Bormann (Stuttgart, 1974), p. 148; Nerin E. Gun, Eva Braun: Hitler’s Mistress (New York, 1968), p. 181; Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (New York, 1970), p. 465; Mario Frank, Der Tod im Führerbunker (Munich, 2005), p. 284.
2. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 465.
3. Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris (New York, 1999), p. xx.
4. These include Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York, 1952); Helmut Heiber, Adolf Hitler: Eine Biographie (Berlin, 1960); Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, Hitlers letzte Tage (Frankfurt am Main, 1965); Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler: Legende, Mythos, Werklichkeit, 6th ed. (Munich and Esslingen, 1974); Joachim C. Fest, Hitler: Eine Biographie (Berlin and Vienna, 1973); Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (New York, 2000).
5. See Maser, Adolf Hitler, p. 318.
6. Guido Knopp, Hitlers Frauen und Marlene (Munich, 2001), p. 83.
7. See Angela Lambert, The Lost Life of Eva Braun (London, 2006); Johannes Frank, Eva Braun (Preussisch Oldendorf, 1988); Jean Michel Charlier and Jacques de Launay, Eva Hitler, née Braun (Paris, 1978); Glenn Infield, Eva and Adolf (New York, 1974). Gun’s Eva Braun: Hitler’s Mistress is regarded by many as the only serious biography. See also “Eva Braun: Die verborgene Geliebte,” in Anna Maria Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis (Vienna, 1998–2002), vol. 1, pp. 235–284.
8. Fest, Hitler, pp. 17, 698, and 708.
9. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. xxvf. Alan Bullock also claims that Hitler was unable to have a relationship, in Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (London, 1991), pp. 502f.
10. Albert Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, ed. Ulrich Schlie (Munich, 2003), p. 12.
11. Ian Kershaw, The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1987), p. 80.
12. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 248.
13. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 93; Christa Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, ed. Anton Joachimsthaler (Munich, 1985), p. 166.
1. This account is based on a statement from Erich Kempka about Hitler’s last days, dated June 20, 1945, from Berchtesgaden, in MA 1298/10, Microfilm, Various Documents DJ-13 (David Irving), Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich (hereafter cited as IfZ Munich). Kempka’s account differs from that of other sources by approximately one hour.
1. Hoffmann’s father, Robert Hoffmann, ran a portrait studio in Regensburg with his younger brother Heinrich. This brother had borne the title of “Royal Bavarian Court Photographer” since 1887 and gained international fame with his photographs of Kaiser Wilhelm II and King Edward VII of England. See Rudolf Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler: Fotographie als Medium des Führer-Mythos (Munich, 1994), p. 26. See also Joachim Fest and Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler—Gesichter eines Diktators (Munich, 2005), p. 4.
2. Hoffmann’s studio in Munich was located first at 33 Schellingstrasse, and later—until 1929—at 50 Schellingstrasse. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, pp. 26f.
3. See Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah (Munich and Berlin, 1974), p. 19. See also the original edition of Hoffmann’s memoir, Hitler Was My Friend (London, 1955), pp. 45f.; Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit (Munich and Berlin, 1975), p. 97; Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 34.
4. Heinrich Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf Meine Arbeit für die Kunst-Mein Verhältnis zu Adolf Hitler,” unpublished manuscript (presumably from 1947), MS 2049, IfZ Munich, pp. 7f. Cf. Fest and Hoffmann, Hitler—Gesichter eines Diktators, p. 4.
5. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 34. On Eckart, see Margarete Plewnia, Auf dem Weg zu Hitler: Der “völkische” Publizist Dietrich Eckart (Bremen, 1970).
6. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 34. On Hoffmann, see also Winfried Ranke, “Bildberichterstattung in den Zwanziger Jahren—Heinrich Hoffmann und die Chronistenpflicht,” in Die Zwanziger Jahre in München, exhibition catalog (Munich, 1979), pp. 53–73; Philip E. Mancha, “Heinrich Hoffmann: Photographer of the Third Reich,” in Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives (1973), pp. 31–40.
7. See Jan Brüning, “Kurzer Überblick zur Technik der Pressefotografie in Deutschland von 1920 bis 1940,” in Fotografie und Bildpublizistik in der Weimarer Republik, ed. Diethart Krebs and Walter Uka (Bönen/Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2004), pp. 11–28.
8. See Herbert Moldering, Fotografie in der Weimarer Republik (Berlin, 1988); José Macias, Die Entwicklung des Bildjournalismus (Munich, 1990).
9. “Reichsparteitag der NSDAP in Weimar, 3./4. Juli 1926,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-6750, Bavarian State Library [Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, or BSB], Munich (hereafter cited as BSB Munich).
10. Cf. Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 37. There it says that Hoffmann rose to be Hitler’s “medium.” Cf. Joachim Fest, Hitler: Eine Biographie (Berlin and Vienna, 1973) p. 353; Gerhard Paul, Aufstand der Bilder: Die NS-Propaganda vor 1933 (Bonn, 1990). See also Mathias Rösch, Die Münchner NSDAP 1925–1933: Eine Untersuchung zur inneren Struktur der NSDAP in der Weimarer Republik (Munich, 2002); Werner Bräuninger, Hitlers Kontrahenten in der NSDAP 1921–1945 (Munich, 2004); also Thomas Tavernaro, Der Verlag Hitlers und der NSDAP: Die Franz Eher Nachfolger GmbH (Vienna, 2004).
11. See Hagen Schulze, Weimar:. Deutschland 1917–1933, Die Deutschen und ihre Nation, vol. 4, (Berlin, 1982), p. 303.
12. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, pp. 36ff. and 49ff. The NSDAP headquarters already located at 50 Schellingstrasse moved into the rooms. Cf. Anton Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste: Ein Dokument persönlicher Beziehungen (Munich, 2003), p. 432, which states that according to the official notification of a change of address, Hoffmann gave up his studio at 50 Schellingstrasse as early as September 10, 1929. Baldur von Schirach later recalled that he first met Eva Braun in Hoffmann’s studio “shortly after” the fourth NSDAP convention in Nuremberg (August 1–4, 1929); see Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler (Hamburg, 1967), p. 118. Heinrich Hoffmann later stated, less precisely, that Eva Braun was “probably” hired in 1929 at the “founding” of his business; see Heinrich Hoffmann, statement from July 1, 1949, at the public hearing of the Munich Hauptkammer for oral arguments in the proceedings against Eva Hitler née Braun, “Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Eva Hitler, geb. Braun,” in Denazification Court Records, box 718, State Archives, Munich.
13. See Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit (Munich and Berlin, 1975), pp. 23 and 97; and Gun, Eva Braun, p. 48.
14. Heinrich Hoffmann, statement from July 1, 1949.
15. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, pp. 49f. See also Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler, p. 118.
16. Eva Braun’s childhood friend, Herta Schneider, stated after the war that she learned of “Eva Braun’s acquaintance with Adolf Hitler in 1928,” while Braun “was a trainee at Hoffmann’s firm.” See Herta Schneider, statutory declaration of May 16, 1948 (typewritten original), in Denazification Court Records, box 1670, State Archives, Munich. Presumably this is a typo, since Schneider stated in the following year that Eva Braun met Hitler “when she was seventeen, in 1929.” See Herta Schneider, statement of June 23, 1949, at the public hearing of the Munich Hauptkammer for oral arguments in the proceedings against Herta Schneider, née Ostermayr, “Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Herta Schneider, geb. Ostermayr,” in Denazification Court Records, box 1670, State Archives, Munich.
17. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 52–53. Anna Maria Sigmund follows his account in Die Frauen der Nazis, vol. 1, p. 240. See also Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, p. 136, where he states: “Hitler met Eva Braun in my office, just as all my other employees.”
18. See Nerin E. Gun, Red Roses from Texas (London, 1964); The Day of the Americans (New York, 1966). See also “JFK Assassination Documents,” CIA, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 1, Subject Card on Nerin Emrullah Gun, April 2, 1967, Mary Ferrell Foundation Digital Archive. In the CIA files it says: “Gun, born 22 February 1920 in Rome, is a suspected CP member who has been involved in Europe in espionage and falsification of documents.”
19. Ilse Hess to Albert Speer, Hindelang/Allgäu, 25. Juni 1968. Albert Speer Papers, N 1340, vol. 27, National Archive [Bundesarchiv, or BA] Koblenz (hereafter cited as BA Koblenz).
20. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 282.
21. See Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, pp. 176f. On Eva Braun’s workplace, located above Café Stefanie, see the Völkischer Beobachter, Munich edition, November 8, 1929; also Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, vol. 1 p. 242.
22. Cf. Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, vol. 1, p. 179; Traudl Junge with Melissa Müller, Bis zur letzten Stunde: Hitlers Sekretärin erzählt ihr Leben (Berlin, 2004), p. 115. There, on February 22, 1935, Hitler even organized the wedding of one of the Osteria Bavaria’s waitresses: see Rudolf Hess to his father (Fritz Hess), n.p., February 21, 1935 (carbon copy), Rudolf Hess papers, J 1211 1989/148, vol. 12, file 55, folder 5, Swiss Federal Archives [Schweizeriches Bundesarchiv], Bern.
23. See Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 27. See also Helmut Hess, “Kunstverlag Franz Hanfstaengl,” in Historisches Lexikon Bayerns, http://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/artikel/artikel_44754 (retrieved 3/19/2007); Ernst Hanfstaengl papers, Ana 405, box 26, chronological material from 1927 to 1932, file for 1930, BSB Munich.
24. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 432f. Hanfstaengl considered the following people to be “A.H.’s circle” from 1933 on: Schaub, Brückner, Hoffmann, Amann, Christian Weber. (Ernst Hanfstaengl Papers, Ana 405, box 27, chronological material from 1933 to 1936, file for January–June 1933, BSB Munich). Cf. Fest, Hitler, p. 199; also diary entry from November 6, 1925, in Joseph Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels: Sämtliche Fragmente (Munich, 1987), Teil I, vol. 1, p. 140.
25. Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, p. 24.
26. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 157.
27. See Jochen von Lang, Der Sekretär: Martin Bormann—Der Mann, der Hitler beherrschte, 3rd, fully rev., ed. (Munich and Berlin, 1987); Martin Bormann, Leben gegen Schatten, 7th ed. (Paderborn, 2001).
28. See “Eva Braun in the Hoffmann Photohaus,” photograph from 1930, in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-473, BSB Munich.
29. See Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, p. 136. Ian Kershaw, among others, cites this passage as proof that Hitler’s relationships with women in general, and with Eva Braun in particular, “lack[ed] emotional bonds” (Hitler 1889–1936, p. 354).
30. See Hitler’s practicing oratorical poses as photographed by Hoffmann: Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-1852, BSB Munich.
31. Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, p. 84.
32. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 43.
33. See Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler, pp. 122ff.
34. See Otto Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, ed. H. A. Turner Jr. (Frankfurt am Main, 1978), pp. 100 and 242, where it says that Hoffmann’s daughter was already “an institution” at the time as “the king’s ballerina.”
35. See Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend, pp. 73f. See also “Baldur von Schirach’s Wedding, Prinzregentenplatz 16,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-7195, BSB Munich.
36. Hoffmann took over a Berlin press photographer’s office at first, before opening a branch of his own company after 1933, first on Friedrichstrasse and later at 10 Kochstrasse in Berlin’s newspaper neighborhood. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 53.
37. Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, pp. 119f.
38. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 42.
39. Ibid.
40. See in this regard Hanns Christian Löhr, Das braune Haus der Kunst (Berlin, 2005), pp. 15 ff; Günther Haase, Die Kunstsammlung Adolf Hitler (Berlin, 2002), pp. 57ff; Arno Breker, Im Strahlungsfeld der Ereignisse (Preussisch Oldendorf, 1972), pp. 132 and 142f.
41. Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend, p. 104. According to Hoffmann, Hitler told him to bring Stalin Hitler’s personal greetings. Kershaw, on the other hand, states that Hoffmann came along “to ensure the historic moment was captured on film” (Hitler 1936–1945, p. 210).
42. Ibid., p. 1,147. See also Joachim von Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau, ed. Annelies von Ribbentrop (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1953), p. 83.
43. See Alan Bullock, Hitler, p. 63; Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 42.
44. See Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, p. 50. See also Joe J. Heydecker, Das Hitler-Bild (St. Pölten, 2008), p. 35.
45. See Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” pp. 20f. See the extensive account of the denazification proceedings in Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, pp. 64ff.
46. See “Heinrich Hoffmann,” in Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Reichspostdirektionsbezirk München: Herausgegeben von der Reichspostdirektion München nach dem Stande vom 1. Mai 1934 (July 1934 edition).
47. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, pp. 39f. and 333ff. On Hoffmann, see also Anna Maria Sigmund, Diktator, Dämon, Demagoge (Munich, 2006), pp. 79ff; Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” pp. 20f.; Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend, p. 103.
48. Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” pp. 21f.
49. See “Gretl Braun and Kurt Berlinghoff’s Wedding, 1950,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-61525, BSB Munich.
50. See in this regard Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 41.
1. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 310; David Clay Large, Hitlers München (München, 1998), pp. 212f. See also Anton Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Weg begann in München.
2. See Large, Hitlers München, pp. 126f. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 152.
3. See Kurt Eisner, “An die Bevölkerung Münchens!” in München: Ein Lesebuch, ed. Reinhard Bauer and Ernst Piper (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), pp. 170ff.
4. Schulze, Weimar, p. 329.
5. Thomas Mann, diary entry, Friday, November 8, 1918, in Diaries: 1918–1939, sel. Hermann Kesten, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York, 1982), pp. 19–20. On January 10 Mann again remarked that “Bavarialand” was neither a “Workers Republic” nor a “domain under the rule of Jewish literati” (this entry is not in the English selection; see his Tagebücher 1918–1921, ed. Peter de Mendelssohn [Frankfurt am Main, 1979], pp. 131f.).
6. Ricarda Huch, “Kurt Eisners Todestag: Eine Münchner Erinnerung,” in Ricarda Huch, Erinnerungen an das eigene Leben (Cologne, 1980), pp. 435ff. See also Bernhard Grau, Kurt Eisner 1867–1919: Eine Biografie (Munich, 2001).
7. See Heinrich August Winkler, Der lange Weg nach Westen, vol. 1, Deutsche Geschichte vom Ende des Alten Reiches bis zum Untergang der Weimarer Republik (Munich, 2000), pp. 396ff. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 114; Frank Bajohr, “Unser Hotel ist judenfrei”: Bäder-Antisemitismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, 3d ed. (Frankfurt, 2003), pp. 62ff.
8. See Winkler, Der lange Weg nach Westen, vol. 1, p. 378.
9. Thomas Mann, diary entry, Sunday, May 17, 1919, not in the English selection; see Tagebücher 1918–1921, p. 239.
10. See Martin Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers (Wiesbaden, 2007 [1st ed., 1969]), pp. 13ff.
11. Rösch, Die Münchner NSDAP 1925–1933, p. 32.
12. Klaus Mann, The Turning Point: Thirty-five Years in This Century; The Autobiography of Klaus Mann (New York, 1984; 1st ed., 1942), pp. 46 and 62.
13. Jules Huret, “Das Hofbräuhaus,” in München: Ein Lesebuch, pp. 113ff. See also Jules Huret, Bayern und Sachsen (Munich, 1910).
14. See Werner Maser, Der Sturm auf die Republik (Düsseldorf, 1994), pp. 468ff.
15. See Wilfried Rudloff, “Auf dem Weg zum ‘Hitler-Putsch’: Gegenrevolutionäres Milieu und früher Nationalsozialismus in München,” in München—“Hauptstadt der Bewegung”: Bayerns Metropole und der Nationalsozialismus, ed. Richard Bauer et al. (Munich, 2002), p. 99. Cf. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 147ff.
16. See Wolfram Pyta, Die Weimarer Republik (Wiesbaden, 2004), p. 113; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, pp. 42f.; Ernst Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus (Munich, 1970), pp. 40f.
17. See Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, pp. 63ff. See also Andreas Heusler, Das Braune Haus: Wie München zur “Hauptstadt der Bewegung” wurde (Munich, 2008), pp. 80ff.
18. See Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, pp. 41ff. See also Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, pp. 103ff.
19. See Hellmuth Auerbach, “Regionale Wurzeln und Differenzen der NSDAP 1919–1923,” in Nationalsozialismus in der Region: Beiträge zur regionalen und lokalen Forschung und zum internationalen Vergleich, ed. Horst Möller et al. (Munich, 1996), p. 70.
20. See Carl Zuckmayer, “Der heulende Derwisch,” in München: Ein Lesebuch, p. 229.
1. See Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, pp. 418ff.; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 237.
2. See Eberhard Kolb, Die Weimarer Republik, 6th rev. and expanded ed. (Munich, 2002), p. 52; Helmut Kerstingjohänner, Die deutsche Inflation 1919–1923: Politik und Ökonomie (Frankfurt, 2004); Ursula Büttner, Weimar: Die überforderte Republik (Stuttgart, 2008).
3. See Fritz K. Ringer, Die Gelehrten: Der Niedergang der deutschen Mandarine 1890–1933 (Stuttgart, 1983), pp. 62f.
4. See Jonathan R. C. Wright, Gustav Stresemann: Weimar’s Greatest Statesman (Oxford, 2002), pp. 270ff. and 283ff.; Manfred Berg, Gustav Stresemann und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika: Weltwirtschaftliche Verflechtung und Revisionspolitik 1907–1929 (Baden-Baden, 1990).
5. See Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, p. 424.
6. See Herta Schneider, Statement of June 23, 1949, “Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Herta Schneider, geb. Ostermayr,” in Denazification Court Records, box 1670, State Archives, Munich. See also Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, p. 423.
7. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 23.
8. Ilse Braun had also received an education at a boarding school of the English Maidens, in Munich-Nymphenburg; see Ilse Fucke-Michels, née Braun, “Meldebogen auf Grund des Gesetzes zur Befreiung von Nationalismus und Militarismus vom 5. März 1946 [Registration Form for the Law for Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism of March 5, 1946],” in Denazification Court Records, box 468, State Archives, Munich. See also Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, p. 429.
9. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 48.
10. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 371.
11. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, pp. 37ff.
12. Hitler, document of April 1, 1932, in Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 40.
13. See Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, p. 53.
14. See Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, p. 136.
15. See Nicolaus von Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937–1945 (Mainz, 1980), p. 96.
16. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, pp. 77 and 132; Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 167.
17. Quoted from Joachim Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen: Notizen über Gespräche mit Albert Speer zwischen Ende 1966 und 1981 (Hamburg, 2006), p. 143.
18. See Ilse Fucke-Michels to the State Commissioner for Refugees, Ruhpolding, October 2, 1946, in Denazification Court Records, box 468, State Archives, Munich.
19. See Stefanie Harrecker, Degradierte Doktoren: Die Aberkennung der Doktorwürde an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 2008), p. 329.
20. Ilse Fucke-Michels to the State Commissioner for Refugees, Ruhpolding, October 2, 1946.
21. Ibid.
22. See Alex Drecoll, “Die ‘Entjudung’ der Münchner Ärzteschaft 1933–1941,” in München arisiert: Entrechtung und Enteignung der Juden in der NS-Zeit, ed. Angelika Baumann and Andreas Heusler (Munich, 2004), pp. 75ff.
23. See Arno Buschmann, Nationalsozialistische Weltanschauung und Gesetzgebung 1933–1945, vol. 2, Dokumentation einer Entwicklung (Vienna, 2000), pp. 28f.
24. See Ilse Fucke-Michels to the State Commissioner for Refugees, Ruhpolding, October 2, 1946. See also Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 244, which states that the “relationship ended only when Marx emigrated to America in the summer of 1938.”
25. See Gianluca Falanga, Berlin 1937: Die Ruhe vor dem Sturm (Berlin, 2007), p. 39. Speer himself never mentions, in any of his various memoirs, that Ilse Braun was one of his assistants.
26. See Claus-Dieter Krohn et al., eds., Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration 1933–1945 (Darmstadt, 1998), pp. 782ff.; Ilse Fucke-Michels to the State Commissioner for Refugees, Ruhpolding, October 2, 1946; Harrecker, Degradierte Doktoren, p. 329; Renate Jäckle, Schicksale jüdischer und “staatsfeindlicher” Ärztinnen und Ärzte nach 1933 in München (Munich, 1988), p. 99.
27. See Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, p. 430. See also the photograph of Ilse Braun’s wedding dated November 16, 1936 [sic], Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-14390, BSB Munich.
28. Ilse Fucke-Michels to the State Commissioner for Refugees, Ruhpolding, October 2, 1946.
29. See Peter de Mendelssohn, Zeitungsstadt Berlin: Menschen und Mächte in der Geschichte der Deutschen Presse (Berlin, 1959), p. 399; Norbert Frei and Johannes Schmitz, Journalismus im Dritten Reich, 3rd ed., revised (Munich, 1999), pp. 59ff.
30. See Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, Die Erinnerungen (Munich, 2006), pp. 82ff.
31. Ursula von Kardorff, Berliner Aufzeichnungen 1942–1945, newly edited and annotated by Peter Hartl using the original diaries (Munich, 1997), p. 220.
32. See Ilse Fucke-Michels, née Braun, “Meldebogen auf Grund des Gesetzes zur Befreiung von Nationalismus und Militarismus vom 5. März 1946 [Registration Form for the Law for Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism of March 5, 1946],” in Denazification Court Records, box 468, State Archives, Munich.
33. See Judith H. Dobrzynski, “Russia Moves to Aid Quest for Art Taken in Holocaust,” New York Times, December 4, 1998. Hitler gave Hans Posse (1879–1942) the assignment to build the Linz Führer Museum (“Special Assignment Linz”) on June 21, 1939. Posse died on December 10, 1942, in Dresden. See Sophie Lille, Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Sammlung Wiens (Vienna, 2003).
