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Eva Braun

Eva Braun
Eva Braun walking dog.jpg
Braun in 1942
Born Eva Anna Paula Braun
(1912-02-06)6 February 1912
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Died 30 April 1945(1945-04-30) (aged 33)
Berlin, Germany
Cause of death Suicide (cyanide poisoning)
Other names Eva Hitler
Occupation Photographer; office and lab assistant at photography studio of Heinrich Hoffmann
Known for Partner and wife of Adolf Hitler
Spouse(s) Adolf Hitler
(29 April 1945 – 30 April 1945)

Eva Anna Paula Hitler (née Braun; 6 February 1912 – 30 April 1945) was the longtime companion of Adolf Hitler and, for less than 40 hours, his wife. Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was 17 years old, while she was working as an assistant and model for his personal photographer, and began seeing him often about two years later. She attempted suicide twice during their early relationship. By 1936, she was a part of his household at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden and lived a sheltered life throughout World War II. Braun was a photographer, and many of the surviving colour photographs and films of Hitler were taken by her. She was a key figure within Hitler's inner social circle, but did not attend public events with him until mid-1944, when her sister Gretl married Hermann Fegelein, the SS liaison officer on his staff.

As the Third Reich collapsed towards the end of the war, Braun swore loyalty to Hitler and went to Berlin to be by his side in the heavily reinforced Führerbunker beneath the Reich Chancellery. As Red Army troops fought their way into the neighbourhood on 29 April 1945, she married Hitler during a brief civil ceremony; she was 33 and he was 56. Less than 40 hours later, they committed suicide together in a sitting room of the bunker, she by biting into a capsule of cyanide, and he by a gunshot to the head. The German public was unaware of Braun's relationship with Hitler until after their deaths.

Born in Munich, Eva Braun was the second daughter of school teacher Friedrich "Fritz" Braun and Franziska "Fanny" Kronberger, who had worked as a seamstress before her marriage. Her elder sister, Ilse, was born in 1909 and her younger sister, Margarete (Gretl), was born in 1915. Braun's parents were divorced in April 1921, but remarried in November 1922, probably for financial reasons (hyperinflation was plaguing the German economy at the time). Braun was educated at a Catholic lyceum in Munich, and then for one year at a business school in the Convent of the English Sisters in Simbach am Inn, where she had average grades and a talent for athletics. At age 17 she took a job working for Heinrich Hoffmann, the official photographer for the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Initially employed as a shop assistant and sales clerk, she soon learned how to use a camera and develop photos. She met Hitler, 23 years her senior, at Hoffmann's studio in Munich in October 1929. He had been introduced to her as "Herr Wolff". Eva's sister, Gretl, also worked for Hoffman from 1932 onward, and the women rented an apartment together for a time. Gretl accompanied her sister on her later trips with Hitler to the Obersalzberg.


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