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

[MADem]

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

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

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

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

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

[Bucky]

1. Thanks for posting, but that "Hitler's mistress, Geli Raubal" is a howler.

Geli Raubal was Hitler's niece (daughter of his half-sister). He kept her under constant watch, like a prisoner, often wouldn't let her leave his apartment, and it's doubtful that the relationship was consensual

[MADem]

2. I can't speak to the accuracy of the commentary--the guy who went looking for

these rather perverse windows into 'the banality of evil' was born during the war, so he had no first hand knowledge, either.

I just find the pictures mesmerizing, in a train-wreck/car crash sort of way. The guy was just such a right bastard, and to see him on the veranda with his nicely pressed suit, and his cronies doing the Nazi high five and "Hail fellow, well met..." and the KIDS...he's always acting like the avuncular pater--it's extremely creepy; the ultimate in cognitive dissonance.

I guess we like our villains to breathe fire 24/7...but in real life, that miserable ass crapped and farted like the rest of us.

[Bucky]

4. I totally agree. I understand Hitler was actually really fond of children, liked to play with them.

In part, he was fascinated by their innocence. I think also in part he probably had an emotional inability to bond with equals. People who dismiss him as a madman tend to overlook the quite rational way he went about turning his neuroses into public policy. Until the mid-30s, most people warning the world about Hitler were considered extremists. The world saw him as an exemplar of the German common man, a working class cure for the power-crazed culture of the stuck up Junkers who started The World War. I'm reading a book about FDR's first ambassador to Germany right now, Garden of the Beasts. Most of the American diplomatic corps were certain that, now that Hitler was in power in 1933, he'd become more responsible and start to curtail the efforts of his rank and file National Socialist followers to attack the Jews. More than a couple of the quotes include comments about how the Jews were kinda asking for it for the role they'd played in harming the German economy--I shit you not.

[MADem]

5. I guess the lesson here is "Just because he's racist don't mean he's crazy!"

Crazy like a fox, for a time, anyway. He managed to suck in Lindbergh and the Duke of Windsor and his dreadful wife (not that they were bastions of intelligence, but still, you'd figure even a dullard having the benefit of a decent education would know better...) and a lot of people you'd just wouldn't expect to be such cheery racists...but that racism, it's a vicious thing. Indeed!

This book? http://www.amazon.com/In-Garden-Beasts-American-Hitlers/dp/030740885X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359824448&sr=8-1&keywords=garden+of+the+beasts

It looks REALLY good, actually--I think I may grab a copy!!

[Bucky]

3. Second howler: "Hitler's favorite dog is named Blondie..."

And he tries several times to get her WHAT?!!

jump to 3:20

[MADem]

6. Unintentional hilarity ensues....!

An unfortunate choice of words.

I'm sure Blondi wasn't thrilled by that sort of attention ...!

[Bucky]

7. Now I've got this image in my head...

Hitler, pants around his ankles, revealing sock garters no doubt, chasing his German shepherd around the room to the sound of Benny Hill's "Wacky Sax" theme song.

[MADem]

8. Run, Blondi, run!!! nt

Ya gotta wonder who wrote the copy that accompanied those films...it's terribly choppy and disjointed, but I did find the images incredible--such good color, and surprisingly in focus, too.