34. See “Originalnotizen von P. E. Schramm über Hitler, gemacht während der Befragungen von Hitlers Leibärzten, Haus Alaska, d. h. Altersheim für Lehrerinnen im Taunus, Sommer 1945, in USA-Kriegsgefangenschaft,” in Kleine Erwerbung 441–3, BA Koblenz, p. 169.
35. See Ilse Fucke-Michels to the State Commissioner for Refugees, Ruhpolding, October 2, 1946.
1. Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, p. 99.
2. Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” pp. 22f.
3. See Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler: Nach Materialien (Munich and Berlin), 1983, p. 226.
4. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 62.
5. See Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler: Legende, Mythos, Wirklichkeit (Munich and Esslingen, 1971), p. 318.
6. See “Ergänzende Erklärung des Herrn Erich Kempka,” Berchtesgaden, July 4, 1945, p. 5, in MA 1298/10, Microfilm, Various Documents, DJ-13 (David Irving), IfZ Munich.
7. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 245, where Sigmund makes reference to Albert Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher, p. 140 (Albert Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries [New York, 1976], p. 91). Susanne zur Nieden critically examines Sigmund’s methods in “Geschichten aus dem braunen Nähkästchen: Der Führer und die Frauen,” in WerkstattGeschichte 30 (2001), pp. 115–117.
8. Speer himself noted that “by the winter of 1933” he “had been taken into the circle of Hitler’s intimates”: Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 38. In a letter to the head of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte archive, Speer stated that he met Hitler “for the first time in the summer of 1933”; see Albert Speer to Dr. Anton Hoch (Institut für Zeitgeschichte), n.p., March 3, 1981 (carbon copy), Albert Speer Papers, N1340/29, BA Koblenz.
9. See Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries, p. 90; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 214; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 342.
10. Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, pp. 45f. Descriptions of the apartment can also be found in Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, p. 98; Hanfstaengel, Zwischem Weissem und Braunem Haus, p. 231; Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 153; Kurt Lüdecke, I Knew Hitler (1937; London, 1938), p. 454.
11. Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries, pp. 90. In Inside the Third Reich, Speer mentions his first visit to the Prinzregentenplatz apartment in July, 1933 (p. 28).
12. The girl’s mother was also named Angela and was born from Alois Hitler’s second marriage, to Franziska Matzelsberger, an innkeeper’s daughter. See Wolfgang Zdral, Die Hitlers: Die unbekannte Familie des Führers (Bergisch Gladbach, 2008 [1st ed., 2005]), pp. 76ff.; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 196 and 205ff.
13. See “Eine rätselhafte Affäre: Selbstmord der Nichte Hitlers,” Münchener Post, September 22, 1931. Cf. Adolf Hitler, Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen, vol. 4, Von der Reichstagswahl bis zur Reichspräsidentenwahl, Oktober 1930–März 1932, Teil II, July 1931–December 1931, ed. Christian Hartmann (Munich, 1996), p. 109. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 354; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 218ff.
14. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 221, 224. In Kershaw’s opinion as well, suicide is “the most likely explanation” (Hitler 1889–1936, p. 354). Alan Bullock goes so far as to say that Geli Raubal “committed suicide in protest against [Hitler’s] possessiveness”; see Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (London, 1991), p. 234.
15. Speech at an NSDAP meeting in Hamburg, September 24, 1931, in Hitler, Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen, vol. 4, p. 115.
16. Diary entries from October 27 and November 22, 1931, in Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels (Munich, 1987), Teil I, vol. 2/II, pp. 135 and 154. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 226ff. and 232, where the author writes that Raubal’s death was exploited for propaganda purposes and used to Hitler’s advantage “with all possible pathos.” Likewise Manfred Koch-Hillebrecht, Homo Hitler: Psychogramm des deutschen Diktators, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1999), pp. 309f. In contrast, see Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 355, where he claims that Hitler’s relationship with Geli Raubal was “more intense than any other human relationship he had before or after.” She was “irreplaceable” for him, even if he “soon enough had Eva Braun in tow.” There are similar statements in Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, p. 205.
17. Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, pp. 358f., 99.
18. Ibid., p. 358.
19. Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 14.
20. Hermann Göring joined the NSDAP in 1922 and was a member of Parliament for the Nazi Party since 1928. Hitler named him his “political adviser” in 1930.
21. Hitler had no official nationality at this period, having lost his Austrian citizenship after World War I, when he served in the German army. On February 25, 1932, the Braunschweig secretary of state named Hitler a senior administrative officer with a position at the Braunschweig legation Berlin, which entailed German citizenship (“Schreiben des Vorsitzenden des Braunschweigischen Staatsministeriums an den Reichsratsbevollmächtigten in Berlin, 25. February 1932 [copy],” in Albert Speer Papers, N1340/287, BA Koblenz).
22. See Schulze, Weimar, p. 345.
23. Goebbels, entry for January 7, 1932, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 2/II, pp. 106f.
24. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 368f.
25. On the campaign trips see ibid., pp. 455ff.; also Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, pp. 262ff.; Fest, Hitler, pp. 444f., 455ff.; “Electoral Campaign, 1932,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-7284, BSB Munich.
26. See Joseph Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei: Eine historische Darstellung in Tagebuchblättern (Vom 1. Januar 1932 bis zum 1. Mai 1933), 21st ed. (Munich, 1937), p. 104. Cf. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 369. On the campaign organization, see Ralph Georg Reuth, Goebbels (Munich, 1990), pp. 215ff.
27. See Helmut Heiber, ed., Goebbels Reden 1932–1945 (Düsseldorf, 1971), pp. xvi, 43.
28. See Heinrich Hoffmann, Das braune Heer: Leben, Kampf und Sieg der SA und SS, foreword by Adolf Hitler (Berlin, 1932).
29. See Martin Broszat, Die Machtergreifung, p. 151; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 370; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 215. See also Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, p. 206, where she says Hitler’s half-sister was “competent and power-hungry.” See also Florian M. Beierl, Geschichte des Kehlsteins (Berchtesgaden, 1994), p. 7.
30. Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, pp. 300 and 485. Cf. Otto Wagener, manuscript vol. 34, pp. 2054f., IfZ Munich: in Wagener’s opinion, Eva Braun played “absolutely no role whatsoever” at this point.
31. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 370ff.
32. See ibid.
33. See Sven Felix Kellerhoff, Hitlers Berlin: Geschichte einer Hassliebe (Berlin, 2005), pp. 74f. See also Stephan Malinowski, Vom König zum Führer (Berlin, 2003), pp. 554f.
34. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 245.
35. See Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, p. 136.
36. See ibid., p. 137.
37. See Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler, pp. 138ff.; Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, p. 137.
38. Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, pp. 142ff.
39. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 64–65. See also Maser, Adolf Hitler, p. 317. According to Maser, Ilse Braun personally confirmed this statement to him on March 18, 1969.
40. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 386ff.
41. Hitler left the Karlsruhe airport for Berlin shortly after 10 p.m.; see Hitler: Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen, vol. 4, Teil II, p. 145, document 54.
42. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 388, which claims that Hitler interrupted his election campaign immediately after he heard about Eva Braun’s suicide attempt on the night of November 1. Kershaw bases his claim on Maser, Hitler, p. 317. Nerin E. Gun, on the other hand, says that Hitler went directly to see Eva Braun in the hospital after he received an “explanatory farewell letter” from her in the morning mail (Eva Braun, p. 69).
43. Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 2/III, pp. 49f. For the sequence of campaign speeches, see Adolf Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, ed. Max Domarus, vol. 1: Triumph, 1932–1938, (Würzburg, 1962), pp. 141ff.
44. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 65–66.
45. For example, Ian Kershaw, who speaks of “Eva Braun’s presumable suicide attempt,” says that she was in despair about Hitler, who “hardly knew she was alive” (Hitler 1889–1936, p. 388). Alan Bullock writes that “she had no better idea how to get him to care about her,” and that Heinrich Hoffmann “saw through Eva Braun’s game from the beginning” (Hitler and Stalin, p. 502). For Anton Joachimsthaler, the incident was staged in order “to blackmail Hitler” (Hitlers Liste, p. 21).
46. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 65; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 246.
47. Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 22. Hoffmann claims that Hitler only now started to show “greater interest in Eva Braun,” although “there was no question of it being a real relationship.” In this regard see also Gun, Eva Braun, p. 66.
48. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 236.
49. See ibid., p. 235.
50. See Margret Boveri, Tage des Überlebens: Berlin 1945 (Munich, 1968), p. 122.
51. See Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, pp. 286f. See also Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years (New York, 1994 [1st ed., London, 1957]), pp. 194f., where Hanfstaengl claims that all who took part in that evening believed that Eva Braun was merely “a friend of one of the other girls.”
52. See Erika Mann, Wenn die Lichter ausgehen: Geschichten aus dem Dritten Reich (Reinbek, 2006).
53. See “Protest der Richard-Wagner-Stadt München,” Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, April 16, 1933. Quoted from München: Ein Lesebuch, pp. 260ff.
54. See Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years, pp. 194–195.
55. Ibid. All the persons named signed his guest book under the date of January 1, 1933; see Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 247. See also Peter Conradi, Hitler’s Piano Player: The Rise and Fall of Ernst Hanfstaengl, Confidant of Hitler, Ally of FDR (New York, 2004); Ronald Smelser et al., eds., Die Braune Elite II (Darmstadt, 1993), pp. 137ff; Wolfgang Zdral, Der finanzierte Aufstieg des Adolf H. (Vienna, 2002).
56. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 395ff.; Karl Dietrich Bracher, “Demokratie und Machtergreifung—Der Weg zum 30. Januar 1933,” in Machtverfall und Machtergreifung: Aufstieg und Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus, ed. Rudolf Lill and Heinrich Oberreuter (Munich, 1983), p. 25.
57. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 396ff. See also Peter D. Stachura, Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism (London, 1983); Werner Bräuninger, Hitlers Kontrahenten in der NSDAP 1921–1945 (Munich, 2004).
58. Quoted from Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 401. Cf. Hinrich Lohse, “Der Fall Strasser,” unpublished typescript [ca. 1960], Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg, sections 20–22.
59. Adolf Hitler, “Denkschrift über die inneren Gründe für die Verfügungen zur Herstellung einer erhöhten Schlagkraft der Bewegung,” NS 22/110, BA Koblenz.
60. Max Weber, “Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen Herrschaft,” in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, ed. Johannes Winckelmann, 7th ed. (Tübingen, 1988), p. 482. Cf. Hans-Ulrich Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus (Stuttgart, 2002), p. 61.
61. Hitler, “Denkschrift über die inneren Gründe für die Verfügungen zur Herstellung einer erhöhten Schlagkraft der Bewegung.”
62. Max Weber, “Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen Herrschaft,” p. 485.
63. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 414ff.; Henry Ashby Turner, Hitlers Weg zur Macht: Der Januar 1933 (Munich, 1997), pp. 199f.
64. According to the latest research, Joachim von Ribbentrop made contact with Adolf Hitler as early as 1927; during the Nuremberg Trials Ribbentrop stated that he first met Hitler in 1931–1932. See Philipp Gassert and Daniel S. Mattern, The Hitler Library: A Bibliography (London, 2001).
65. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 419ff.; Turner, Hitlers Weg zur Macht, as cited in note 63, above; Wolfram Pyta, Hindenburg: Herrschaft zwischen Hohenzollern und Hitler (Munich, 2007), pp. 791ff.
66. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 433.
67. Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 251.
68. Rudolf Hess to Ilse Hess, Berlin, January 31, 1933, in Rudolf Hess, Briefe 1908–1933, ed. Wolf Rüdiger Hess (Munich, 1987), pp. 424f.
69. Estimates of the number of participants range from fifteen thousand to one million. Cf. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 433; Kellerhoff, Hitlers Berlin, p. 89.
70. See Fest, Hitler, p. 510; Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 253.
71. See Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, pp. 48f.; Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, pp. 251ff.; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 432; Fest, Hitler, p. 510.
72. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 95.
73. See Klaus Beck, “Telefongeschichte als Sozialgeschichte: Die soziale und kulturelle Aneignung des Telefons im Alltag,” in Telefon und Gesellschaft: Beiträge zu einer Soziologie der Telefonkommunikation, vol. 1 of Telefon und Gesellschaft, ed. Forschungsgruppe Telekommunikation [The Telecommunications Research Group] (Berlin, 1989).
74. See Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 121. See also Gun, Eva Braun, p. 101: only in 1933, according to Gun, did she request a “private phone” as the “mistress of the Chancellor of the Reich.”
75. Herta Schneider, statement of June 23, 1949, “Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Herta Schneider, geb. Ostermayr,” in Denazification Court Records, box 1670, State Archives, Munich.
76. Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Reichspostdirektionsbezirk München, ed. Reichspostdirektion München as of May 1, 1934, part 1, July 1934 edition.
77. Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 93ff.; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 248.
1. See Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, vol. 1, Triumph, First Part: 1932–1934 (Wiesbaden, 1973), pp. 450ff.
2. Ibid.
3. Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, “Meine lieben deutschen Menschen!” (speech given at Nuremberg, September 8, 1934), in Adolf Hitler and Gertrud Schotz-Klink, Reden an die deutsche Frau: Reichsparteitag Nürnberg, 8. September 1934 (Berlin, 1934), pp. 8–16.
4. See Christiane Berger, “Die ‘Reichsfrauenführerin’ Gertrud Scholtz-Klink: Zur Wirkung einer nationalsozialistischen Karriere in Verlauf, Retrospektive und Gegenwart” (dissertation, University of Hamburg, 2005), pp. 27f. See also Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, Die Frau im Dritten Reich (Tübingen, 1978).
5. See Dörte Winkler, Frauenarbeit im “Dritten Reich” (Hamburg, 1977), p. 193.
6. See Matthew Stibbe, Women in the Third Reich (London, 2003), pp. 88f.
7. “Reichskanzlei, 4. 5.–25. 7. 1937,” in Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP: Rekonstruktion eines verlorengegangenen Bestandes, ed. Helmut Heiber et al. (Munich, 1983–1992), M 101 04741–45.
8. “Der Führer spricht zur deutschen Frauenschaft,” in Reden des Führers am Parteitag der Ehre 1936, 4th ed. (Munich, 1936), p. 43.
9. See Stibbe, Women in the Third Reich, pp. 85ff.; Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, pp. 262ff.
10. Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer, His Battle with Truth (New York, 1995), pp. 193, 197. Kershaw disposes of the topic by saying that Hitler preferred “obedient playthings” (Hitler 1889–1936, p. 284).
11. Joachim Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches: Profile einer totalitären Herrschaft (Munich, 2006 [1st ed., 1963]), pp. 359f. Fest relies primarily on Hermann Rauschning, Gespräche mit Hitler (Zürich, 1940), pp. 240f.
12. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 93. “She was not political,” Speer curtly informed Sereny when she asked Speer’s wife, in Speer’s presence, about her own attitude toward the goals of the National Socialists (Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 114). See Margret Nissen, Sind Sie die Tochter Speer? (Bergisch Gladbach, 2007 [1st ed., Munich, 2005]), pp. 20, 157f., and 182. Speer himself later admitted to Fest that his family did not have a presence in his memoirs “because it didn’t have a presence in my life” (quoted in Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 144).
13. Margret Nissen, Sind Sie die Tochter Speer? (Bergisch Gladbach, 2007 [1st ed., Munich, 2005]), p. 182.
14. Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 112. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 10.
15. Margarete Mitscherlich, “Anti-Semitism—A Male Disease?” in her The Peaceable Sex: On Aggression in Women and Men (New York, 1987), pp. 192–208, quotes from p. 203. See also Mitscherlich’s “Die befreite Frau: Nachdenken über männliche und weibliche Werte [The Liberated Woman: Reflections on Male and Female Values],” Frankfurter Rundschau, September 26, 2000, p. 20.
16. See Knopp, Hitlers Frauen, p. 83.
17. See Kathrin Kompisch, Täterinnen: Frauen im Nationalsozialismus (Cologne, 2008), pp. 74ff. and 155ff.; Gudrun Schwarz, Eine Frau an seiner Seite: Ehefrauen in der “SS-Sippengemeinschaft,” 2nd ed. (Berlin, 2001), pp. 281f.; Karin Windaus-Walser, “Frauen im Nationalsozialismus,” in Töchter-Fragen. NS-Frauen-Geschichte, ed. Lerke Gravenhorst and Carmen Tatschmurat (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1990), pp. 59ff.; Sybille Steinbacher, ed., Frauen in der NS-Volksgemeinschaft, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, vol. 23 (Göttingen, 2007), p. 18. See also Dieter Schenk, Hans Frank: Hitlers Kronjurist und Generalgouverneur (Frankfurt am Main, 2006), pp. 39–45, 179f. and 244–253, where Schenk also analyzes the role of Frank’s wife, Brigitte Frank.
18. See Schwarz, Eine Frau an seiner Seite, pp. 8ff.
19. Quoted in Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 193.
20. Hans-Otto Meissner, So schnell schlägt Deutschlands Herz (Giessen, 1951), pp. 100f. On Meissner’s biography, see Thomas Keil, “Die postkoloniale deutsche Literatur in Namibia (1920–2000),” (dissertation, University of Stuttgart, 2003), pp. 405ff.
21. Meissner, So schnell schlägt Deutschlands Herz, pp. 100f.
22. See Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, pp. 392f. See also Leni Riefenstahl, Memoiren (Cologne, 2000 [1st ed., Munich 1987], p. 181.
23. See Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, p. 372. Goebbels, who does not mention the first meeting between his girlfriend and Hitler, describes an evening in Munich together with Magda Quandt and Hitler as early as April 4, 1931 (diary entry of April 4, 1931, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 2/I, p. 378). In the opinion of Magda Goebbels’s biographer, Anja Klabunde, however, the first meeting between Hitler and Quandt was accidental, and Klabunde dates the event to “a few weeks after Geli’s death,” i.e., after Sept. 18, 1931. See Anja Klabunde, Magda Goebbels: Annäherung an ein Leben (Munich, 1999), pp. 148ff. Also see Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, p. 375.
24. See Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, p. 392.
25. In fact, Günther Quandt is said to have met with Hitler at Hotel Kaiserhof on the same day when Quandt’s ex-wife tried to make contact with the Nazi leader; Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, pp. 373ff.). Goebbels, on the other hand, first noted on Sept. 12 1931: “Nauseating: Herr Günther Quandt was with the leader. Struck all sorts of poses and showed off, of course” (Goebbels, diary entry, September 12 1931, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 2/II, p. 97.)
26. See Rüdiger Jungbluth, Die Quandts: Ihr leiser Aufstieg zur mächtigsten Wirtschaftsdynastie Deutschlands (Frankfurt am Main, 2002), pp. 108ff. See also Reuth, Goebbels, p. 197.
27. See Heusler, Das Braune Haus, pp. 81ff.; Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, pp. 58f. See also Hagen Schulze, “Democratic Prussia in Weimar Germany, 1919–1933,” in Modern Prussian History 1830–1947, ed. Philip G. Dwyer (Harlow, England, 2001), pp. 211–229.
28. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, vol. 1, p. 126.
29. Auguste Behrend, “Meine Tochter Magda Goebbels,” Schwäbische Illustrierte, March 1, 1952. See also Reuth, Goebbels, p. 197; Klabunde, Magda Goebbels, pp. 123f. On Magda Goebbels, see in addition Curt Riess, Joseph Goebbels: Eine Biographie (Baden-Baden, 1950); Hans-Otto Meissner, Magda Goebbels: Ein Lebensbild (Munich, 1978); Erich Ebermayer and Hans Roos, Gefährtin des Teufels: Leben und Tod der Magda Goebbels (Hamburg, 1952); Guido Knopp and Peter Hartl, “Magda Goebbels—Die Gefolgsfrau,” in Knopp, Hitlers Frauen, pp. 85–147; Anna Maria Sigmund, “Magda Goebbels: Die erste Dame des Dritten Reichs,” in her Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 111–150.
30. Speer, quoted in Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen (Hamburg, 2006), pp. 196f.
31. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 146.
32. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 116; Klabunde, Magda Goebbels, p. 104. On Arlosoroff, see Golda Meir, My Life (New York, 1975), p. 144.
33. See Jungbluth, Die Quandts, pp. 49 and 52.
34. Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, pp. 66ff.
35. See Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. II/2, p. 24, according to which Magda Quandt and Viktoria von Dirksen accompanied him. Eva and Gretl Braun as well as Henriette Hoffmann were apparently also present at this event. Friedrich Karl Freiherr von Eberstein, the future Munich police chief, stated that Hitler had sent him to Weimar, where he met Eva Braun for the first time: Eberstein, “Women Around Hitler,” in “Adolf Hitler: A Composite Picture,” Headquarters Military Intelligence Service USA, OI Special Report 36, April 2 1947, documentation “Adolph Hitler 1944–1953,” vol. 4, p. 694, F135/4, IfZ, Munich.
36. See “Bayreuth, Picknick Sommer 1931 [Bayreuth, Summer Picnic, 1931],” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-7060, BSB Munich. Brigitte Hamann does not mention Hitler’s presence at the 1931 festival in her Winifred Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth (Munich, 2002), pp. 209f., and mention of the event is likewise missing from Goebbels’s diaries.
37. Hermann Göring’s statement quoted in Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, p. 376.
38. See Johannes Hürter, Wilhelm Groener: Reichswehrminister am Ende der Weimarer Republik 1928–1932 (Munich, 1993), pp. 315f.
39. See “Braunschweig, SA-Aufmarsch vom 17./18. Oktober 1931,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-7094, BSB Munich.
40. See Carlos Widmann, “Magda Goebbels: Die Karriere einer Opportunistin im Führerstaat,” in “Hitlers langer Schatten: Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit,” Der Spiegel, September 24, 2001; also Klabunde, Magda Goebbels, p. 159, which claims: “But what she wanted most of all was power.” Klabunde refers here to Meissner, Magda Goebbels, p. 119.
41. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 126f.
