Eva Braun

Eva Braun

Eva Anna Paula Hitler (née Braun; 6 February 1912 – 30 April 1945) was a German photographer who was the longtime companion and briefly the wife of Adolf Hitler. Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was a 17-year-old assistant and model for his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. She began seeing Hitler often about two years later. She attempted suicide twice during their early relationship. By 1936, Braun was a part of Hitler's household at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany, and lived a sheltered life throughout World War II. She became a significant 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 Nazi Germany was collapsing 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 garden. As Red Army troops fought their way into the centre government district, on 29 April 1945, Braun married Hitler during a brief civil ceremony; she was 33 and he was 56. Less than 40 hours later, they died by suicide in a sitting room of the bunker: Braun by biting and swallowing a capsule of cyanide, and Hitler by a gunshot to the head. The German public was unaware of Braun's relationship with Hitler until after their deaths. Many of the surviving colour photographs and films of Hitler were taken by Braun.

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