42. Goebbels, diary entry, August 26, 1931, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. II/2, p. 85. And see Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 178. See also Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 201, where Riefenstahl claims that Magda Goebbels admitted to her that she had “fallen for the Führer” and divorced Günther Quandt for that reason.
43. Goebbels, diary entry, September 14, 1931, previously cited, p. 98.
44. Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, p. 377.
45. See “Besuch von Magda Goebbels im Teehaus auf dem Kehlstein (Obersalzberg) am 21. Oktober 1938,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-272, BSB Munich.
46. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 248; Sven Felix Kellerhoff, Mythos Führerbunker: Hitlers letzter Unterschlupf (Berlin, 2006), p. 82. Kellerhoff claims that Magda Goebbels tried to “exclude” Eva Braun “even from her own domain on the Obersalzberg.” See also Ulrike Grunewald, “Eva Braun und Magda Goebbels,” in her Rivalinnen (Cologne, 2006), pp. 191–236.
47. See Alfred Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz: Hermann Göring im Dritten Reich, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1987), p. 202.
48. See Emmy Göring’s invitation of Ilse Hess to a “musical Advent’s tea,” or “garden tea,” in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 5, file 80, Swiss Federal Archives, Bern.
49. Emmy Göring, An der Seite meines Mannes: Begebenheiten und Bekenntnisse, 4th ed. (Coburg, 1996), p. 57.
50. Ibid., pp. 148 and 209.
51. Ibid., pp. 66 and 72ff. Cf. Anna Maria Sigmund, “Emmy Göring: Die ‹Hohe Frau›,” in her Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 97ff. Emmy Göring does not deny that she knew about the concentration camps, but she claims to have believed that they were for the “political reeducation” of “Jews” and “Communists.” Only after the war, she says, did she learn about the crimes there and wondered “if Hitler himself even knew exactly what Himmler was doing at Auschwitz.” Margarete Speer makes the exact same argument: see Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 195.
52. Ilse Hess, Gefangener des Friedens: Neue Briefe aus Spandau (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1965 [1st ed., 1955]), p. 14.
53. Ibid., pp. 26 and 33.
54. Ibid., pp. 18f. and 54.
55. Ibid., pp. 35ff. and 44. See also Rudolf Hess, letter to Klara and Fritz Hess, Munich, September 14, 1920, in Hess, Briefe 1908–1933, p. 264. Rudolf Hess joined the NSDAP on July 1, 1920. See Anna Maria Sigmund, “Ilse Hess: Die Frau des ‘Führer-Stellvertreters,’ ” in her Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 737f.
56. Ilse Pröhl to Frau Barchewitz, Munich, February 28, 1921 (carbon copy), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 2, file 15, BA Bern. See also in this regard Hitler’s speech titled “Warum sind wir Antisemiten? [Why Are We Anti-Semites?]” of August 13, 1920, in Adolf Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924, ed. Eberhard Jäckel with Axel Kuhn (Stuttgart, 1980), p. 185.
57. Quoted from Othmar Plöckinger, Geschichte eines Buches: Adolf Hitlers “Mein Kampf” 1922–1945 (Munich, 2006), p. 54.
58. See ibid., pp. 72, 124f. and 151f.
59. Ilse Hess to Heinrich Himmler, n.p., December 9 [1933] (carbon copy), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 7, file 98, Swiss Federal Archives, Bern.
60. Eva Braun to Ilse Hess, Obersalzberg, undated [January 2] (handwritten original), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 2, file 25, Swiss Federal Archives, Bern.
61. Ilse Hess to Hans Grimm, n. p., November 1, 1943 [must be an error for 1944] (carbon copy), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 6, file 84, Swiss Federal Archives, Bern.
62. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 248.
63. See Joseph Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei: Eine historische Darstellung in Tagebuchblättern (Vom 1. Januar 1932 bis zum 1. Mai 1933), 21st ed. (Munich, 1937), pp. 255–271.
64. Anni Winter, Interrogation by Capt. O. N. Norden, Munich, November 6, 1945, in Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection, vol. 4, subdivision 8/Hitler, Section 8.02, Cornell Law Library, Cornell University.
65. See Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, pp. 106ff; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 441f.
66. See Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 258; Gun, Eva Braun, p. 96. Hitler apparently gave her her “first jewels” from him on this day: “a matching ring, earrings, and bracelet.”
67. See Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, pp. 264ff.
68. See ibid., pp. 269f.
69. Rudolf Hess to Ilse Hess, Berlin, January 31, 1933, in Hess, Briefe 1908–1933, p. 425.
70. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 433f and 613f. Cf. Fest, Hitler, p. 352.
71. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 34.
72. See Beierl, Geschichte des Kehlsteins, p. 7. See also Fest, Hitler, p. 353.
73. See the public placard for the Reichstag election of 3/5/1933, district and parliamentary electoral nominations, Upper Bavaria/Swabia electoral district.
74. David Clay Large, Hitlers München: Aufstieg und Fall der Hauptstadt der Bewegung (Munich, 2001 [1st ed., 1998]), p. 299.
75. Tony van Eyck, “Adolf Hitler spricht zu einer Schauspielerin: ‘Der echte Künstler kommt von selbst zu uns,’ ” n.p., March 21, 1933, in Ernst Hanfstaengl Papers, Ana 405, box 27, file for Jan.–June 1933, BSB Munich.
76. See Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 264. See also Ernst K. Bramsted, Goebbels und die nationalsozialistische Propaganda 1925–1945 (Frankfurt, 1971), pp. 288f.; Fritz Redlich, Hitler: Diagnose des destruktiven Propheten (Vienna, 2002), p. 92.
77. See Kellerhoff, Hitlers Berlin, pp. 107f. Kellerhoff says there that Berlin was “Hitler’s most important stage.”
78. See Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, pp. 280ff.
79. Ibid., p. 289. Extensive information on the topic may be found in Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 472f.
80. For the debate about Hitler’s leadership style and his personal position of power within the Nazi state, see Gerhard Hirschfeld and Lothar Kettenacker, eds., Der “Führerstaat”: Mythos und Realität; Studien zur Struktur und Politik des Dritten Reiches, Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Historischen Instituts London, vol. 8, (Stuttgart, 1981). Ian Kershaw says about Hitler in this context: “He took the key decisions; he alone determined the timing. But little else was Hitler’s own work” (Hitler 1889–1936, p. 542). On Hitler’s style of governing see also Ian Kershaw, Der NS-Staat: Geschichtsinterpretationen und Kontroversen im Überblick, rev. and expanded ed. (Reinbek, 1994), pp. 112–147.
81. Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, April 7, 1933, Reichsgesetzblatt 1933 I, pp. 175–177, in documentArchiv.de, at http://www.documentArchiv.de/ns/beamtenges.html.
82. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 470 and 535.
83. See Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, pp. 292ff.
84. Otto Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler (Munich, 1955), pp. 149f. See also Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, p. 184.
85. Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 301. See Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, pp. 231ff. See also Kershaw, Der Hitler-Mythos, pp. 53ff.
86. See Rolf Düsterberg, Hanns Johst—“Der Barde der SS”: Karriere eines deutschen Dichters (Paderborn, 2004).
87. Joseph Goebbels, “Unser Hitler,” radio broadcast of April 20, 1933, in Goebbels, Signale der neuen Zeit: 25 ausgewählte Reden (Munich, 1934), pp. 141 and 149.
88. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 485.
89. See Friedrich Sieburg, Napoleon: Die hundert Tage, 9th ed. (Stuttgart, 1964), p. 95, where the author compares Napoleon’s relationship with France to a relationship with a lover, and analyzes the lover’s status in this context. What is missing, he says, are “natural bonds,” since the lover is “there for exceptional cases.”
90. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 95; Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 248.
91. See “Hitlers Urlaub 20.–22. April 1934,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-10486, BSB Munich.
92. Johanna Wolf had already worked for Dietrich Eckart. See Adolf Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944: Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims, ed. Werner Jochmann (Hamburg, 1980), p. 465.
93. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 46–47. In contrast, Nerin E. Gun claims that Hitler, “always mindful of appearances,” did not have Eva Braun spend nights in Haus Wachenfeld; instead, she stayed at first at the Hotel Post or the Berchtesgadener Hof (“according to the evidence of the manageress of one of these hotels,” Gun writes), and later at the Platterhof, a mountain inn (Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 101–102).
94. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 46f.
95. Ibid., pp. 59ff. See also Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 59.
96. Zentralkommando d. Kriegsgefangenenlager Nr. 32/DI-21, 2. Juli 1945, Sonderhaftzentrale “ASHCAN.” Detailed report on the interrogation of Dr. Karl Brandt: Answers to the Questionnaire. Ref.: SHAEF Interrogation Documents from June 15, 1945, in Rep. 502, KV-Anklage, Umdrucke deutsch, NO-331, State Archives, Nuremberg.
97. This seems to be confirmed as well by the Heinrich Hoffmann photographs dated 1934, according to which Eva Braun stayed on the Obersalzberg on both April 20–22 and in August–September, 1934, along with Heinrich and Erna Hoffmann, the adjutant Wilhelm Brückner and his girlfriend Sofie Stork, Reich Press Chief Otto Dietrich, and others. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-49683, BSB Munich.
98. See Johannes Fried, “Erinnerung im Kreuzverhör: Kollektives Gedächtnis, Albert Speer und die Erkenntnis erinnerter Vergangenheit,” in the Festschrift for Lothar Gall, Historie und Leben. Der Historiker als Wissenschaftler und Zeitgenosse, ed. Dieter Hein et al. (Munich, 2006), pp. 343ff. See also Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos; Speers wahre Rolle im Dritten Reich (Bern and Munich, 1982), pp. 21ff.
99. Heinrich Breloer, Unterwegs zur Familie Speer: Begegnungen, Gespräche, Interviews (Berlin, 2005), pp. 115f.
100. Albert Speer to Rudolf Wolters, n.p., July 6, 1975 (carbon copy), in Albert Speer Papers, N1340/76, BA Koblenz.
101. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 32.
102. Albert Speer, quoted in Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 196. See also Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 32–33.
103. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 31: “I had found my Mephistopheles.” This reference to the devil from Goethe’s Faust emphasizes the image Speer likes to present of Hitler’s superiority—Hitler representing the root of all evil as a “destroyer” and “liar” (the etymology of the word “Mephistopheles”).
104. Joachim Fest, meanwhile, doubts the value of Speer’s testimony with respect to the nature of the relationship between Hitler and Braun; see his Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, pp. 60f.
105. “Besprechung zwischen Herrn Albrecht und Frl. Schroeder, früher Sekretärin von Hitler,” Berchtesgaden, May 22, 1945, in MA 1298/10, microfilm, Various Documents, DJ-13 (David Irving), IfZ Munich.
106. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 213f. See also Julius Schaub, In Hitlers Schatten: Erinnerungen und Aufzeichnungen des persönlichen Adjutanten und Vertrauten Julius Schaub 1925–1945, ed. Olaf Rose (Stegen am Ammersee, 2005).
107. See David Irving, “Notes on an Interview of Johannes Göhler at his home, Stuttgart-Nord, Feuerbacher Weg 125, from 12:30 to 4 pm, 27 March 1971,” in ZS 2244 (Johannes Göhler), IfZ Munich. See also Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 216.
108. David Irving, interview with “a certain Frau Gö” on November 4, 1973 (entry under the date of May 12, 1975), in David Irving Collection, ED 100/44, IfZ Munich.
109. Eva Braun to Gretl Fegelein, Berlin, April 23, 1945, in Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 253–254. On April 30, 1945, Eva Braun gave Hanna Reitsch, the pilot who had flown General Robert Ritter from Greim to Hitler in Berlin and had stayed for a week in the bunker, a last letter to her sister Gretl. The whereabouts and content of the letter are unknown. (Anna Maria Sigmund, “Hanna Reitsch: Sie flog für das Dritte Reich,” in her Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 559ff.)
110. Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 289–290; Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 216; Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, vol. 2, Frühe Lager, Dachau, Emslandlager (Munich, 2005), pp. 324ff. See likewise the statements of SS-Hauptsturmführer Erwin Haufler questioned by American officers in the Bad Aiblingen camp, December 27, 1945, and of SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Konrad, questioned in Zell am See on January 6–8, 1946, in David Irving Collection, “Adolph Hitler 1944–1953,” vol. 2, F 135/2, IfZ Munich.
111. See Speer, Albert Speer. Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945: Seine ersten Aussagen und Aufzeichnungen (Juni–September), (Munich, 2003), p. 31.
112. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 82. The letter, Ilse Fucke-Michels to Nerin E. Gun, Munich, April 8, 1967, is reproduced in the German edition, Eva Braun-Hitler: Leben und Schicksal (Velbert, 1968), pp. 67 and 69. Gun claims that Eva Braun kept “a more intimate diary later,” which, “bound in green leather,” was locked in the “armored safe at the bunker” when she left the Berghof in 1945. See also Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, pp. 443ff.
113. Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler: Legende, Mythos, Wirklichkeit, 6th ed., expanded (with Eva Braun’s Diary), (Munich and Esslingen, 1974), pp. 236 and 325ff. The original of the diary-fragment is located at the National Archives of the United States, in Washington, DC.
114. See Douglas L. Hewlett, Hitler et les Femmes: Le journal intime d’Eva Braun (Paris, 1948); Paul Tabori, ed., The Private Life of Adolf Hitler: The Intimate Notes and Diary of Eva Braun, (London, 1949). See also Alison Leslie Gold, The Devil’s Mistress: The Diary of Eva Braun, the Woman Who Lived and Died with Hitler—A Novel (Boston, 1997); Alan Bartlett, The Diary of Eva Braun (Bristol, 2000).
115. Eva Braun, diary, February 6, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, p. 83.
116. Goebbels, diary entries of January 31 and February 4, 1935, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 3/I, pp. 177 and 179.
117. See Eva Braun, diary, February 15, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 84–85.
118. Paul Ludwig Troost (b. 1878) died on January 21, 1934, in Munich. Gerhardine “Gerdy” Troost (1904–2003), who joined the NSDAP in 1932, and Leonhard Gall were in charge of renovating Hitler’s apartment. Gerdy Troost was named a professor by Hitler on April 20, 1937, and in 1938 published a work with the title Das Bauen im Neuen Reich [Construction in the New Reich].
119. Eva Braun, diary, February 15, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, p. 84. These dates agree with Goebbels’s diary, where he records under February 10 and 18 that Hitler left Berlin for Munich (Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 3/I, pp. 182f. and 186).
120. See Goebbels, diary entry, March 2, 1935 (“Hitler in Munich”), in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 3/I, p. 193.
121. Eva Braun, diary, March 4, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 85–86. See also Goebbels, diary entry, March 4, 1935 (“We are not going to the Munich city ball”), in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 3/I, pp. 193f.
122. Eva Braun, diary, March 4, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 85–86. See also Goebbels, diary entry, March 4, 1935 (“Midnight together in Berlin”), in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 3/I, pp. 193f. According to Goebbels, Hitler sat with him at the hotel before his departure.
123. Paul Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne 1923–1945 (Bonn, 1953), pp. 295f.
124. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 550.
125. See Eva Braun, diary, March 16, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, p. 87. See also Goebbels, diary entry, March 16, 1935, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 3/I, p. 200, which says Hitler “suddenly” returned to Berlin that morning.
126. See Eva Braun, diary, March 11, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 86–87. The Czech-German movie star Anny Ondra presumably stopped in Munich to promote her movie Knock-out, produced by Bavaria Film AG (with Ondra-Lamac-Film GmbH).
127. Max Schmeling, Erinnerungen (Frankfurt am Main, 1977), pp. 275ff.
128. Ibid., pp. 293f. In the same year, Bavaria Film AG in Munich produced the documentary film Schmeling gegen Hamas [Schmeling vs. Hamas]: see Dorothea Friedrich, Max Schmeling und Anny Ondra: Ein Doppelleben (Berlin, 2001). In the Nazi state, the “trained, healthy body fit for service” became the “epitome of the German, Aryan person”; see Ralf Schäfer, “Fit für den Führer,” in Vorwärts-Zeitblende 3 (April 2007).
129. William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934–1941 (Baltimore, 2002 [1st ed., New York, 1941]), p. 31; Eva Braun, diary, March 16, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, p. 87. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 550f.
130. Earlier, the hotel was home to meetings of the “Germanenorden,” an anti-Semitic group founded in 1912. The hotel still stands at 17 Maximilianstrasse, under the name Kempinski Four Seasons. See “Projekt eines NS-Dokumentationszentrums in München,” http://www.stmuk.bayern.de/blz/gutachten.pdf.
131. Eva Braun, diary, April 1, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, p. 87. According to Goebbels, Hitler arrived in Munich only on that Sunday (diary entry, April 1, 1935, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 3/I, pp. 210f.)
132. Albert Speer, quoted in Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, pp. 84f.
133. Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne, p. 307.
134. See Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, pp. 286ff.
135. See Richard Walther Darré, Aufzeichnungen 1945–1948, vol. 3, Bl. 407f., ED 110, IfZ Munich. Darré’s statements cannot be verified and are clearly based on rumor. He even says that “Eva Braun’s star” began to rise only in 1935, after Laffert turned Hitler down (Bl. 408).
136. See Stephan Malinowski, Vom König zum Führer: Deutscher Adel und Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 2003), pp. 554f. See also Heinz Höhne, Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf: Die Geschichte der SS (Bindlach, 1990 [1st ed., Munich, 1984]), p. 127; Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, pp. 203ff.
137. See Sigrid v. Laffert, NSDAP-Questionnaire, Gau Berlin, May 9, 1938, BA PK [formerly Berlin Document Center], G0424, Bl. 2370/71. The place of residence is given there as 11 Margaretenstrasse in Berlin W. 9.
138. See Heinz Linge, Bis zum Untergang: Als Chef des Persönlichen Dienstes bei Hitler, ed. Werner Maser (Munich, 1982), p. 97; “Kundgebung 1. Mai 1934, Berlin, Tempelhofer Feld,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-9030, BSB Munich.
139. In 1940, Sigrid von Laffert married the diplomat Johannes Bernhard Graf von Welczek, who became the attaché of the German Embassy in Madrid in 1941.
140. See Dr. Dieter Leithäuser, “Der Stimmbandpolyp des A. H. Patient A., zwischen Tinnitus und Heiserkeit,” http://www.zieleit.de/artikel/spurensuche/0001.html (last update: 8/20/2000). Eicken received an honorarium of 260,000 reichsmarks for the procedure. Cf. “Hitler’s Throat,” Time, November 14, 1938, which quotes Eicken as saying: “The Chancellor had convinced that he had cancer.” See also Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 104; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 549f.
141. Eva Braun, diary, May 28, 1935, in Gun, Eva Braun, p. 90.
142. See Goebbels, diary entry of May 29, 1935, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 3/I, p. 239. Henriette von Schirach mentions only one suicide attempt by Eva Braun, in Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, p. 25.
1. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 102; Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 164. See also Eva Braun, registration card, August 24, 1935, Az. 3012/3231.o/2009, State Archives, Munich.
2. Hitler’s sister Paula, however, admitted after the war that she met Eva Braun for the first time at the 1934 NSDAP convention (“Besprechung zwischen Herrn Albrecht und Frl. Paula Hitler,” Berchtesgaden, May 26, 1945, in MA 1298/10, microfilm, Various Documents DJ-13 [David Irving], IfZ Munich).
3. See Peter Reichel, Der schöne Schein des Dritten Reiches: Faszination und Gewalt des Faschismus, 3rd ed. (Munich and Vienna, 1996), pp. 116ff. See also Siegfried Zelnhefer, Die Reichsparteitag der NSDAP (Nürnberg, 1991); likewise Markus Urban, Die Konsensfabrik: Funktion und Wahrnehmung der NS-Reichsparteitag 1933–1941 (Göttingen, 2007), pp. 64ff.
4. “Gesetz über das Reichsbürgerrecht” and “Gesetz zum Schutz des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre,” in Reichsgesetzblatt 1935 I, pp. 1,146–1,147. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 566ff.
5. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-11588, BSB Munich.
6. On the expansion of Hoffman’s business, see Rudolf Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, pp. 52ff.: “On March 1, 1943, there were more than three hundred people employed in the main office and ten sub-offices.” Sales reached over 15 million reichsmarks in 1943.
7. See Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, pp. 359f. See also announcement for the “Begrüssungsansprache des Auslandspressechefs der NSDAP,” in Hanfstaengl Papers, Ana 405, box 27, file 1935, BSB. See also Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 254. Cf. Reichsparteitag 1935: Programm, Polizeiliche Anordnungen, Sonstiges, ed. Polizeidirekton Nürnberg-Fürth, State Archives, Nuremberg, pp. 1ff.
8. See Reichsparteitag 1935, p. 6.
9. However, Speer wrote to George L. Mosse on March 5, 1973: “The cathedral of light was displayed for the first time during the 1935 convention, at the rally of Party functionaries, after an earlier attempt on Bückeberg the previous year (at the harvest festival) failed due to insufficient resources. There were only movie spotlights available.” Albert Speer to George L. Mosse, n.p., March 5, 1973 (carbon copy), including “Anmerkungen zu [Notes to] George L. Mosse,” p. 4, in Albert Speer Papers, N 1340/39, BA Koblenz. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 568.
10. Herbert Döhring’s statements appear in Der Berghof—Hitler privat, parts 1 and 2 (DVD), ZeitReisen Verlag (Bochum, 2009).
11. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 164f. Cf. Zdral, Die Hitlers, pp. 112ff.
12. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 165. See also Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years, pp. 273–274. Hanfstaengl there claims, in the context of Eva Braun’s appearance at the 1935 convention: “Magda Goebbels, who thought she was the one woman to whom Hitler ought to pay attention, was ill-advised enough to make some disparaging remark [about Eva], which aroused Hitler to a fury. Magda was forbidden to enter the Chancellery for months…. In the end she was received again, but there was always a rivalry between the two women…. Each of them [stayed] in the besieged Führer-bunker as long as the other: to the end.” Joachimsthaler says as well, referring to Julius Schaub, that Eva Braun sat with Magda Goebbels among others on the VIP platform (Hitlers Liste, p. 456). In Anja Klabunde’s biography, however, there is no indication that Magda Goebbels was even at the convention, since she was very pregnant at the time; she checked into a Berlin hospital clinic even before the end of the convention, on September 15, 1935 (Magda Goebbels, p. 229).
13. Angela Hammitzsch [née Raubal] to Rudolf Hess, Oberlössnitz-Dresden, May 22, 1936 (original), in Rudolf Hess Papers J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 6, file 90, BA Bern.
14. For example, it has been claimed that Hitler threw his half-sister out of the house because she advocated for one of the victims after the “Röhm Putsch” of June 30, 1934. See Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, eds., Das Buch Hitler: Geheimdossier des NKWD für Josef W. Stalin, zusammengestellt aufgrund der Verhörprotokolle des Persönlichen Adjutanten Hitlers, Otto Günsche, und des Kammerdieners Heinz Linge (Bergisch Gladbach, 2005 [1st ed., Moscow, 1948/1949]), pp. 101f., and Linge, Bis zum Untergang, p. 79.
15. See the “Führer’s” invitation to Marga Himmler for the NSDAP convention of September 10–16, 1935, in Nuremberg, in Himmler Papers, N1126/20, Fol. 1, BA Koblenz; Hotel Kaiserhof Guest List, in Himmler Papers, N1126/20, Fol. 1, BA Koblenz. Eva Braun’s name does not appear on the list, nor does Magda Goebbels’s. See also Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, p. 456, which says that Angela Raubal met Eva Braun at the Hotel Kaiserhof.
16. See “Adjutantur des Führers, 20. Juni 1936,” H 124 00 363 (54), in Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP.
17. See “Eva Braun im Kreise der Mitarbeiter und Freunde Heinrich Hoffmanns auf einer Fotografie anlässlich seines Geburtstages am 12. September 1935,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-11583/hoff-11588, BSB Munich.
18. Ilse Hess to Helene Hess, Hohenlychen, August 28, 1935 (carbon copy), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 17, file 226 (H–Z), Swiss Federal Archives, Bern.
19. Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, p. 359.
20. Lambert, The Lost Life of Eva Braun.
21. Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, pp. 243 and 359.
22. See Plöckinger, Geschichte eines Buches, pp. 30 and 36; Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years (London, 1957), p. 127. See also Conradi, Hitler’s Piano Player, pp. 77ff.
23. Ernst Hanfstaengl to State Secretary Lammers, London, December 9 [and 24], 1937, in R 43 II/889b, Bl. 20 and 22, National Archive [Bundesarchiv, or BA], Berlin (hereafter cited as BA Berlin); Ernst Hanfstaengl to Julius Streicher, London, December 19, 1937, in R 43 II/889b, Bl. 25–31, BA Berlin. See also Conradi, Hitler’s Piano Player, pp. 241ff.
24. See Conradi, Hitler’s Piano Player, pp. 341ff. See also Office of Strategic Services, “Adolf Hitler,” December 3, 1942, p. 4, in CIA Special Collections, National Archives of the United States, Washington, DC; and Michael S. Bell, “The Worldview of Franklin D. Roosevelt: France, Germany, and the United States Involvement in World War II in Europe” (dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2004), pp. 333 and 393.
25. See here Leonidas E. Hill, “The Published Political Memoirs of Leading Nazis, 1933–1945,” in Political Memoir: Essays on the Politics of Memory, ed. George Egerton (London, 1994), pp. 225ff.
26. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 103; Fritz [Friedrich] Braun, statement of December 1, 1947, Öffentliche Sitzung der Spruchkammer München, in Denazification Court Records, box 188, State Archives, Munich.
27. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 103.
28. Henrietta von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, pp. 227f. The date of the incident cannot be determined from Schirach’s account.
29. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 101–104.
30. See Richard J. Evans, David Irving, Hitler, and Holocaust Denial: Pressures on Hitler’s Entourage After the War, electronic edition http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.org/trial/defense/evans/530bB.
31. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 104.
32. “Hitlers Schwiegereltern vor Gericht: Vater Braun war gegen das ‘schlampige Verhältnis,’ ” Die Welt, August 2, 1947, p. 3.
33. “Der öffentliche Kläger bei der Spruchkammer, Munich, 9. Juli 1947, Klageschrift gegen Franziska Katharina Braun,” in Denazification Court Records, box 188, State Archives, Munich.
34. “Hitlers Schwiegereltern vor Gericht”
35. Fritz Braun, statement of December 1, 1947. A Czech newspaper had published a picture of Eva Braun, describing her as “Hitler’s Madame Pompadour.” See Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, p. 426.
36. “Hitlers Schwiegereltern vor Gericht.”
37. Fritz Braun, statement of December 1, 1947.
38. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 105; Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, pp. 424f. See also Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, pp. 252f.
39. See the photograph of Königsplatz, Munich, September 5, 1935, in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-11463, BSB Munich.
40. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 88.; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 574.
41. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 252.
42. Adolf Hitler, “Mein privates Testament, 29. April 1945,” in Werner Maser, Hitlers Briefe und Notizen: Sein Weltbild in handschriftlichen Dokumenten (Düsseldorf, 1988), pp. 213ff. See also Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 266, where the will is mentioned, but not the passage referring to Franziska Braun.
43. Fritz Braun, statement of December 1, 1947. See also Eberle and Uhl, Das Buch Hitler, p. 352.
44. See Zdral, Die Hitlers, p. 207. See also Jürgen Hillesheim, Hitlers Schwester Paula Wolf und das “Dritte Reich” (Berlin, 1992).
45. Thus she wrote to Ilse Hess that Gauleiter Bürckel must “not disregard the laws and regulations still in effect. I know that Bürckel is in a difficult position, but his relations with his Austrians will not improve if incidents like this continue to arise.” Angela Hammitzsch to Ilse Hess, Dresden, January 22, 1940 (original), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 6, file 90, BA Bern.
46. See Winfried Müller, Schulpolitik in Bayern im Spannungsfeld von Kultusbürokratie und Besatzungsmacht 1945–1949 (Munich, 1995), p. 74.
47. See PG—Zum Mitgliedschaftswesen der NSDAP (no year), BA Koblenz; Christoph Wagner, Entwicklung, Herrschaft und Untergang der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung in Passau 1920–1945 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 151f.
48. See Müller, Schulpolitik in Bayern, pp. 74f. In 1937, Wagner ordered that every teacher must participate “in every cooperative effort and every community organization in the Party or the State.” Fritz Braun himself later said that he faced increasing difficulties at his technical school (Fritz Braun, written declaration of July 21, 1947, in Denazification Court Records, box 188, State Archives, Munich). See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 149, according to which Fritz Braun had “obstinately refused” until then to join the party.
49. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 159.
50. Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 273.; Peter Steinbach and Johannes Tuchel, “Georg Elser,” http://www.georg-elser.de/Steinbach_Tuchel_Elser_Politische_Koepfe.pdf. A novel by Wolfgang Brenner, Führerlos [Führerless] (Berlin, 2008), addresses the question of what Hitler’s death at this point in time might have meant for the Nazi state and for the fate of Eva Braun.
1. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 91, 94. See also Joachim Fest, Speer: Eine Biographie (Berlin, 1999), p. 14; Susanne Willems, Der entsiedelte Jude: Albert Speers Wohnungsmarktpolitik für den Berliner Hauptstadtbau (Berlin, 2002), pp. 20ff.
2. Margret Nissen, Sind Sie die Tochter Speer?, p. 25.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., pp. 23f.
5. See ibid., p. 26.
6. Margarete Speer, quoted in Sereny, Speer, p. 193.
7. Margarete Speer, quoted in Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, pp. 142 and 171.
8. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 88 and 100. See also Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries, p. 132.
9. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 88.
10. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 119.
11. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 93. See also Speer, quoted in Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 109: “I liked her right away and later we became good friends; she could use a friend.”
12. Fest, Speer, pp. 14f. and 462f.
13. Margarete Speer, quoted in Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 193.
14. See Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 405. Unlike Magda Goebbels, Margarete Speer—like Eva Braun—was not a member of the NSDAP.
15. See Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 235. See also Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 146 and 257.
16. See Ulf Schmidt, Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor; Medicine and Power in the Third Reich (London, 2007), p. 88.
17. Albert Speer explained that Hitler, although he never participated in sports, “thought it was very important that youth be thoroughly trained athletically.” This corresponded to the ideal he drew from his understanding of ancient Greek culture. See Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 118. See also Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 173f. and 265.
18. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, pp. 50 and 51.
19. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 173f. and 265; Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 51.
20. See Albert Schweitzer, Die Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben: Grundtexte aus fünf Jahrzehnten, 8th ed. (Munich, 2003), pp. 50ff. See also Schmidt, Karl Brandt, pp. 76ff. and 83f.
21. Karl Brandt, “Das Problem Hitler, Nr. 2,” September 27, 1945, p. 6, in Kleine Erwerbung 441–3, BA Koblenz, pp. 75 and 80. See also Ulrich Herbert, Best: Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft 1903–1989, 2nd ed. (Bonn, 1996), pp. 42–45.
22. See Volker Hess, “Die Medizinische Fakultät im Zeichen der ‘Führeruniversität,’ ” in Die Berliner Universität in der NS-Zeit. vol. 1, Strukturen und Personen, ed. Christoph Jahr (Stuttgart, 2005), pp. 46f.; Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 73.
23. See “Gruppenbild der Hochzeitsgesellschaft mit Hitler in Uniform, Göring, Wilhelm Brückner und dessen Freundin, der Münchner Künstlerin Sofie Stork,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-8918, BSB Munich.
24. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, pp. 95ff. The decision to make Brandt his accompanying physician came after Hitler’s visit to Italy to see Mussolini in 1934. From that point on, Brandt accompanied Hitler’s travels. See U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, APO 413, Interview No. 64, Dr. med. Karl Brandt, 17./18. Juni 1945, p. 456, in Irving Collection, ED 100, vol. 1002, USSBS: Interrogation Reports, vol. 2, IfZ Munich.
25. See Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 145; Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 131.
26. See ibid., pp. 104f. Later, Brandt moved into the Bechstein Villa in the spring of 1935 and Speer moved there that summer. At the end of May 1937, Speer moved into a studio building near the Berghof that he had designed himself (Inside the Third Reich, p. 84). See Ulrich Chaussy und Christoph Püschner, Nachbar Hitler: Führerkult und Heimatzerstörung am Obersalzberg, 5th ed. (Berlin, 2005), p. 91.
27. Speer later commented that he was “happy to have been granted so obvious a distinction and been admitted to the most intimate circle,” even if life in a fenced-in compound was not to his taste (Inside the Third Reich, pp. 84 and 149). See also Hamann, Winifred Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth, pp. 424 and 557f.
28. See Karl Brandt, “Das Problem Hitler, Nr. 2,” September 27, 1945, p. 5, in Kleine Erwerbung 441-3, BA Koblenz. See also Winfried Süss, Der “Volkskörper” im Krieg: Gesundheitspolitik, Gesundheitsverhältnisse und Krankenmord im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1939–1945 (Munich, 2003), p. 93; Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 200. In Spandau: The Secret Diaries Speer says, in an entry dated July 28, 1949, that Hitler had “forfeited all claim on [his, i.e., Speer’s] loyalty; loyalty to a monster cannot be” (p. 134).
29. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, pp. 118ff.
30. Ibid., pp. 154ff. and 159ff.
31. Ibid., pp. 177ff. According to Schmidt, there are practically no documents about the conversations between Brandt and Hitler; almost all Hitler’s instructions were given verbally (p. 224).
32. See Rüdiger Hachtmann and Winfried Süss, eds., Hitlers Kommissare: Sondergewalten in der nationalsozialistischen Diktatur, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, vol. 22 (Göttingen, 2006), pp. 12f. and 19ff. See also Willems, Der entsiedelte Jude, pp. 77ff. 182ff.
33. Cf. Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 72: “they chose to be” unaware of the truth. According to Schmidt, “ignorance was at the core of” both Eva Braun’s and Karl Brandt’s “relationships with Hitler.”
34. See Fest, Speer, p. 65; Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, pp. 54 and 86. But even Fest, in the end, cannot avoid remarking that Speer was clearly “among Hitler’s most radical followers” (p. 28).
35. See “Brandt. Report on Hitler,” in Headquarters Military Intelligence Service Center, U.S. Army, APO 757, OI Special Report 36, “Adolf Hitler: A Composite Picture (2 April 1947),” F135/4, p. 6, in David Irving Collection, “Adolph Hitler 1944–1953,” vol. 4, IfZ Munich, p. 692. Speer quotes this sentiment of Hitler’s, which he supposedly also expressed in Eva Braun’s presence, in Inside the Third Reich, where he says Hitler told him: “A highly intelligent man should take a primitive and stupid woman” (Inside the Third Reich, p. 92).
36. Karl Brandt, quoted in Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 72.
37. See “Originalnotizen von P. E. Schramm über Hitler, gemacht während der Befragungen von Hitlers Leibärzten, Haus ‘Alaska,’ d. h. Altersheim für Lehrerinnen im Taunus, Sommer 1945 in USA-Kriegsgefangenschaft,” p. 169, in Kleine Erwerbung 441–3, BA Koblenz. Under “Eva Braun,” Schramm notes: “Annoyance among entourage”; “has got nothing in life”; “had to be there”; “taste, discreet”; “absolutely no pol[itical] influence”; “runs people down”; “she hated Hoffmann”; “disapproved of Morell.”
38. See “Gruppenbild auf einer Tribüne: Anni Brandt, Eva Braun, Erna Hoffmann, Viktoria von Dirksen (in der Reihe dahinter Unity Mitford), Reichsparteitag der NSDAP 6.–13. September 1937, Hauptmarkt Nürnberg,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-16020, BSB Munich.
39. See Lang, Der Sekretär, pp. 49ff.
40. See ibid., p. 52.
41. See Martin Bormann, Leben gegen Schatten (Paderborn, 1996), pp. 12f.
42. For example, there is the following passage in a book by her father (Walter Buch, Des nationalsozialistischen Menschen Ehre und Ehrenschutz, 5th ed. [Munich, 1939], p. 15): “The National Socialist has recognized that the Jew is not a human being. The Jew is a putrid sign of decay.”
43. Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches, p. 366. See in this regard Gerda Bormann to Martin Bormann, Obersalzberg, February 7, 1945, in Martin Bormann, The Bormann Letters: The Private Correspondence between Martin Bormann and His Wife from January 1943 to April 1945, ed. Hugh Trevor-Roper (London, 1954), pp. 176f.
44. See Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, pp. 136ff.
45. See Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP, Teil I, Regesten, vol. 1, pp. viii ff.
46. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 298.
47. Darré, Aufzeichnungen, p. 295.
48. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 30ff.
49. See “Aufzeichnungen des Reichspressechefs Dr. Dietrich” (copy), in Kleine Erwerbung 441–3, p. 16, BA Koblenz.
50. See Robert Ley, “Abschied,” in “Aufzeichnungen in Nürnberg 1945,” p. 1, Robert Ley Papers, N 1468/4, BA Koblenz. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 476.
51. See Robert Ley, “Gedanken um den Führer,” in “Aufzeichnungen in Nürnberg 1945,” pp. 13ff, Robert Ley Papers, N 1468/4, BA Koblenz.
52. See Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 59.
53. See Robert Ley, “Gedanken um den Führer,” pp. 13ff.
54. Cf. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 87 and 93; Gun, Eva Braun, p. 136; Lang, Der Sekretär, pp. 108f.
1. See Reinhard Spitzy, So haben wir das Reich verspielt: Bekenntnisse eines Illegalen, 4th ed. (Munich, 1994), pp. 128f.
2. See Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, p. 227.
3. See Horst Möller et al., eds., Die tödliche Utopie: Bilder, Texte, Dokumente, Daten zum Dritten Reich (Munich and Berlin, 1999), pp. 62f.; Chaussy and Püschner, Nachbar Hitler, p. 45.
4. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 166. The rumor circulated among the staff that Eva Braun’s and Hitler’s rooms were connected by a “hidden door”: Eva Braun “had a room that was connected to Hitler’s bedroom by a secret door” (Therese Linke, unpublished handwritten memoir, no year [from the 1950s], in ZS 3135, vol. 1, IfZ Munich, p. 9).
5. Albert Speer to Werner Maser, n.p., January 30, 1967 (carbon copy), in Albert Speer Papers, N 1340/37, BA Koblenz. Cf. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 146.
6. Martin Bormann to Dr. Friedrich Wolffhardt, Führer Headquarters, December 27, 1941, U.S. National Archives, Washington National Records Center, Suitland, MD, quoted in Beierl, Geschichte des Kehlsteins, p. 8.
7. Ibid., p. 9.
8. Starting in 1934, Department 1 of the Reich Security Service (Reichssicherheitsdienst, RSD) and the SS-Begleitkommando under SS-Standartenführer Johann Rattenhuber were responsible for Hitler’s security. See Möller, ed., Die tödliche Utopie, p. 67; Chaussy and Püschner, Nachbar Hitler, p. 130. See also Peter Hoffmann, Die Sicherheit des Diktators: Hitlers Leibwachen, Schutzmassnahmen, Residenzen, Hauptquartiere (Munich and Zürich, 1975).
9. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 16 and 171.
10. Therese Linke, unpublished handwritten memoir, p. 9.
11. See Chaussy and Püschner, Nachbar Hitler, pp. 146ff.
12. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 100.
13. Christa Schroeder to Johanna Nusser, Führer Headquarters, August 30, 1941 (original), in ED 524, IfZ Munich. Fritz Wiedemann similarly states: “There were always the same people, proof of the consistency of the company at table” (undated notes, including “Obersalzberg,” (transcription), in Fritz Wiedemann Papers, Kleine Erwerbung Nr. 671, vol. 4, BA Koblenz.
14. Fritz Wiedemann, as cited in note 13, above. Hitler, according to Wiedemann, never worried about his own personal security. He repeatedly used to “rush off on a drive somewhere or another, or even to a play, without telling his security staff.”
15. Fritz Wiedemann, undated notes, as cited in note 13, above.
16. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 186.
17. Fritz Wiedemann, undated notes, as cited in note 13, above.
18. Ibid. Wiedemann first mentioned Eva Braun as well only in his memoir published in 1964: Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte: Erlebnisse und Erfahrungen des Vorgesetzten Hitlers im 1; Weltkrieg und seines späteren Persönlichen Adjutanten (Velbert, 1964), p. 79.
19. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 50f.
20. State Secretary and Head of the Chancellery (Lammers) to the Minister of Finance (Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk), Berchtesgaden, September 11, 1936 (copy), in R 43/4326, Bl. 5 u. 6, BA Berlin.
21. See Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, pp. 183f. See also Akten der Reichskanzlei, Regierung Hitler 1933–1945, vol. 5, Die Regierung Hitler 1938, ed. Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und dem Bundesarchiv (Munich, 2008).
22. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 32. The “Private Chancellery of the Führer and Chancellor,” run by Albert Bormann, Martin Bormann’s brother, was Chief Department 1 of the “Chancellery of the Führer.” It lost its significance, as did the “Chancellery,” when the “Party Chancellery” run by Martin Bormann (a renaming of the “Deupty Führer’s” staff after Rudolf Hess’s disappearance) was established in 1941.
23. See State Secretary and Head of the Chancellery (Lammers) to Retired Captain Wiedemann (adjutant to the Führer), Berlin, August 18, 1938 (copy), in Rep. 502, NG-1465, Bl. 739, State Archives, Nuremberg. Lammers writes that he has ordered payment of the “41 receipts” that Weidemann sent over from the Munich art dealer Maria Almas, totaling 284,550 reichsmarks. See also Hanns Christian Löhr, Das Braune Haus der Kunst: Hitler und der “Sonderauftrag Linz” (Berlin, 2005), p. 35; and Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Staatsbankrott: Die Geschichte der Finanzpolitik des Deutschen Reiches von 1920 bis 1945, geschrieben vom letzten Reichsfinanzminister (Göttingen, 1974), pp. 241f.
24. See Völkischer Beobachter, January 19, 1937, in R 43 II/1036, Bl. 103, BA Berlin. See also Franz Alfred Six, ed., Dokumente der deutschen Politik: Das Reich Adolf Hitlers, vol. 5 (Berlin, 1940).
25. State Secretary and Head of the Chancellery (Lammers) to the Minister of Finance (Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk), Berchtesgaden, September 11, 1936 (copy), in R 43/4326, Bl. 6, BA Berlin.
26. See Chaussy and Püschner, Nachbar Hitler, p. 132.
27. See Wiedemann, Der Mann der Feldherr werden wollte, pp. 68f. This was also a try for Party work, according to Otto Dietrich (12 Jahre mit Hitler, p. 45).
28. Reichsminister and Head of the Chancellery to the personal adjutant of the Führer and Chancellor (SA-Obergruppenführer Brückner), Berchtesgaden, October 21, 1938 (copy), in R 43 II/888b, F 1, Bl. 42, BA Berlin.
29. Reichsminister and Head of the Chancellery to Economic Minister Walther Funk, Berchtesgaden, October 24, 1938 (copy), in R 43 II/888b, F 1, Bl. 43, BA Berlin.
30. Reichsminister and Head of the Chancellery to the personal adjutant of the Führer and Chancellor (SA-Obergruppenführer Brückner), Berchtesgaden, October 21, 1938.
31. See Jörg Osterloh, “Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung im Reichsgau Sudetenland 1918–1945” (dissertation, Munich, 2006), p. 13.
32. See Reichsminister and Head of the Chancellery to the personal adjutant of the Führer and Chancellor (SA-Obergruppenführer Brückner), Berchtesgaden, October 25, 1938 (copy), in R 43 II/886a, F 3, Bl. 128f., BA Berlin. On Bl. 129, there is a handwritten note mentioning resubmission on October 27 and 31. Lammers, who clearly still had not received an answer from Brückner after two days, let his assistants remind him twice, presumably to try to get an answer by phone.
33. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 535; Hitler 1936–1945, p. 186; The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1987), p. 121. Kershaw writes that Hitler, from 1935–1936 on, withdrew more and more from domestic government activities and turned over political business to “chancelleries, ministries, and special plenipotentiary organizations.” Cf. Martin Moll, ed., “Führer-Erlasse” 1939–1945 (Stuttgart, 1997), p. 11. Moll maintains that this claim is based not least on a “giant gap in the sources with respect to civilian matters.”
34. See Wilhelm Treue, “Das Dritte Reich und die Westmächte auf dem Balkan,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 1 (1953), no. 1, p. 61. Cf. Dilek Barlas, Etatism & Diplomacy in Turkey: Economic & Foreign Policy Strategies in an Uncertain World, 1929–1939, The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage, vol. 14, (Leiden, 1998), pp. 188f.
35. See Moll, “Führer-Erlasse,” pp. 26ff.
36. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 126.
37. Wiedemann, Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte, p. 69.
38. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 100. How this process of reaching a decision and converting it to action actually played out remains unexplained. See in this regard Moll, “Führer-Erlasse,” p. 26.
39. See Hans Mommsen, “Hitlers Stellung im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem,” in Hirschfeld and Kettenacker, eds., Der “Führerstaat,” pp. 43–72; Carl Schmitt, “Der Zugang zum Machthaber: Ein zentrales verfassungsrechtliches Problem,” in Verfassungsrechtliche Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1924–1954, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1973), pp. 430ff.
40. See Fest, Hitler, p. 718; Knopp, Hitlers Frauen, p. 45.
41. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 144.
42. See Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: Biographie (Munich, 2008), pp. 760ff. Longerich likewise attributes to Himmler an “emotional void” due to insecurity and a deficient emotional life (p. 763).
43. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 104; Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, pp. 233f.
44. See Peter Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter: Führung der Partei und Kontrolle des Staatsapparates durch den Stab Hess und die Partei-Kanzlei Bormann (Munich, 1992), p. 109.
45. See Evans, David Irving, Hitler, and Holocaust Denial, electronic edition.
46. Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 34.
47. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 144: “This strict separation between politics and private life on the Obersalzberg” lasted until the end of the war. Meanwhile, Speer claims in his memoir that the other “close associates” of the Nazi leadership stayed away from the Obersalzberg (Inside the Third Reich, p. 92).
48. See “Anni Esser, Hanni und Theodor Morell sowie Eva Braun auf einer Tribüne am Nürnberger Marktplatz, 10. Reichsparteitag der NSDAP (5.–12. September 1938),” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-20423 and hoff-20447, BSB Munich.
49. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-14083 and hoff-50118, BSB Munich.
50. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 35.
51. Ibid., pp. 22f.
52. Hitler named Below Speer’s “liaison man to Hitler” on May 22, 1944. Below’s assignment was “to keep [Speer] constantly informed about the Führer’s remarks” (Inside the Third Reich, p. 350n).
53. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 81.
54. Ibid., pp. 166ff. Below admitted after the war that he heard about the Einsatzgruppen security forces’ murder of Jews in 1942, in Hitler’s Ukrainian headquarters in Vinnytsia; see KV Anklage, Interrogations, Rep. 502 VI B51, Nicolaus von Below, Interrogation 2786a of Nicolaus von Below, March 24, 1948, p. 10, State Archives, Nuremberg.
55. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 96. See also Maria von Below, quoted in Sereny, Albert Speer, pp. 113ff., and Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 33. Another woman in Hitler’s private circle, Winifred Wagner, expressed similar outrage over Speer’s Inside the Third Reich. No “opponent of Hitler’s” could have written worse things, she said; Hitler was “always [portrayed] as a despot along petit-bourgeois lines” while Speer “completely overlooked his genius—what was in my view his demonic side as well” (quoted in Hamann, Winifred Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth, p. 592).
56. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 95. See in this regard Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 136f. and 65f.
57. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 370.
58. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 74.
59. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 196.
60. See Sofie Stork, questionnaire from May 17, 1946, as well as Sofie Stork’s testimony from August 11, 1947, before the Munich Fourth District Court, in Denazification Court Records, box 1790, State Archives, Munich.
61. See the biographical details from the “Akten des Polizei-Präsidiums zu Berlin” of July 21, 1931 (copy), in N 26/2504, BA Berlin.
62. Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe, pp. 198f.
63. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 432f.
64. See Albert Bormann to Rudolf Hess, Berlin, June 9, 1938 (original), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1.211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 7, file 98, BA Bern.
65. See Conradi, Hitler’s Piano Player, p. 231.
66. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 248.
67. Wiedemann, Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte, p. 72.
68. Ibid.
69. See Lang, Der Sekretär, p. 97. Wilhelm Brückner’s interrogation by R.M.W. Kempner on August 26, 1947, KV-Anklage, in Interrogations B 173 (Wilhelm Brückner), State Archives, Nuremberg.
70. Albert Speer, quoted in Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 40.
71. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 29f. Gitta Sereny concludes, in contrast, that Anni Brandt, Maria von Below, and Margarete Speer “constituted a circle of their own, unconnected with the women on Hitler’s personal staff” (Albert Speer, p. 194).
72. See “Hitler, Otto Dietrich, Sofie Stork und Eva Braun u. a. im Freien an einem Tisch sitzend, 1934,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-49671, BSB Munich.
73. See Sofie Stork, testimony from October 13, 1948, before the Munich Fourth District Court, quoted in Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, pp. 500f. See also Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 38 and 216.
74. See daily planner, Sunday, June 19, 1938 (copy), in Albert Speer Papers, N 1340/288, BA Koblenz.
75. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 248. Kannenberg’s first name is given here as “Willy” (p. 440).
76. See Hamann, Winifred Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth, pp. 322 and 590.
77. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 38 and 57. See also Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 248.
78. See Georg Birnstiel to Albert Bormann, Munich, October 27, 1939, in Denazification Court Records, box 1790 (Sofie Stork), State Archives, Munich. See also Adalbert Keis, tax advice for the H. Stork company in a document from April 17, 1947, in Denazification Court Records, box 1790, State Archives, Munich. According to this document, Sofie Stork contributed 45,000 reichsmarks to her father’s business in 1937. See also in this regard Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, pp. 502ff. By way of comparison, a skilled laborer earned an average of approximately 1,900 reichsmarks a year at the time.
79. Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP, W 124 00093. A remark dated May 27, 1937, reads: “Receipt of a check from Bormann’s Chancellery via Sofie Stock [sic] Munich.” See also Georg Birnstiel to Albert Bormann, Munich, October 27, 1939, in Denazification Court Records, box 1790 (Sofie Stork), State Archives, Munich; similarly, “Brieftagebuch des NSKK-Brigadeführers Albert Bormann, 29. Juli 1939 bis 14. Juli 1941,” in NS 24/327, BA Berlin.
80. “Brieftagebuch des NSKK-Brigadeführers Albert Bormann, 29. Juli 1939 bis 14. Juli 1941,” in NS 24/327, BA Berlin.
81. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 38.
82. See Frank Bajohr, Parvenüs und Profiteure: Korruption in der NS-Zeit (Frankfurt am Main, 2001), pp. 37f.; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 674.
83. See Heinrich Hoffmann’s questioning on November 13, 1946, p. 5, in Rep. 502, KV-Anklage Interrogations, H 180 (VI), State Archives, Nuremberg.
84. See Marianne Schönmann, statement from April 16, 1947, Munich District Court, quoted in Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, p. 508. According to Schönmann’s own statement, she first met Hitler after Heinrich Hoffmann’s second wedding on April 18, 1934, in the photographer’s house; she was still named Petzl at the time.
85. Ibid., p. 510. Hitler included Marianne Schönmann (under the name Marion Perard-Theisen) on his “gift list” as early as Christmas 1935 (ibid., p. 14).
86. See “Hochzeit Marion Schön[e]manns, 7. August 1937,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-15850, BSB Munich.
87. Marianne Schönmann, statement from April 16, 1947, p. 510. A U.S. Army military intelligence service report determined that, according to statements from Karl Friedrich von Eberstein (member of the NSDAP and SS; Munich chief of police from 1936 to 1942), Eva Braun couldn’t stand “Marion Schoenemann” and finally succeeded in getting her banned from Hitler’s environment: Eberstein, “Women around Hitler,” in Headquarters Military Intelligence Service Center, U.S. Army, APO 757, OI Special Report 36, “Adolf Hitler: A Composite Picture (2. April 1947),” p. 9, F135/4, in David Irving Collection, “Adolph Hitler 1944–1953,” vol. 4, IfZ Munich, p. 695. Nicolaus von Below, on the other hand, recalled that Schönmann was one of Eva Braun’s friends whom she brought along from Munich to the Berghof (Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 96f.).
88. See Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, APO 124 A, Evidence Division, Interrogation Branch, Interrogation Summary No. 413, 4 November 1946, Nuremberg (Dr. Karl Brandt), State Archives, Nuremberg.
89. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 66f.
90. Walter Schellenberg, Aufzeichnungen: Die Memoiren des letzten Geheimdienstchefs unter Hitler, ed. Gita Petersen, newly annotated by Gerald Fleming (Wiesbaden and Munich, 1979), p. 52.
91. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 85.
92. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 152f.
93. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 96f.
94. See Gerhard Paul, “Joseph Bürckel—Der rote Gauleiter,” in Smelser et al., eds., Die braune Elite II, pp. 59ff.
95. Decree of Josef Bürckel’s from March 22, 1938, quoted in Alexander Mejstrik et al., Berufsschädigungen in der nationalsozialistischen Neuordnung der Arbeit: Vom österreichischen Berufsleben 1934 zum völkischen Schaffen 1938–1940, Veröffentlichungen der Österreichischen Historikerkommission, Vermögensentzug während der NS-Zeit sowie Rückstellungen und Entschädigungen seit 1945 in Österreich, vol. 16 (Munich, 2004), p. 299.
96. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 97. Cf. Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler (Hamburg, 1967), pp. 267f.
97. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 94.
98. See Doris Seidel, “Die jüdische Gemeinde Münchens 1933–1945,” in München arisiert: Entrechtung und Enteignung der Juden in der NS-Zeit, ed. Angelika Baumann and Andreas Heusler for the state capital of Munich (Munich, 2004), pp. 34f. On Fiehler, see Helmut M. Hanko, “Kommunalpolitik in der ‘Hauptstadt der Bewegung’ 1933–1935: Zwischen ‘revolutionärer’ Umgestaltung und Verwaltungskontinuität,” in Martin Broszat et al., eds., Bayern in der NS-Zeit: Herrschaft und Gesellschaft im Konflikt, part 3 (Munich, 1981), pp. 334ff. and 417ff.
99. See Julia Schmideder, “Das Kaufhaus Uhlfelder,” in München arisiert, pp. 130ff.
100. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 94; for “sworn to silence,” see the German original: Speer, Erinnerungen, (Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1993 [1st ed., 1969]), p. 108.
101. See Mejstrik et al., Berufsschädigungen in der nationalsozialistischen Neuordnung der Arbeit, pp. 131f.
102. See Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, p. 306. See also Lynn H. Nicholas, Der Raub der Europa: Das Schicksal europäischer Kunstwerke im Dritten Reich (Munich, 1995), pp. 57ff.
103. Hans Heinrich Lammers to Heinrich Himmler, Berlin, June 18, 1938, in R 43 II, 1296a, Bl. 5, BA Berlin. Cf. Löhr, Das Braune Haus der Kunst, pp. 22f.
104. See Haase, Die Kunstsammlung Adolf Hitler, pp. 16ff.; Brigitte Hamann, Hitlers Wien: Lehrjahre eines Diktators, 5th ed. (Munich, 2002), pp. 11ff.; Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 99.
105. See Löhr, Das Braune Haus der Kunst, p. 129.
106. For example, Hitler’s art dealer Karl Haberstock gave Hitler’s secretary Christa Schroeder an “Italian Renaissance storage bench” and a “mirror from the year 1510” with a frame “by the Italian sculptor Sanvoni,” which she proudly displayed in her Berlin apartment. See Christa Schroeder to Johanna Nusser, Berlin, April 28, 1941, in ED 524, IfZ Munich; likewise Spitzy, So haben wir das Reich verspielt, p. 211.)
107. Heinrich Hoffmann’s questioning on November 13, 1946.
108. Ibid.
109. Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, APO 124 A, Evidence Division, Interrogation Branch, Interrogation Summary No. 413, 4. November 1946, Nuremberg (Dr. Karl Brandt), State Archives, Nuremberg.
110. See Nicholas, Der Raub der Europa, pp. 47 and 213; also Gerhard Engel, Heeresadjutant bei Hitler 1938–1943, ed. and annotated by Hildegard von Kotze, Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, vol. 29 (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 33f.
111. See Löhr, Das Braune Haus der Kunst, p. 127; Haase, Die Kunstsammlung Adolf Hitler, pp. 52ff. These two authors do not agree on the question of whether Maria Almas-Dietrich was a member of the NSDAP.
112. See State Secretary and Head of the Chancellery (Lammers) to Retired Captain Wiedemann (adjutant to the Führer), Berlin, August 18, 1938 (copy), in Rep. 502, NG-1465, Bl. 739, State Archives, Nuremberg.
113. See Gabriele Anderl and Alexandra Caruso, eds., NS-Kunstraub in Österreich und die Folgen (Innsbruck, 2005), p. 41.
114. See Ernst Günther Schenck, Patient Hitler: Eine medizinische Biographie (Augsburg, 2000), p. 163. Schenck dates the meeting to December 25, 1936, relying on a statement by Heinrich Hoffmann’s son. See also Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 105. According to Speer, the first meeting between Hitler and Morell took place long before the end of 1936, possibly even by late 1935. Speer admits to having sought out Morell’s services himself in 1936, on Hitler’s suggestion. See also U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, APO 413, Interview No. 64, “Dr. med. Karl Brandt, 17–18. Juni 1945,” p. 457, in David Irving Collection, ED 100, USSBS: Interrogation Reports, vol. 2, IfZ Munich. Brandt states that Hoffmann brought the future “personal physician” with him to Berlin in 1936, as his own doctor. Morell even lived in Hoffmann’s Berlin apartment at first, which is how he met Hitler.
115. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-15850 and hoff-16378, BSB Munich.
116. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-20423/hoff-50275/hoff-20676, BSB Munich.
117. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 121.
118. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 105: “From then on, Morell belonged to the intimate circle.” See also Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 97, according to which the Morells were invited to the Berghof for Easter 1938, along with the Bormanns, the Speers, and the Brandts. Also Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 206: “Hitler named him his personal physician and later also made him a professor.” In this regard, see Schenck, Patient Hitler, p. 163. Schenck, who analyzed the “Morell Papers” from the U.S. National Archives, held the view that Morell became part of Hitler’s innermost circle only after the beginning of the Second World War, i.e., in 1941.
119. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 105.
120. Franz von Sonnleithner, Als Diplomat im “Führerhauptquartier” (Munich and Vienna, 1989), p. 59.
121. See Hamann, Winifred Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth, pp. 374f.
122. See Kershaw, Der Hitler-Mythos, pp. 162f. and 167; Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 206.
123. Cf. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 105; Schellenberg, Aufzeichnungen, p. 75. According to Schellenberg, head of domestic counterespionage in the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or RSHA) in 1939, Himmler assigned him to keep Morell under surveillance after the outbreak of war, since he found Morell suspicious on numerous grounds; however, “a connection with enemy secret services” on Morell’s part could “not be proven.”
124. Schenck, Patient Hitler, pp. 163f.
125. Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, p. 185. He referred here to Morell’s wife, Hanni Moller, who allegedly said that bodily examinations of Hitler were impossible for this reason. See Schenck, Patient Hitler, pp. 162 and 180ff.
126. See Reich Minister and Head of the Chancellery, Lammers, to Professor Dr. med. Morell, Berlin, January 31, 1943 (copy), in F 123, Sammlung Prof. Morell 1937–1945, IfZ Munich (original documents in the possession of Dr. Justin MacCarthy, 608 S. Granite St., Deming, NM 88030, USA).
127. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 206.
128. See Hamann, Winifred Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth, p. 374; Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 394.
129. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 87.
130. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 105–106.
131. See ibid., p. 106.
132. Cf. Katz, Theo Morell, pp. 169 and 287. Katz declares that this claim is one of the “many stupid stories” in Speer’s Inside the Third Reich.
133. Ilse Hess to Carla Leitgen, n.p., February 3, 1938 (carbon copy), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 9, file 111, Swiss Federal Archives, Bern.
134. See Theodor Morell, 1944 calendar (entry of January 8: “Call [… ] Miss Eva”), in Theodor Morell Papers, N 1438/2, BA Koblenz.
135. See Katz, Theo Morell, p. 253.
136. Thus Morell, while staying on the Obersalzberg on April 20, 1943, noted that Hitler had begun an evening “Enterofagos treatment” and “Eva Braun likewise”; see David Irving, Die geheimen Tagebücher des Dr. Morell: Leibarzt Adolf Hitlers (Munich, 1983), p. 123).
137. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 133. The historian Percy Ernst Schramm also noted, during the questioning of Hitler’s doctors after the war, under the keyword “Eva Braun”: “disapproved of Morell.” “Originalnotizen von P. E. Schramm über Hitler, gemacht während der Befragungen von Hitlers Leibärzten. Haus ‘Alaska’, d. h. Altersheim für Lehrerinnen im Taunus, Sommer 1945 in USA-Kriegsgefangenschaft,” in Kl. Erwerb. 441–3, p. 169, BA Koblenz.
138. Brandt emphasized after the war his “disapproving sense of Morell as a person and as a doctor.” Morell was, in Brandt’s view, incompetent as a scientist and “himself practically uninvolved” in such procedures; see Karl Brandt, “Theo Morell,” September 19, 1945 (Haus “Alaska” in Taunus as an American prisoner of war, summer 1945), in Kl. Erwerbungen 441–3 (copy), pp. 61f., BA Koblenz.
139. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, pp. 492ff.
140. Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, p. 50.
141. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 81.
142. Quoted from Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 180. See also Hans-Ulrich Thamer, Verführung und Gewalt: Deutschland 1933–1945 (Berlin, 1986), pp. 69 and 95. In any case, there was already talk of “our Führer” since the fall of 1921 in the Völkischer Beobachter.
143. See Plöckinger, Geschichte eines Buches, pp. 329f.; Mathias Rösch, Die Münchner NSDAP 1925–1933: Eine Untersuchung zur inneren Struktur der NSDAP in der Weimarer Republik (Munich, 2002), p. 513.
144. Speer, Spandau, p. 442.
145. See Interrogation Summary No. 666, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, APO 124 A, Evidence Division, Interrogation Branch, “Interrogation of Hermann Esser, Staatssekretär, Interrogated by Mr. Fehl, 6 December 1946, Nuremberg,” p. 2, in ZS 1030 (Hermann Esser), IfZ Munich. Esser as president of the Reich Tourism Association (Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP, p. 287).
146. See Rösch, Die Münchner NSDAP 1925–1933, p. 193; Ernst Piper, Alfred Rosenberg: Hitlers Chefideologe (Munich, 2005), pp. 124f.
147. Interrogation Summary No. 666, pp. 3f.
148. Ibid.
149. Hermann Esser and Johann Jacob Bierbrauer, Die jüdische Weltpest: Judendämmerung auf dem Erdball, 6th ed. (Munich, 1941).
150. See Interrogation Summary No. 666, p. 2. The National Socialist Party platform of 1920 was, according to Esser, completely different from those of 1939 and 1940 with respect to the “Jewish question.” Esser also claimed that he had nothing to do with the decision at the 1935 convention (p. 3). The fact is, Rosenberg himself denied to the end that he knew about the extermination policies of the Nazis, despite being very precisely informed about the “Final Solution” and despite his own involvement in the extermination actions as the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. See Piper, Alfred Rosenberg, pp. 579ff. and 634f.
151. In 1950, Esser was sentenced to five years in prison in the denazification proceedings; he was released early, after two years.
152. See Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 144. Speer counted Esser—along with Eva Braun, Bormann, Brandt, Morell, Sepp Dietrich, Botschafter Hewel, and himself—as members of the Berghof circle. See also Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 94: Junge, who traveled along to the Obersalzberg for the first time in March 1943, mentions “Minister of State Esser and his wife” as guests.
153. See “Gruppenbild vor Modell Haus des Fremdenverkehrs in Berlin, Berghof, 10. Januar 1937,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-14728, BSB Munich.
154. The ruins were torn down in 1964.
155. See Piper, Alfred Rosenberg, p. 12.
156. For example, Esser read aloud the “Führer’s Proclamation” at the annual “Celebration of the Founding of the Party” in Munich’s Hofbräuhaus on February 24, 1943, while Hitler was residing “in the east” at his “Wolf’s Lair Führer Headquarters” (“Wortlaut der Führerproklamation,” in Franz Ritter von Epp Papers, N 1101/86, BA Koblenz).
157. See Thilo Nowack, “Rhein, Romantik, Reisen: Der Ausflugs- und Erholungsreiseverkehr im Mittelrheintal im Kontext gesellschaftlichen Wandels (1890–1970)” (dissertation, University of Bonn, 2006), pp. 117ff.
158. See in this regard Bajohr, “Unser Hotel ist judenfrei,” pp. 16ff.; Alfred Bernd Gottwaldt and Diana Schulle, “Juden ist die Benutzung von Speisewagen untersagt”: Die antijüdische Politik des Reichsverkehrsministeriums zwischen 1933–1945 (Teetz, 2007).
159. See Susanne Appel, Reisen im Nationalsozialismus: Eine rechtshistorische Untersuchung, Schriften zum Reise- und Verkehrsrecht, vol. 3 (Baden-Baden, 2001); Kristin Semmens, Seeing Hitler’s Germany: Tourism in the Third Reich (University of Victoria, Palgrave, Canada, 2005).
160. See Prof. Dr. von Hasselbach, “Hitlers Mangel an Menschenkenntnis,” September 26, 1945 (copy), p. 5, in Kl. Erwerbungen 441–3, BA Koblenz.
161. See Michael Humphrey, Die Weimarer Reformdiskussion über das Ehescheidungsrecht und das Zerrüttungsprinzip: Eine Untersuchung über die Entwicklung des Ehescheidungsrechts in Deutschland von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart unter Berücksichtigung rechtsvergleichender Aspekte (Göttingen, 2006), p. 74.
162. Minister of Justice to Reich Minister and Head of the Chancellery, Berlin, October 29, 1938 (copy), in Fa 199/47, IfZ Munich.
163. Marriage Act (Gesetz zur Vereinheitlichung des Rechts der Eheschliessung und der Ehescheidung im Lande Österreich und im übrigen Reichsgebiet [Law for the Standardization of Marriage and Divorce Rights between the State of Austria and the Other Territory in the Reich]) of July 6, 1938, Section 55, in Reichsgesetzblatt I 1938, pp. 807ff.
164. Ibid. The actual words of Section 9, Ehebruch (Adultery), are: “(1) Eine Ehe darf nicht geschlossen werden zwischen einem wegen Ehebruchs geschiedenen Ehegatten und demjenigen, mit dem er den Ehebruch begangen hat, wenn dieser Ehebruch im Scheidungsurteil als Grund der Scheidung festgestellt ist. (2) Von dieser Vorschrift kann Befreiung bewilligt werden.”
165. Reich Minister and Head of the Chancellery to Minister of Justice Gürtner, Berchtesgaden, November 23, 1938 (copy), in Fa 199/47, IfZ Munich.
166. Ibid.
167. See in this regard Lothar Gruchmann, Justiz im Dritten Reich 1933–1940: Anpassung und Unterwerfung in der Ära Gürtner, 3rd ed. (Munich, 2002).
168. Transcript of the judgment of the Berlin district court from December 23, 1938, ref. no. 220. R.303.38, in Fa 199/47, IfZ Munich.
169. Hermann Esser to Reich Minister Dr. Lammers, Berlin, December 23, 1938 (copy), in Fa 199/47, IfZ Munich.
170. Minister of Justice to Reich Minister and Head of the Chancellery Dr. Lammers, Berlin, February 6, 1939 (copy), in Fa 199/47, IfZ Munich.
171. See photographs of the wedding party, April 5, 1939, in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-24169, BSB Munich.
172. See “Eva Braun während der Taufe im Hause Hermann Essers in München,” undated, in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-363, BSB Munich. According to a statement by Hedwig Hoffmann, a former employee at Esser’s house, Eva Braun was invited to the celebration as a godmother because she “was an acquaintance of Frau Esser.” (Aussage der Zeugin Hedwig Hoffmann, 18. Oktober 1949, Öffentliche Sitzung der Berufungskammer, München, VI Senat, zur mündlichen Verhandlung über den Nachlass der verstorbenen Eva Hitler, geb. Braun [Witness statement from Hedwig Hoffmann, October 18, 1949, official session of the appellate chamber, Munich, Sixth Senate, for oral arguments concerning the estate of the deceased Eva Hitler, née Braun], in Denazification Court Records, box 718, State Archives, Munich.) Hanfstaengl also stated that Eva Braun was friends with Esser’s second wife since their schooldays: Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, p. 359.
173. The Brandts’ son, born on October 4, 1935, was given the name Karl-Adolf. Speer’s son, born 1937, was named Friedrich Adolf. Ribbentrop also named his son Adolf. Rudolf Hess, in turn, took on the role of godfather to one of Bormann’s sons, who was named Rudolf (Gerhard) after him.
174. See Adolf Hitler, “Rede vor der NS-Frauenschaft am 8. September 1934,” in Hitler, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, p. 451.
175. See Michael Rissmann, Hitlers Gott: Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewusstsein des deutschen Diktators (Zürich and Munich, 2001), p. 80.
176. Ferdinand Hoffmann, Sittliche Entartung und Geburtenschwund, Schriften für naturgesetzliche Politik und Wissenschaft, H. 4, 2nd, expanded, ed. (Munich, 1938), pp. 6 and 14.
177. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 92; Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, p. 228. See also Gerda Bormann to Martin Bormann, Obersalzberg, December 25, 1943, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, p. 38.
178. Note from the Führer Headquarters, October 21/22, 1941, in Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944, p. 99.
179. Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 30.
180. Hitler, quoted in Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 92. See also Hamann, Hitlers Wien, pp. 536ff. The Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, in contrast, did not share this attitude. He is quoted as having said the following: “I’m not married to Italy, after all, the way Hitler is with Germany.” See Rachele Mussolini, Mussolini ohne Maske: Erinnerungen, ed. Albert Zarca (Stuttgart, 1974).
181. “Der Führer spricht zur deutschen Frauenschaft,” in Reden des Führers am Parteitag der Ehre 1936, 4th ed. (Munich, 1936), p. 44.
182. Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik: Die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933, 4th ed. (Munich, 1994), pp. 214ff.
183. Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944, p. 230.
184. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 92. Kershaw adopts this evaluation of Braun: “For prestige reasons, he kept her away from the public eye” (Hitler 1936–1945, p. 34).
185. “Besprechung zwischen Mr. Albrecht und Frl. Paula Hitler,” Berchtesgaden, May 26, 1945. See also Zdral, Die Hitlers, p. 207; Alfred Läpple, Paula Hitler—Die Schwester: Ein Leben in der Zeitenwende, 2nd ed. (Stegen am Ammersee, 2005), pp. 147ff.
186. Rudolf Hess to Ilse Pröhl, Landsberg Castle, June 8, 1924, in Hess, Briefe 1908–1933, p. 332. Otto Dietrich, formerly Reich Press Chief and in Hitler’s innermost circle, remarked on Hitler’s “aversion to everything familial” (12 Jahre mit Hitler, p. 235). See also Hamann, Hitlers Wien, p. 516, which says that Hitler experienced inhibitions and fear of contact with women even in his early years. He apparently confided to Reinhold Hanisch, whom he knew from his time in the homeless shelter for men in Vienna, that he was afraid of the “possible consequences” of an intimate relationship.
187. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 86 and 92.
188. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 119.
189. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 166f. Henry Picker, in contrast, claims that Braun was the “lady of the house” and “in charge of running the Berghof”; see Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier: Entstehung, Struktur, Folgen des Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 1997), pp. 352ff.
190. See Hanskarl von Hasselbach, “Hitler,” in Headquarters Military Intelligence Service Center, U.S. Army, APO 757, OI Special Report 36, “Adolf Hitler: A Composite Picture (2 April 1947),” F135/4, p. 6, in David Irving Collection, “Adolph Hitler 1944–1953,” vol. 4, IfZ Munich, p. 714. Albert Speer, on the other hand, emphasized that Eva Braun was “very shy and very modest” and “much maligned” by others’ backbiting (Sereny, Albert Speer, pp. 192f.). See also Spitzy, So haben wir das Reich verspielt, p. 129: Ribbentrop’s adjutant here describes Braun as “a child of the petit bourgeoisie,” with no “class.” An “educated, intelligent wife at Hitler’s side,” in contrast, would have been able to be a “moderating influence at his side.”
191. See Ian Kershaw, Hitlers Macht: Das Profil der NS-Herrschaft (Munich, 1992), pp. 31ff.
192. Ley, “Gedanken um den Führer,” p. 22.
193. See Emmy Göring, An der Seite meines Mannes: Begebenheiten und Bekenntnisse, 4th ed. (Coburg, 1996), pp. 148f.
194. See Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, pp. 71ff. and 202. See also Werner Maser, Hermann Göring: Hitlers janusköpfiger Paladin; Die politische Biographie (Berlin, 2000); James Wyllie, The Warlord and the Renegade: The Story of Hermann and Albert Goering (Sutton, 2006).
195. Emmy Göring, An der Seite meines Mannes, p. 149.
196. On Hermann Göring’s declining significance, see Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, p. 359. It is noteworthy that Göring applied for membership in the NSDAP for his wife in January 1939 (ibid., p. 203). The issue with Emmy Göring’s invitation of Eva Braun was certainly not the supposed “faux pas” of “inviting Eva Braun to tea together with the staff of the Berghof,” as Anna Maria Sigmund claims (Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 264).
197. See Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 119.
198. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 19f.; Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 240. See also Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 100–101: he describes an “unbreakable wall” and writes that Hitler “was never completely relaxed and human” in others’ presence—not even with Eva Braun. Earlier, Speer claimed that Hitler tried to come across “as a good ‘paterfamilias’ ” in the private realm (Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 112).
199. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 92 and 123.
200. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, pp. 69ff., 112, and 118.
201. Seventh Army Interrogation Center, APO/758, May 26 1945, “Amann’s Control of German Press,” in David Irving Collection, “Adolph Hitler 1944–1953,” F 135/3, IfZ Munich, p. 490.
202. Walther Darré, Aufzeichnungen von 1945–1948, vol. 2, p. 369.
203. See “Biographical Report, Nurnberg, 26 October, 1945.” Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel APO 403, U.S. Army, Interrogation Division, in ZS 1452 (Franz Xaver Schwarz), IfZ Munich.
204. Interrogation of Reich Treasurer Schwarz, 21 July 1945, 1600 Hours, in ZS 1452 (Franz Xaver Schwarz), IfZ Munich. An interview record from the same day reports: “Hitler seemed to him [i.e., to Schwarz] an honest, intelligent man of great strength of character. He maintained that his relations with women were on a high plane. Stating that Hitler became a close friend of Eva Braun as early as 1931, he insisted that the relationship was purely platonic since Hitler had decided to forgo matrimony in the interest of his country; Eva Braun frequented the Schwarz household.”
205. Report on Historical Interrogations of German Prisoners of War and Detained Persons, 20 December 1945 (Lt. Col. Oron J. Hale), War Department Historical Commission, War Department Special Staff, Historical Division, in Fh 51, IfZ Munich.
206. “Besprechung zwischen Herrn Albrecht und Frl. Schröder, früher Sekretärin von Hitler,” Berchtesgaden, May 22, 1945, p. 3, in MA 1298/10, Microfilm, Various Documents DJ-13 (David Irving), IfZ Munich.
207. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 155f.
208. Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” pp. 22f.
209. Ibid., pp. 18ff. and 21f.
210. “Vernehmung des Julius Schaub am 12. 3. 1947 von 15.30 bis 16.00 durch Dr. Kempner,” pp. 6f., in ZS 137 (Julius Schaub), IfZ Munich. See also Julius Schaub, In Hitlers Schatten: Erinnerungen und Aufzeichnungen des Chefadjutanten 1925–1945, ed. Olaf Rose (Stegen am Ammersee, 2005), p. 278.
211. See Kershaw, The “Hitler Myth,” p. 121.
212. Karl Brandt stated in September 1945 that Schaub certainly had a “very exact picture” of “Hitler’s private life.” He described the adjutant as a petty and self-important schemer who spread “gossip of the pettiest kind” and often created conflicts in Hitler’s circle with his “sneaky dealings” and “dreaded deviousness.” Schaub influenced “Hitler’s judgment of people” and therefore “even men of high and dignified office very much paid court to him” (Karl Brandt, “Julius Schaub,” September 20, 1945, “Oberursel/Alaska,”, p. 71, in Kl. Erwerbungen 441–3 [copy], BA Koblenz). On Schaub’s role see also Angela Hermann, “Hitler und sein Stosstrupp in der ‘Reichskristallnacht,’ ” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 56 (2008), pp. 603–619.
213. Herta Schneider, “Aussage vom 23. Juni 1949, Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Herta Schneider, geb. Ostermayr,” in Denazification Court Records, box 1670, State Archives, Munich.
214. Heinrich Hoffmann, “Aussage vom 1. Juli 1949, Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Eva Hitler, geb. Braun,” in Denazification Court Records, box 718 (Eva Hitler, geb. Braun), State Archives, Munich. Braun’s sister, Ilse Fucke-Michels, stated that Eva Braun “worked in Herr Hoffmann’s sales office until 1945 and also took photographs for the love of it”; Eva Braun “earned a net monthly salary of 400 reichsmarks in the later years.” Her “special photographs” were paid for “separately” by Hoffmann. See Ilse Fucke-Michels, Aussage vom 31. Mai 1949, Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München, in Denazification Court Records, box 718 (Eva Hitler, geb. Braun), State Archives, Munich. See also Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, p. 466. Eva Braun shot movies with a 16 mm Agfa-Movex camera.
215. See the reproduced receipt in the German edition of Gun, Eva Braun (Eva Braun-Hitler, p. 128 [g]). See also Herta Schneider, statement of June 23, 1949 (previously cited): Braun, Schneider said, still “worked” in Munich “during the first year of the war.”
216. Heinrich Hoffmann, statement of July 1, 1949, previously cited. See also Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 254: “Eva stopped working at the end of 1935.”
217. On corruption among Hitler’s entourage, see Bajohr, Parvenüs und Profiteure, pp. 58ff.
218. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 93. In late June 1939, Eva Braun traveled with her mother and younger sisters on a cruise through the Norwegian fjords, aboard the KdF ship the MS Milwaukee (Lambert, The Lost Life of Eva Braun, p. 372; see also Gun, Eva Braun, p. 179). The fact that Eva Braun traveled independently contradicts Speer’s claim that Eva Braun had no freedom or latitude and always had to be present whenever Hitler was on the Obersalzberg.
219. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 82. Speer claims that he himself suffered under the need to always be at Hitler’s beck and call.
220. Statement from Adolf Widmann, “Protokoll der Öffentlichen Sitzung vom 15. Oktober 1948 zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Eva Anna Paula Hitler, geb. Braun,” Munich District Court 1, in Denazification Court Records, box 718 (Eva Hitler, geb. Braun), State Archives, Munich. See also in this regard Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste, pp. 459ff.
221. “Berufungskammer für München, Abteilung Ermittlung an den Generalkläger beim Kassationshof im Bayerischen Ministerium für Sonderaufgaben, München, 13. September 1948,” in Denazification Court Records, box 718 (Eva Hitler, geb. Braun), State Archives, Munich.
222. See Munich District Court, land register of Bogenhausen, vol. 90, Bl. 2574, p. 6. A sales contract no longer exists, and the original files were also destroyed, in an air raid on December 17, 1944. Munich District Court, Div. 3, to the General Prosecutor at Kassationshof in the State Ministry for Special Tasks, Munich, March 11, 1948, in Denazification Court Records, box 718 (Eva Hitler, geb. Braun), State Archives, Munich.
223. Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 22. See also Heinrich Hoffmann’s statement of July 1, 1949—he was in prison at the time, and classified as a Class 1 Major Offender—for the “Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Eva Hitler, geb. Braun, in Denazification Court Records, box 718 (Eva Hitler, geb. Braun),” State Archives, Munich.
224. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 140. See also Eva Braun’s registration card dated August 24, 1935, State Archives, Munich.
225. See Walter Wönne and Falko Berg, Halte, was Du hast: Erinnerungen (n.p., 2000), p. 404.
226. Adolf Hitler, “Reichstagsrede vom 7. März 1936,” in Johannes Hohlfeld, ed., Dokumente der Deutschen Politik und Geschichte von 1848 bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 4, Die Zeit der nationalsozialistischen Diktatur 1933–1945: Aufbau und Entwicklung 1933–1938 (Berlin, n.d.) pp. 275ff. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 532f.
227. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 219.
228. Joseph Goebbels, quoted in Frank Omland, “Du wählst mi nich Hitler!” Reichstagswahlen und Volksabstimmungen in Schleswig-Holstein 1933–1938 (Hamburg, 2006), p. 132.
229. “Besprechung zwischen Mr. Albrecht und Frl. Paula Hitler,” Berchtesgaden, May 26, 1945, as cited in note 185, above.
230. Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944, p. 158. See also Rissmann, Hitlers Gott, pp. 176ff., and Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler, pp. 168f. Hitler, according to Dietrich, believed in “the existence of a higher being and the prevailing of a higher purpose, in a sense that he never explicitly defined.”
231. See “Gruppenbild, u. a. mit Helene Bechstein, Erna Hoffmann und Eva Braun in der zweiten Reihe hinter Otto Dietrich, Adolf Wagner und Hitler sitzend,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-12309, BSB Munich.
232. Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944, p. 356.
233. Title page, Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, August 24, 1919, in Weimar in Berlin: Porträt einer Epoche, ed. Manfred Görtemaker and Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin-Brandenburg, 2002), p. 186.
234. Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944, p. 356.
235. RMdI, 7. Juni 1935, H 101 13805–09, in Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP, p. 59.
236. “Der Chef des Reichssicherheitsdienstes, Himmler, an die Aussenstelle Garmisch-Partenkirchen der Bayerischen Politischen Polizei, z. Hd. Herrn Hauptmann der Schutzpolizei Staudinger, Berlin, 29. Januar 1936. Betr. ‘Sicherungsdienst bei Besuchen der Olympischen Winterspiele durch den Führer’ [Head of the Reich Security Office, Himmler, to the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Branch of the Bavarian Political Police, attn. Capt. of the Uniformed Police Staudinger, Berlin, January 29, 1936. Re: Security for the Führer’s Visit to the Winter Olympic Games]” (original), in ED 619/vol. 1, IfZ Munich. See also Wolfgang Fuhr, ed., Olympische Winterspiele 1936: Die vergessene Olympiade von Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Agon, 2006).
237. See David Clay Large, Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 (New York, 2007); Arnd Krüger and William Murray, eds., The Nazi Olympics: Sport, Politics and Appeasement in the 1930s (Urbana and Chicago, 2003).
238. See Heinrich Hoffmann and Ludwig Hayman, Die Olympischen Spiele 1936 (Diessen, 1936).
239. Rudolf Hess to his father, n.p., June 8, 1936 (carbon copy), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211, 1989/148, vol. 13, file 57, folder 18, Swiss Federal Archives, Bern. Only Angela Lambert claims the opposite, without providing any proof, in her unreliable, basically novelistic Braun biography (The Lost Life of Eva Braun, pp. 278f.).
240. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 152.
241. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 84ff.; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937–45, pp. 92f.; Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler, pp. 52f.; Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 109. Gitta Sereny, in contrast, writes that Speer told her upon questioning about his stay in Vienna in March 1938, at the Hotel Imperial (Albert Speer, p. 191).
242. See Richard J. Evans, David Irving, Hitler, and Holocaust Denial, electronic edition. See also Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil (New York, 1999), pp. 228ff. According to Rosenbaum, Christa Schroeder was for David Irving the “key” to the “magic circle.”
243. For example, Goebbels noted under the date March 20, 1938: “The Führer is magnificent: generous and constructive. A true genius. Now he sits for hours at a time brooding over his maps. It is moving when he says that he wants to see the Greater German Reich again with his own eyes” (Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 5, p. 222).
244. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-12309, BSB Munich.
245. Julius Schaub, statement at Nuremberg, June 8, 1948, KV Trials, Document 1856, Case 11, File G15, Dietrich Document No. 279, Julius Schaub Affidavit, State Archives, Nuremberg. Karl Brandt, too, addressing the “question of guilt” in the tract “The Hitler Problem #2” that he wrote in an Allied prison after the war, avoided all mention of the fate of the German Jews. He spoke only of Bolshevism, the “danger threatening Europe from the Asian sphere” against which Hitler had to secure “the Lebensraum of the German People” (“Das Problem Hitler, Nr. 2,” September 27, 1945, p. 8, in Kleine Erwerbung 441-3, BA Koblenz).
246. Paul Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne 1923–45 (Bonn, 1953), p. 390.
247. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 98. See also Maser, Adolf Hitler, pp. 374f.
248. Adolf Hitler, “Mein Testament,” Berlin, May 2, 1938 (copy), in Adolf Hitler Papers, N 1128/22, BA Koblenz.
249. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 169–170. Nicolaus von Below mentions the will, but does not say whether he knew about it at the time (Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 98).
250. See Walther Darré, Aufzeichnungen 1945–1948, vol. 2, p. 377. It is possible that Bormann, as alternate executor, and Schaub also knew about the will. The latter was to examine private “books and correspondences” and decide whether or not to destroy them (Hitler, “Mein Testament,” as cited in note 248, above).
251. See Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne, p. 390; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 98; Wiedemann, Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte, pp. 133f.; Spitzy, So haben wir das Reich verspielt, pp. 260ff. See also Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, p. 72.
252. See “Auswärtiges Amt an Marga Himmler, ‘Vorläufiges Fahrtprogramm für die Damen’ vom 1. bis zum 11. Mai 1938, anlässlich des Staatsbesuches in Italien [Foreign Office to Marga Himmler, ’Provisional Travel Schedule for the Ladies for May 1–11, 1938, during the state visit in Italy],” in Himmler Papers, N 1126/20, Fol. 1, BA Koblenz. See also Wiedemann, Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte, p. 135.
253. Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier, p. 247.
254. See “Auswärtiges Amt an Marga Himmler,” as previously cited. See also Wiedemann, Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte, p. 139.
255. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 161f; Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, p. 228. Christa Schroeder, the only secretary “to travel with the Führer in his special train,” as it says in her memoir, never mentions Eva Braun’s presence (see Er war mein Chef, pp. 86f. and 345f.). See also Jürgen Ehlert, Das Dreesen: 100 Jahre Geschichte und Geschichten im Rheinhotel (Bonn, 1994).
256. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-18577, BSB Munich.
257. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 150f.
258. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 162. Gun repeats the rumor that an unknown assassin tried to stab Eva Braun in Naples, instead wounding her companion, Maria Dreesen.
259. Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, p. 230. Schirach also says that Mussolini, after hearing that “Hitler’s lover was coming along on the trip,” had a “small crocodile-leather suitcase containing every imaginable kind of toiletry” brought to Eva Braun.
260. See Wiedemann, Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte, p. 127. See also Otto Meissner, Staatssekretär unter Ebert—Hindenburg—Hitler: Der Schicksalsweg des deutschen Volkes von 1918–1945, wie ich ihn erlebte, 3rd ed. (Hamburg, 1950), p. 460. Cf. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau, pp. 136, 139 and 150.
261. See Hamann, Hitlers Wien, p. 15; Fest, Hitler, p. 726.
262. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 99–100; cf. pp. 297–298, where Speer says: “in those days, I suspect, all that was mere coquettishness.” See also Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, pp. 112f. Speer thought at the time that Hitler wanted to retire after the war, since he was “not happy with his mission” and would “rather be an architect.” Nicolaus von Below, who stayed with Hitler at the Berghof in both April and August 1938, mentions nothing of this sort (see Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 112ff.).
263. See Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 52. Cf. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 99, where he says that “the design for the picture gallery and the stadium was to be assigned to me.”
264. Photographs of Roderich Fick and Albert Speer’s visit to the Berghof on May 9, 1939, are in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-25259, BSB Munich.
265. See Ingo Sarlay, “Hitlers Linz: Planungsstellen und Planungskonzepte,” http://www.linz09.info. See also Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 81 and 83; Michael Früchtel, Der Architekt Hermann Giesler: Leben und Werk (1898–1987) (Tübingen, 2008); Hermann Giesler, Ein anderer Hitler: Bericht seines Architekten Hermann Giesler, 2nd ed. (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1977), pp. 213ff.
266. See Giesler, Ein anderer Hitler, p. 406.
267. See Hubert Houben, Kaiser Friedrich II: Herrscher, Mensch, und Mythos (Stuttgart, 2008); Karl Ipser, Der Staufer Friedrich II: Heimlicher Kaiser der Deutschen (Berg, 1977), pp. 144ff. and 214ff.
268. See Oskar Hugo Gugg, Castel del Monte (1942), oil on board, German Historical Museum, Berlin. See also Ipser, Der Staufer Friedrich II, p. 230.
269. Giesler, Ein anderer Hitler, pp. 213ff.
270. Ibid., p. 407. On April 4, 1943 Hitler traveled with Giesler, Speer, Fick, Eigruber, Karl Brandt, Heinrich Hoffmann, and Bormann to Linz, to review the progress of the project. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-47460, BSB Munich.
271. See Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, p. 233.
272. See Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 183.
1. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 173rd ed. (Munich, 1936), pp. 732 and 742. See also Christian Zentner, Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf: Eine kommentierte Auswahl, 19th ed. (Berlin, 2007), pp. 131f.
2. See the minutes of army adjutant Colonel Friedrich Hossbach, printed in Thilo Vogelsang, “Neue Dokumente zur Geschichte der Reichswehr, 1930–1933,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 4 (1954), pp. 434f.; Andreas Wirsching, “ ‘Man kann nur den Boden germanisieren’: Eine neue Quelle zu Hitlers Rede vor den Spitzen der Reichswehr am 3. Februar 1933,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 49 (2001), pp. 518f. 526ff., and 540ff.; Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, pp. 559ff.
3. See Friedrich Hossbach, “Niederschrift über die Besprechung in der Reichskanzlei am 5. November 1937, Berlin, 10. November 1937,” in Bernd-Jürgen Wendt, Grossdeutschland: Aussenpolitik und Kriegsvorbereitung des Hitlerregimes (Munich, 1987); Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 60.
4. See Goebbels, diary entry, February 3, 1939, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil 1, vol. 6 (Munich, 1998), p. 247.
5. See Reuth, Goebbels, pp. 395f.
6. “Hitlers Rede vor Truppenkommandeuren am 10. Februar 1939,” in Klaus-Jürgen Müller, Armee und Drittes Reich 1933–1939 (Paderborn, 1987), pp. 365ff.
7. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 147.
8. Adolf Hitler, “Rede vor dem Reichstag am 30. Januar 1939,” in Verhandlungen des Reichstags, 4. Wahlperiode 1939, Band 460. Stenographische Berichte 1939–1942. 1. Sitzung, Montag, 30. Januar 1939, pp. 1–21.
9. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 147.
10. See Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 236.
11. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 130; Gun, Eva Braun, p. 173; Breloer, Unterwegs zur Familie Speer, p. 96. Speer’s oldest son showed Breloer a chest with snapshots and architectural photographs including images of “Eva Braun Furniture” and “Old Chancellery, Eva Braun’s Ladies’ Room, Living Room, and Bedroom.”
12. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 102. Cf. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, pp. 223f.; Kellerhoff, Hitlers Berlin, pp. 132f.; Dietmar Arnold, Reichskanzlei und “Führerbunker”: Legenden und Wirklichkeit (Berlin, 2006), pp. 69ff.
13. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 130. It says there that Eva Braun’s bedroom was located next to Hitler’s. See also Gun, Eva Braun. “Room and boudoir communicated with Hitler’s library.” Eva Braun is there said to have entered her room “through the servants’ entrance,” since “officially her position was [as] one of the numerous secretaries in the offices.” Christa Schroeder, very familiar with the “Führer household” in the Old Chancellery since 1933, due to her “on-call duties,” stated that Hitler’s “work room, library, and bedroom, and later Eva Braun’s apartment next door” were located there (Er war mein Chef, pp. 60f.).
14. “More About Evi,” Time, December 18, 1939. See also “Hitler’s Girl Evi Braun Takes His Picture,” Life, November 6, 1939; Richard Norburt, “Is Hitler Married?” Saturday Evening Post, December 16, 1939.
15. “Spring in the Axis,” Time, May 15, 1939. It says there: “To her friends Eva Braun confided that she expected her friend to marry her within a year.”
16. Bella Fromm, Blood & Banquets: A Berlin Social Diary (New York, 1990 [1st ed., London, 1943]), pp. 255 and 303. Bella Steuerman Fromm wrote for Ullstein Verlag (including for B.Z. Am Mittag) and The Times (London) since the mid-1920s. Her contacts extended all the way to Schleicher and Papen. See Stephan Malinowski, Vom König zum Führer: Deutscher Adel und Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 2003), p. 556; also Louis P. Lochner, Always the Unexpected: A Book of Reminiscences (New York, 1956). Another source for such inside information was Sigrid Schultz (pseudonym “John Dickson”), Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Daily Tribune, who knew Hermann Göring personally and interviewed Hitler many times. On the monitoring and censorship of foreign reporters, see Peter Longerich, Propagandisten im Krieg: Die Presseabteilung des Auswärtigen Amtes unter Ribbentrop (Munich, 1987), pp. 290ff.
17. See “Weisung des Führers und Obersten Befehlshabers der Wehrmacht, Geheime Kommandosache, Berlin, 21. Oktober 1938,” in Michael Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten: Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, vol. 1 (Freiburg, 1954), pp. 302ff.
18. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 172.
19. See Rainerf Schmidt, Der Zweite Weltkrieg: Die Zerstörung Europas (Berlin, 2008), p. 13.
20. See Hans-Ulrich Thamer, Der Nationalsozialismus, pp. 319ff.
21. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 169f.
22. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 169. The circle around Hitler was thus neither “unsuspecting” nor “morally indifferent to his real plans,” as Sereny writes in her biography of Speer (Albert Speer, p. 223).
23. See Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, pp. 224f. and 227. While the “negotiations with Russia progressed,” Speer claimed at that point, there were “vague rumors” on the Obersalzberg “that something was going on with Russia” (p. 227). In Inside the Third Reich, p. 162, Speer writes that Hitler had already, for “weeks before” in “long talks with his four military adjutants tried to arrive at definite plans.” In the German edition of his memoir, Speer specifies that talks “often went on for hours” [Erinnerungen, pp. 176–177]—“Hitler tried to arrive at definite plans.” See also Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 283 and 290: Speer, according to Kershaw, “did not discuss foreign-policy details” with Hitler. See also Lars Lüdicke, Griff nach der Weltherrschaft: Die Aussenpolitik des Dritten Reiches 1933–1945 (Berlin, 2009), pp. 124f.
24. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 162.
25. Goebbels, diary entry, August 24, 1939, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 7, p. 75.
26. Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler, pp. 60f.
27. See snapshots from Eva Braun’s photo diary, reproduced in Gun, Eva Braun, after p. 176. However, Gun falsely claims that these scenes took place in the Chancellery. Eva Braun apparently sold the negatives to Hoffmann, since all of the images can be found in the inventory of the Hoffmann Photo Archive in the Bavarian State Library [Bayerische Staatsbibliothek]; they are not labeled there as photographs by Eva Braun. In this regard see also Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 182f.
28. Press statement in Fritz Sänger, Politik der Täuschungen: Missbrauch der Presse im Dritten Reich: Weisungen, Informationen, Notizen 1933–1939 (Vienna, 1975), p. 360.
29. Quoted from Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 293ff. Cf. Franz Halder, Kriegstagebuch: Tägliche Aufzeichnungen des Chefs des Generalstabes des Heeres 1939–1942, ed. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1963f.), p. 25.
30. See Lüdicke, Griff nach der Weltherrschaft, p. 127.
31. See Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 273.
32. See Joseph Goebbels, “Ansprache an die Danziger Bevölkerung anlässlich der Danziger Gaukulturwoche am 17. Juni 1939, Danzig, Balkon des Staatstheaters,” in Goebbels Reden 1932–1945, ed. Helmut Heiber (Bindlach, 1991 [1st ed., Düsseldorf, 1971/1972]), pp. 334f. See also Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 182. According to Below, Hitler expressed himself in similar terms on the afternoon of August 23. See likewise Jeffrey Herf, “ ‘Der Krieg und die Juden’: Nationalsozialistische Propaganda im Zweiten Weltkrieg,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 9.2, ed. Jörg Echternkamp for the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Munich, 2005), pp. 173f.
33. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 163–164. Speer gives no departure date here (“a few days later”). Cf. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 184, which says that Hitler flew to Berlin on the afternoon of August 24; Goebbels, diary entry, August 25, 1939, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I, vol. 7, p. 76: “… to Ainring by car. Flight to Berlin. The Führer in very high spirits.” On Eva Braun’s presence, see Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 180f.
34. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 192 (image on the following page).
35. Adolf Hitler, “Erklärung der Reichsregierung,” in Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 4. Wahlperiode 1939, Band 460. Stenographische Berichte 1939–1942, 3. Sitzung, Freitag, 1. September 1939. Cf. Gun, Eva Braun, p. 181.
36. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 221; “Weisung für den Angriff auf Polen vom 31. August 1939,” in Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945; Kommentiert von einem deutschen Zeitgenossen (Wiesbaden, 1973), pp. 1,299f.
37. Hitler, “Erklärung der Reichsregierung, 1. September 1939,” p. 48.
38. Quoted from Gun, Eva Braun, p. 181. On Hitler’s appearance, see Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 195.
39. Christa Schroeder to Johanna Nusser, Berlin, September 3, 1939 (original), in ED 524, Institut für Zeitgeschichte (IfZ) Munich. Cf. Andreas Hillgruber, “Zum Kriegsbeginn im September 1939,” in Kriegsbeginn 1939. Entfesselung oder Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkriegs? ed. Gottfried Niedhart; Wege der Forschung, vol. 374 (Darmstadt, 1976), pp. 173ff. Hitler, Speer recalled, “tersely took his leave of the ‘courtiers’ who were remaining behind” (Inside the Third Reich, p. 167).
40. See Franz W. Seidler and Dieter Zeigert, Die Führerhauptquartiere: Anlagen und Planungen im Zweiten Weltkrieg, 2nd ed. (Munich, 2001), pp. 260 and 271.
41. See Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler, p. 223; Rochus Misch, Der letzte Zeuge: “Ich war Hitlers Telefonist, Kurier und Leibwächter” (Munich and Zürich, 2008), p. 96.
42. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 102.
43. See Seidler and Zeigert, Die Führerhauptquartiere, pp. 205f.
44. On the number of people the “Führer train” could hold (around 140), see Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher, illustration to the left of p. 305 (not reproduced in the English translation).
45. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-27509, BSB Munich.
46. See Uwe Neumärker et al., Wolfsschanze: Hitlers Machtzentrale im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Berlin, 2007), p. 20.
47. Christa Schroeder to Johanna Nusser, Führer Headquarters, September 11, 1939 (copy), in ED 524, IfZ Munich. Cf. Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 328.
48. See ibid.
49. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-27282, hoff-27283, hoff-27398, hoff-27445, BSB Munich. Hoffmann’s employees included the photographers Hermann Ege, Otto Schönstein, and Hugo Jäger, among others.
50. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-27394; hoff-27779, BSB Munich. See also Heinrich Hoffmann, ed., Mit Hitler in Polen (Berlin, 1939). This photo-illustrated book eventually had 325,000 copies in print (Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler, pp. 372f.). Hoffmann later justified himself by saying that his images and books were not propaganda, merely a “record of contemporary history” (Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 36).
51. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 246f.; Schmidt, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pp. 40ff.
52. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, BSB Munich: arrest of Polish Jews by the SD, hoff-28297; Polish Jews in the Ghetto, hoff-28315; Polish Jews at forced labor, hoff-28325; members of the security forces cutting off Jews’ beards, hoff-28303; Polish Jews wearing yellow star, hoff-69249.
53. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 246f; Schmidt, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pp. 40ff.
54. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 522. See also Hildegard von Kotze, ed., Heeresadjutant bei Hitler 1938–1943. Aufzeichnungen des Majors Engel, Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, no. 29 (Stuttgart, 1974), p. 65.
55. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 199. Hoffmann says that Eva Braun’s visits to Berlin were “always limited to a few days” (Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 23).
56. Below gives this date in Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 219. See also Karl-Heinz Frieser, Blitzkrieg-Legende: Der Westfeldzug 1940 (Munich, 2005), pp. 22ff.
57. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 212.
58. Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, p. 113.
59. Ibid. Cf. Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler, p. 97.; Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 101f. Kershaw follows their account (Hitler 1936–1945, p. 276).
60. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 229. Cf. Lang, Der Sekretär, p. 157. The decision to go to war against France was made immediately after the Poland campaign, and the commanders of the army, navy, and air force were informed of it on September 27, 1939 (Schmidt, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pp. 49f.).
61. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 214ff.; Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 169.
62. See Schmidt, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pp. 62f.; Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 106.
63. Breloer, Unterwegs zur Familie Speer, p. 247. Cf. Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, pp. 80f.
64. On Hitler’s travels, see Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 239ff.
65. Misch, Der letzte Zeuge, pp. 110f.
66. Ibid.
67. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 249; Misch, Der letzte Zeuge, pp. 111f. There is an extensive account of the meeting in southern France in Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 441ff.
68. See Seidler and Zeigert, Die Führerhauptquartiere, p. 260.
69. See Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (Wehrmachtsführungsstab), ed. Percy Ernst Schramm, vol. I.1, August 1940–31. Dezember 1942 (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), pp. 257f.; Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 419.
70. See Schmidt, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, p. 100.
71. See in this regard Seidler and Zeigert, Die Führerhauptquartiere, pp. 193ff.
72. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 256.
73. Ibid., p. 290. See also Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 278f.
74. Christa Schroeder to Johanna Nusser, Führer Headquarters, June 28, 1941, in ED 524, IfZ Munich. See also “Lagebesprechung im Kartenraum der ‘Wolfsschanze’ im Juni/Juli 1941,” Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-36340, BSB Munich.
75. Christa Schroeder to Johanna Nusser, Führer Headquarters, July 13, 1941, in ED 524, IfZ Munich.
76. Christa Schroeder to Johanna Nusser, Führer Headquarters, August 20, 1941, in ED 524, IfZ Munich.
77. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 292 and 295; Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 444f., 466, and 485. See also Seidler and Zeigert, Die Führerhauptquartiere, pp. 205 and 208, according to which Hitler first, at the beginning of December, paid a visit to Army Group South in Mariupol on the Azov Sea in southeastern Ukraine, accompanied by Schmundt, Linge, and Morell.
78. See Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, p. 235.
79. See Schmidt, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pp. 104ff., 116ff., and 150. On Hitler’s arrival at the Berghof, see Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 310, where he reports that he traveled with Hitler on April 24 to Berlin, where Hitler spoke before the Reichstag two days later.
80. See August Eigruber, “Besprechung in München am 27. April 1942” (p. 2) and “Vortrag beim Führer am 28. April 1942 in München” (p. 4) in “Vorträge des Gauleiters Eigruber vor dem Führer in Angelegenheiten der Planung der Stadt Linz,” Political Files, Box 49, Upper Austria State Archives, Linz. Cf. Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 516.
81. See Seidler and Zeigert, Die Führerhauptquartiere, pp. 261ff. See also Sigmund, Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 273, who writes: “The war’s proceeding so badly for Germany meant the end of the idyllic life on the Obersalzberg.”
82. See Hans Georg Hiller von Gaetringen, ed., Das Auge des Dritten Reiches: Hitlers Kameramann und Fotograf Walter Frentz, 2nd ed. (Munich and Berlin, 2007), p. 125. Photographs from the same black-and-white series can also be found in the Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-584; hoff-579, BSB Munich.
83. See Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, BSB Munich: Hitler with Speer’s children, Braun with a camera in the picture (hoff-578); Hitler on the terrace, Uschi Schneider getting up (hoff-312); Hitler in the great hall with Gitti and Uschi Schneider (hoff-2177).
84. See Hiller von Gaetringen, Das Auge des Dritten Reiches, p. 125.
85. See Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 80. Eva Braun, Junge writes, was the only person who was allowed to photograph Hitler “whenever she wanted.” See also Danielle Costelle, Eva Braun: Dans l’intimité d’Hitler (Paris, 2007).
86. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 182.
87. Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler, p. 267. See also Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 182.
88. Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler, p. 267.
89. Lang, Der Sekretär, pp. 166ff. Cf. Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 371ff. On Bormann’s behavior, see Lang, Der Sekretär, p. 167.
90. See Ilse Hess to Albert Speer, Hindelang, June 25, 1968, in Speer Papers, N 1340, vol. 27, BA Koblenz.
91. Ilse Hess to Steffi Binder, n.p., August 7, 1941 (carbon copy), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 2, file 21, BA Bern. Cf. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 175.
92. See Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP: Rekonstruktion eines verlorengegangenen Bestandes, Teil I, Regesten, vol. 1, p. viii (introduction).
93. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 297.
94. See Seidler and Zeigert, Die Führerhauptquartiere, p. 260; Gun, Eva Braun, p. 212, and the reproduction of the passport issued April 3, 1942, with entry stamp of June 21, 1942, after p. 176.
95. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 196.
96. See reproduction of Eva Braun’s passport and visa in Gun, Eva Braun, after p. 176. Gun writes that Eva Braun traveled to Portofino for a month every year (p. 212).
97. See in this regard Bruno Frommann, Reisen im Dienste politischer Zielsetzungen: Arbeiter-Reisen und “Kraft durch Freude”-Reisen (Stuttgart, 1993).
98. See Rüdiger Overmans, “Das Schicksal der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen des Zweiten Weltkrieges,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 10.2 (Munich, 2008), p. 404. Kershaw gives the figures of 90,000 captured and around 146,000 fallen German soldiers (Hitler 1936–1945, p. 550).
99. Traudl Junge Memoir, David Irving Collection, ED 100/106, pp. 11 and 17, IfZ Munich.
100. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 726.
101. See Martin Bormann to Gerda Bormann, n.p., July 21, 1943, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, pp. 12f.
102. Cf. Goebbels, diary entry, June 25, 1943, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, Diktate 1941–1945), vol. 8, p. 537; Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 728 and 736ff.
103. Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 739ff. On Goebbels’s role, see Aristotle A. Kallis, “Der Niedergang der Deutungsmacht: Nationalsozialistische Propaganda im Kriegsverlauf,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1979–2008), vol. 9.2, pp. 235ff.
104. See Schmidt, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pp. 155f.
105. Goebbels, diary entry, August 10, 1943, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 9, p. 267.
106. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 340.
107. Henriette von Schirach, Der Preis der Herrlichkeit, pp. 214f. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 768.
108. Goebbels, diary entry, August 10, 1943, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, Diktate 1941–1945, vol. 9 (Juli–September 1943), p. 267.
109. See Gerda Bormann to Martin Bormann, Obersalzberg, August 13, 1943, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, p. 19.
110. See Goebbels, diary entry, March 2, 1943, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, Diktate 1941–1945, Band 7 (Januar–März 1943), p. 454. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 340.
1. See Kallis, “Der Niedergang der Deutungsmacht,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 9.2, pp. 232f.
2. Hitler suffered bruises and burns on his head, arms, and legs; both arms were severely swollen, according to the doctor’s report (Theodor Morell, July 20, 1944, Patient A., in Theodor Morell Papers, N 1348, BA Koblenz).
3. See Tobias Kniebe, Operation Walküre: Das Drama des 20. Juli (Berlin, 2009); Bernhard R. Kroener, Generaloberst Friedrich Fromm: Eine Biographie (Paderborn, 2005), pp. 700ff.
4. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 797; Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 395. See also Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 385: Hitler looked at the pictures “so little… the way he reluctantly paid attention to the pictures of destroyed cities.” Fegelein, though, “generously” showed around “the photos of the hangings.” Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, in contrast, reports (Mit Hitler im Bunker: Die letzten Monate im Führerhauptquartier Juli 1944-April 1945 [Berlin, 2006], pp. 65f.) that Hitler “eagerly” seized “the macabre pictures” and examined them “for a long time with practically lascivious pleasure.”
5. See Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 143. On Fegelein, who played a leading part in “combatting partisans” and in “cleansing actions” and had the lives of thousands of civilians on his conscience, see Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: Biographie (Munich, 2008), pp. 316f., 331f., and 549ff.
6. Quoted in Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 167f. Schroeder was convinced that Eva Braun’s feelings for Fegelein “exceeded that of purely a sister-in-law” but that nonetheless “nothing happened between them.”
7. Goebbels, entry of March 14, 1944, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 11, p. 472.
8. Goebbels, entry of June 6, 1944, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 12, p. 414.
9. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 370 and 379.
10. Account by Herta Ostermayr, quoted in Gun, Eva Braun, p. 213.
11. Goebbels, entry of August 24, 1944, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 13, pp. 305f.
12. See Schmidt, Albert Speer, p. 123; Reuth, Goebbels, pp. 549ff.
13. See Schmidt, Albert Speer, p. 125; Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, pp. 47f.
14. Ilse Hess to Lucian W. Reiser, n.p., May 16, 1944 (carbon copy), in Rudolf Hess Papers, J 1211 (–) 1993/300, vol. 12, file 148, Swiss Federal Archives, Bern.
15. “Besprechung zwischen Herrn Albrecht und Frl. Schröder, früher Sekretärin v. Hitler,” Berchtesgaden, May 22, 1945, in MA 1298/10, Mikrofilm, Various Documents, DJ-13 (David Irving), IfZ Munich. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 798.
16. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 148. Cf. “Besprechung zwischen Herrn Albrecht und Frl. Schröder, früher Sekretärin v. Hitler,” previously cited. See also Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 151, where Junge writes that Eva Braun wrote Hitler an “anxious and despairing letter,” so that he, “utterly moved by her devotion,” sent “his shredded uniform to [her in] Munich as a keepsake.”
17. See Loringhoven, Mit Hitler im Bunker, pp. 7ff.
18. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 155.
19. See Gun, Eva Braun, p. 213. Gun is here quoting Braun’s friend Herta Schneider. In the Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive are pictures of a soldier presenting a uniform destroyed in the attack, presumably Hitler’s (hoff-53923, hoff-53921, BSB Munich).
20. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 214–215. This alleged document is cited uncritically by Sigmund (Die Frauen der Nazis, p. 274).
21. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 382 and 384.
22. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 146.
23. See John Zimmermann, “Die deutsche Kriegführung im Westen 1944/55,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 10.1, ed. Rolf-Dieter Müller for the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Munich, 2008), p. 277.
24. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 722.
25. Goebbels, entry of March 14, 1944, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 11, p. 472.
26. See Schenck, Patient Hitler, pp. 44ff. and 78f.
27. Loringhoven, Mit Hitler im Bunker, p. 10.
28. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 160.
29. See Theodor Morell, 1944 pocket calender, in Theodor Morell Papers, N 1348–2, BA Koblenz. See also Schenck, Patient Hitler, p. 57; Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 149; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 387 and 389; Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 152; Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 726. Karl Brandt and Hanskarl von Hasselbach ceased to be Hitler’s accompanying physicians on October 10, 1944; the role was taken on by SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Stumpfegger (Reichsleiter Martin Bormann [Secretary to the Führer] to Reich Press Chief Dr. Dietrich, Führer Headquarters, October 10, 1944 (original), in Theodor Morell Papers, N 1348–4, BA Koblenz).
30. See Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 415; Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 394; Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 731. This idea of Hitler’s was strengthened by Alfred Jodl, Artillery General and Chief of the Operations Staff of the Army, who had been convinced since fall 1943 that the war would be “decided” in the west (Werner Rahn, “Die deutsche Seekriegführung 1943 bis 1945,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 10.1, p. 21).
31. See reproduction of the last page of her handwritten directions from October 26, 1944, in Gun, Eva Braun, after p. 176. Eva Braun noted in her last letter to her friend Herta Schneider, April 22, 1945, that she had left her last “testament at Wasserburgerstrasse” (see reproduction in Gun, Eva Braun, after p. 192).
32. See Gerda Bormann to Martin Bormann, Obersalzberg, October 24, 1944, and Martin Bormann to Gerda Bormann, Führer Headquarters, October 25, 1944, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, pp. 138, 139.
33. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, pp. 495ff.
34. See Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 67. See also Gerda Bormann to Martin Bormann, Obersalzberg, October 24, 1944, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, p. 138. On August 28, Gerda Bormann still wrote that Eva Braun very much hoped to be able to work with Hoffmann in Munich or Reichenhall, but that nothing was yet decided (Gerda Bormann to Martin Bormann, August 28, 1944, in The Bormann Letters, pp. 91f.).
35. See Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 145ff. Also named are paintings by Karl Rickelt, Johann Fischbach, and Adalbert Wex. Eva Braun is said to have owned a picture of Hitler and another of herself by Theodor Bohnenberger, a painter of portraits and nudes.
36. See Hans Sarkowicz, ed., Hitlers Künstler: Die Kultur im Dienst des Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt am Main, 2004).
37. See Eva Braun testament of October 26, 1944, in Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 233f.
38. Quoted in Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, p. 235.
1. Theodor Morell, 1944 pocket calendar, in Theodor Morell Papers, N 1348–2, BA Koblenz. On November 22, Goebbels noted in his diaries: “The Führer has now arrived in Berlin, thank God” (entry of November 22, 1944, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 14, p. 258.
2. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 395.
3. Theodor Morell, 1944 pocket calendar, in Theodor Morell Papers, N 1348–2, BA Koblenz. Morell also notes in his calendar under the same date: “Met Miss E.” Again, a few lines later: “Met E. when leaving.” See also Lambert, The Lost Life of Eva Braun, p. 511.
4. Goebbels, entry of November 24, 1944, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 14, p. 269.
5. See Ulrich Völklein, ed., Hitlers Tod: Die letzten Tage im Führerbunker (Göttingen, 1998), pp. 23ff.
6. See Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 167.
7. See Sönke Neitzel, Abgehört: Deutsche Generäle in britischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1942–1945 (Berlin, 2007), p. 166.
8. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 743; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 398.
9. See Besymenski, Die letzten Notizen von Martin Bormann, p. 64: “1/18 19.10 departure with Sonderwagen to Bln. Dad with Mom, with E. B., Frau Fegelein, and Bredow.”
10. Dr. Hans-Otto Meissner, “Der letzte Befehl,” undated manuscript, p. 11, in Ms 291, IfZ Munich. See also Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 168, which says that Eva Braun arrived “in Berlin at the Chancellery in February 1945, against Hitler’s will.”
11. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 169.
12. See Loringhoven, Mit Hitler im Bunker, pp. 72f. The encounter is here erroneously dated to “shortly before Christmas,” at which time Hitler was at his headquarters on the western front.
13. Goebbels, entry of February 1, 1945, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 15, p. 296.
14. See Martin Bormann to Gerda Bormann, Führer Headquarters, December 28, 1944, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, pp. 154f.
15. See Richard Lakowski, “Der Zusammenbruch der deutschen Verteidigung zwischen Ostsee und Karparten,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 10.1, pp. 588ff. See also Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 400.
16. See Seidler and Zeigert, Die Führerhauptquartiere, p. 324; Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 793. Gun, on the other hand, claims that Eva Braun celebrated her last birthday on February 8 in Munich (Eva Braun, p. 239).
17. See Meissner, “Der letzte Befehl,” p. 11: “The bedroom next door, originally intended as just a cloakroom was furnished with a bed, table, and chair only in February 1945 so that it could serve as a place to sleep, and then occupied by Eva Braun when she showed up in Berlin unexpectedly and against Hitler’s orders.” See also Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 177, and Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 484: Eva Braun “had had some one the expensive furniture which I had designed for her years ago brought from her two rooms in the upper floors of the Chancellery.”
18. These figures are taken from the following: Horst Boog, “Die strategische Bomberoffensive der Alliierten gegen Deutschland und die Reichsluftverteidigung in der Schlussphase des Krieges,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 10.1, p. 790. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 792. See also Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (London, 2002), pp. 74f.
19. Goebbels, diary entry of February 6, 1945, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 15, p. 320.
20. See Martin Bormann to Gerda Bormann, February 6, 1945, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, pp. 174f. See also Besymenski, Die letzten Notizen von Martin Bormann, p. 106.
21. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 196. Schroeder says nothing in her memoir about Eva Braun’s presence in Berlin in February 1945. See also “Besprechung zwischen Herrn Albrecht und Frl. Schröder, früher Sekretärin v. Hitler,” Berchtesgaden, May 22, 1945, in MA 1298/10, Microfilm, Various Documents, DJ-13 (David Irving), IfZ Munich.
22. See Martin Bormann to Gerda Bormann, February 6, 1945, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, pp. 174f.
23. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 499.
24. Ibid., pp. 500f.
25. Ibid., pp. 501ff.
26. Eva Braun to Herta Schneider, Berlin, April 19, 1945, in Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 247–248. Transcript in Speer Papers, N 1340, vol. 287, BA Koblenz. Walter Schellenberg, head of the secret service since 1944, even claimed in his postwar memoir that the death sentence passed on Brandt really had to do with “an intrigue in Hitler’s closest circle, including Eva Braun and her sister, Frau Fegelein” (Schellenberg, Aufzeichnungen, p. 361).
27. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 465.
28. See Martin Bormann to Gerda Bormann, February 6, 1945, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, pp. 174f.
29. See Martin Bormann to Gerda Bormann, February 9, 1945, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, pp. 180. See also Besymenski, Die letzten Notizen von Martin Bormann, p. 107.
30. See Martin Bormann to Gerda Bormann, February 9, 1945, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, pp. 180. See also Besymenski, Die letzten Notizen von Martin Bormann, p. 107; Heinz Linge, Bis zum Untergang: Als Chef des Persönlichen Dienstes bei Hitler, ed. Werner Maser (Munich, 1982), pp. 69f. According to Linge, Bormann’s wife and children went with Eva Braun and her sister to Munich.
31. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 821f.; Giesler, Ein anderer Hitler, pp. 479f. Neither Bormann, named by Giesler as one of the people present, nor Speer makes reference to this event in his notes. Cf. Hiller von Gaetringen, ed., Das Auge des Dritten Reiches, pp. 86f.; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 403.
32. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 133. See also Wilhelm Höttl, Einsatz für das Reich (Koblenz, 1997), p. 117.
33. See Besymenski, Die letzten Notizen von Martin Bormann, p. 147; Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 468.
34. Martin Bormann to Gerda Bormann, February 18, 1945, in Bormann, The Bormann Letters, p. 183. See also Linge, Bis zum Untergang, p. 70.
35. Julius Schaub, quoted from Meissner, “Der letzte Befehl,” p. 34.
36. Besymenski, Die letzten Notizen von Martin Bormann, p. 148. Cf. Gun, Eva Braun, p. 181.
37. Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, p. 236.
38. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 465. See also Artur Axmann, “Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein”: Hitlers letzter Reichsjugendführer erinnert sich (Koblenz, 1995), p. 434. Axmann, who moved into the “Führer bunker” on April 23, reports that Eva Braun told him there “that the Führer had sent her to Munich in early March, but that she had returned to Berlin against his will on April 15.”
39. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 465; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 404.
40. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 731. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau, p. 268.
41. See the extensive discussion in Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 732. See also Michael Bloch, Ribbentrop: A Biography (New York, 1993), pp. 421ff.; Schmidt, Albert Speer, pp. 151ff.; Fest, Speer, pp. 314ff.; Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, pp. 745ff.
42. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 198.
43. Ibid., p. 168.
44. Eva Braun to Herta Schneider, Berlin, April 19, 1945, in Gun, Eva Braun, pp. 247–248.
45. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 199.
46. Eva Braun to Herta Schneider, Berlin, April 19, 1945, previously cited. Junge also reports that there were gunshots (Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 182). Hitler had apparently tried again and again to persuade her to leave the bunker and get herself to safety. Heinrich Hoffmann reports that Hitler asked him to bring Eva Braun to Munich with him in early April 1945 (Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah, pp. 230f.).
47. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 408. Speer similarly writes (Inside the Third Reich, p. 484) that Eva Braun was “the only prominent candidate for death in this bunker who displayed an admirable and superior composure.” Likewise Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 169, and Axmann, “Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein,” p. 434, who wrote that Eva Braun appeared to him “like an unreal apparition.”
48. See Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 183; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 417.
49. See Lakowski, “Der Zusammenbruch der deutschen Verteidigung zwischen Ostsee und Karpaten,” p. 648.
50. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 411; Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 474; Loringhoven, Mit Hitler im Bunker, p. 145; Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 823; Frank, Der Tod im Führerbunker, pp. 34ff. Eva Braun had written to Herta Schneider on the previous day that “getting through with a car” was probably “no longer an option.” But “a way for us all to see you again would surely” turn up (Eva Braun to Herta Schneider, Berlin, April 19, 1945, previously cited).
51. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 200ff.
52. Statement of Erich Kempka about Hitler’s last days, Berchtesgaden, June 20, 1945, MA 1298/10, Microfilm, Various Documents, DJ-13 (David Irving), IfZ Munich.
53. Cf. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 177, gives the line as “Blood-red roses tell you of my joy.” But this line does not appear in the 1929 song “Bluterote Rosen” [“Blood-Red Roses”]; music by Hans Hünemeyer, lyrics by Alfred Krönkemeier).
54. See Bloch, Ribbentrop p. 425. See also Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 483, which however does not mention a meeting between Eva Braun and Ribbentrop.
55. Eva Braun, quoted from Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 178.
56. Hitler, quoted from Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 1,032.
57. See Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 189; Loringhoven, Mit Hitler im Bunker, p. 150. See also Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 205. Eva Braun wrote to her sister Gretl on April 23, 1945: “I hope Morell has safely arrived with my jewelry. It would be terrible if something had happened.” (Eva Braun to Gretl Fegelein, Berlin, April 23, 1945, in Gun, Eva Braun, p. 254.)
58. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 824f. Cf. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 411. See also Frank, Der Tod im Führerbunker, pp. 63ff.
59. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 180.
60. See Meissner, “Der letzte Befehl,” pp. 2 and 16. These notes are based on what Schaub, who shared “time and a cell” with Meissner “in the witness wing of the Nuremberg prison,” apparently told Meissner about “his last days with Adolf Hitler.” Schaub mentioned Hitler’s “last command”: the “order to destroy the secret Führer archive” (p. 6). Hitler allegedly said: “No scrap of it must fall into enemy hands” (p. 2). Cf. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 411.
61. Eva Braun to Herta Schneider, Berlin, April 22, 1945, in Gun, Eva Braun, 252. See also Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 476: According to Speer Eva Braun had told him during his last visit to the bunker that Hitler “had wanted to take his own life on April 22.”
62. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 826.
63. Eva Braun to Gretl Fegelein, Berlin, April 23, 1945, in Gun, Eva Braun. Eva Braun mentions here an additional letter that Hitler’s servant Wilhelm Arndt had been given to bring to the family at the Berghof, together with a suitcase. They had heard, Braun writes, that his airplane was “overdue.” In fact, the plane, having taken off from Berlin-Staaken on April 22, crashed in Börnersdorf. Arndt lost his life. See Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 362. Decades later, a reporter for the Stern, Gerd Heidemann, reported that “Diaries” by Adolf Hitler had been salvaged from the wreckage in Börnersdorf. See Michael Seufert, Der Skandal um die Hitler-Tagebücher (Frankfurt am Main, 2008), p. 15.
64. See Lakowski, “Der Zusammenbruch der deutschen Verteidigung zwischen Ostsee und Karpaten,” pp. 664f.; Besymenski, Die letzten Notizen von Martin Bormann, p. 230.
65. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 476.
66. Ibid., p. 484.
67. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 187.
68. Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 119.
69. “Report of Conversation among Gretl Braun Fegelein, Frau Herta Schneider, and Walter Hirschfeld (undercover), 25 September 1945,” in F 135/2, vol. 2, p. 367, IfZ Munich. See also Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 405; Hiller von Gaetringen, Das Auge des Dritten Reiches, p. 32.
70. “Report of Conversation among Gretl Braun Fegelein, Frau Herta Schneider, and Walter Hirschfeld (undercover), 25 September 1945,” p. 368. See also Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 213f.
71. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 414.
72. Expert assessment in the matter of Adolf Hitler, Berchtesgaden District Court, August 1, 1956 (Ref.: Z.: II 48/52), copy, Gb 05.01/2, pp. 30ff., IfZ Munich. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 1038.
73. See Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 196.
74. See Loringhoven, Mit Hitler im Bunker, pp. 157ff.; Gerhard Boldt, Die letzten Tage der Reichskanzlei (Hamburg, 1964), pp. 128ff.
75. See Boldt, Die letzten Tage der Reichskanzlei, pp. 135f. Extensive discussion in Schellenberg, Aufzeichnungen, pp. 355ff.
76. See Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, pp. 750f.; Folke Bernadotte, Das Ende: Meine Verhandlungen in Deutschland im Frühjahr 1945 und ihre politischen Folgen (Zürich and New York, 1945).
77. Eva Braun to Gretl Fegelein, Berlin, April 23, 1945, previously cited. Thus Fegelein in no way “left the Chancellery unnoticed” on April 26, as Gerhard Boldt claims (Die letzten Tage der Reichskanzlei, p. 133). Boldt was a member of General Wilhelm Krebs’s staff and spent the last weeks in the bunker.
78. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 197. Below and Loringhoven also report that they received a call from Fegelein from his Berlin apartment (Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 415; Loringhoven, Mit Hitler im Bunker, p. 167).
79. “Report of Conversation among Gretl Braun Fegelein, Frau Herta Schneider, and Walter Hirschfeld (undercover), 25 September 1945,” p. 367.
80. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 415. Below dates these events to April 28, whereas Traudl Junge writes that Fegelein was already being sought on the previous day and was brought to the Chancellery on the evening of April 27 (Bis zur letzten Stunde, pp. 197ff.).
81. See Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p.823
82. Adolf Hitler, “Mein privates Testament,” Berlin, April 29, 1945, 4 o’clock (transcription of a copy of a notarized testament), in Adolf Hitler Papers, N 1128/38, BA Koblenz. On the testament, see Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 823
83. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 415; Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, eds., Das Buch Hitler: Geheimdossier des NKWD für Josef W. Stalin, zusammengestellt aufgrund der Verhörprotokolle des Persönlichen Adjutanten Hitlers, Otto Günsche, und des Kammerdieners Heinz Linge (Bergisch Gladbach, 2005 [Moscow, 1948–1949]), p. 436. Hitler’s servant Heinz Linge gave the impression in his memoir, published in 1980, that he had been present (Linge, Bis zum Untergang, pp. 281f.). A few years after the fact, Otto Meissner recalled that Hitler had had “the authorized registrar” brought on April 28 in an “armored car” (Staatssekretär, p. 610).
84. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 416. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 823
85. Expert assessment in the matter of Adolf Hitler, Berchtesgaden District Court, August 1, 1956 (Ref.: Z.: II 48/52), copy, Gb 05.01/2, pp. 34f., IfZ Munich.
86. See Lakowski, “Der Zusammenbruch der deutschen Verteidigung zwischen Ostsee und Karpaten,” p. 671.
87. See “Ergebnisse der gerichtsmedizinischen Untersuchung durch sowjetische Ärzte,” in Hitlers Tod, ed. Völklein, pp. 121ff.
1. Notes by the translator, Pavlov, on the conversation between Stalin and Harry Hopkins, May 26, 1945, in the Russian Presidential Archives, Moscow, quoted from Völklein, Hitlers Tod, p. 60.
2. See Charles L. Mee Jr., Meeting at Potsdam (New York, 1975), p. 94.
3. “Report of Conversation among Gretl Braun Fegelein, Frau Herta Schneider, und Walter Hirschfeld (undercover), 25 September 1945,” p. 368.
4. Personal telegram from the Commander of the First Belorussian Front, Marshall Georgy Zhukov, May 1, 1945, Dossier No. 41-Sh/2-w/I, Russian Presidential Archives, Moscow, quoted in Völklein, Hitlers Tod, p. 47. See also Lew Besymenski, Der Tod des Adolf Hitler (Hamburg, 1968).
5. See autopsy records for Adolf Hitler (File 12) and Eva Braun (File 13), Archive of the President of the Russian Federation in the Archive of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, Moscow, quoted in Völklein, Hitlers Tod, pp. 126ff.
6. Anonymous letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Amsterdam, November 22, 1948. (Glenn H. Palmer, Chief, Intelligence & Security Branch) in David Irving Collection, “Adolph Hitler 1944–1953,” vol. 1, pp. 16ff., F 135/1, IfZ Munich.
7. “Presse-Information des Bayerischen Staatsministeriums der Justiz, Betreff: Verfahren zur Feststellung des Todes Hitlers, München, 25. Oktober 1956 [Press release from the Bavarian State Ministry of Justice, re: Proceedings to Determine Hitler’s Death, Munich, October 25, 1956]” (copy), Gb 05.01/1, IfZ Munich.
8. See expert assessment in the matter of Adolf Hitler, Berchtesgaden District Court, August 1, 1956 (Ref.: Z.: II 48/52), copy, Gb 05.01/2, pp. 2f., IfZ Munich.
9. Ibid., pp. 71ff.
10. See Völklein, ed., Hitlers Tod, pp. 194f.
1. Junge, Bis zur letzten Stunde, p. 196.
2. Fritz Braun, statement of December 1, 1947, public hearing of the Munich District Court for oral arguments in the case of Braun, Fritz Wilhelm, in Denazification Court Records, box 188, State Archives, Munich.
3. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 215.
4. See Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 166ff.
5. Christa Schroeder to Johanna Nusser, Führer Headquarters, June 28, 1941, in ED 524, IfZ Munich.
6. See Walther Darré, Aufzeichnungen.
7. See Ilse Fucke-Michels to State Commissioner for Refugees, Ruhpolding, October 20, 1946, in Denazification Court Records, box 468, State Archives, Munich.
8. Herta Schneider, statement of June 23, 1949, “Öffentliche Sitzung der Hauptkammer München zur mündlichen Verhandlung in dem Verfahren gegen Herta Schneider, geb. Ostermayr,” in Denazification Court Records, box 1670, State Archives, Munich.