Yet what effect did such leader-disciple bonds, which certainly existed between Hitler and close associates such as Hoffmann, Hess, and Goebbels, and later Speer and Bormann, have on Hitler’s relationship with Eva Braun? Was it acceptable, from the point of view of the “disciples,” that their idol, transfigured into someone or something larger than life by his own propaganda, showed himself to be as incomplete as any ordinary human being by having ordinary human needs? Did the same moral commandment of unswerving submission, which Hitler described as the foundation for every human community, apply to Eva Braun as well? According to Max Weber’s definition, the “charismatic leader” does not distinguish between private and public bonds, since his authority is based solely on “purely personal social relationships.”62 In this context, Eva Braun’s suicide attempt may well have demonstrated to Hitler her loyalty and adoration to the utmost possible degree, and the self-sacrifice that he demanded from all his followers. By January 1933, in any case, it was clear that, despite their unavoidable geographic separation, Eva Braun had become a lasting and crucial figure in Hitler’s life.
Meanwhile, in Cologne and Berlin, Hitler was in multiple negotiations about the formation of a new government with the scheming Franz von Papen, the opponent of the new Chancellor, Kurt von Schleicher. President Hindenburg was aware of these meetings and approved of them, and Schleicher suspected that the efforts to topple him were going on behind his back.63 The Nazi propaganda machine played up the significance of an NSDAP victory in the Landtag election in the principality of Lippe-Detmold on January 15, 1933, and this gave Hitler some tactical leverage. But a decisive turn in the question of who would be chancellor came about only due to the machinations of a businessman named Joachim von Ribbentrop, in whose villa in Dahlem outside Berlin Hitler had his meetings with Papen and then, on the evening of January 22, with Oskar von Hindenburg, the President’s adjutant and son. When Schleicher’s government stepped down on January 28, Papen gave his unqualified support to a Hitler cabinet.64 After conservatives such as Baron Konstantin von Neurath, the foreign minister; Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk, the finance minister; Baron Paul von Eltz-Rübenach, the postal and traffic minister; and Alfred Hugenberg, the head of the German National People’s Party (DNVP), declared themselves willing to work in a government led by Hitler, Hindenburg named the NSDAP leader Chancellor, on January 30, 1933.65
Hitler had reached his goal. Immediately after his swearing in, he had himself driven the few steps from the Reich Chancellery to the Hotel Kaiserhof, flanked by cheering crowds.66 Numerous faithful followers were already waiting there, including Göring, Goebbels, Hess, Hanfstaengl, and Hoffmann. Together they celebrated attaining the center of power in the German Reich. “Wilhelmstrasse is ours,” Goebbels remarked, full of satisfaction, in his diary that would be published a year later as Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei (From Kaiserhof to the Reich Chancellery).67 Hess wrote to his wife, Ilse, that he had “not thought possible until the last moment” what had now become “reality.”68
The first meeting of Hitler’s cabinet took place at 5:00 p.m. the same day. At around 8:30, Hitler showed himself at the window to his followers, who—in an improvised mobilization from Goebbels—marched from the Grosser Stern in the Tiergarten, through the Brandenburg Gate, to Wilhelmstrasse in a torchlit procession that included thousands of Berliners.69 Although the conferring of power upon the head of the NSDAP was in no way seen as a turning point at the time, the leading National Socialists immediately created the legend of a “German revolution,” and they conducted themselves like bellicose upstarts. Intoxicated by their success, they did not leave the Chancellery until the early morning hours of January 31.70
Hindenburg, who had temporarily been using the official residence in the Chancellery since October 1932, apparently saluted the masses marching past his window until after midnight. Gathered around Hitler were his vice-chancellor, Franz von Papen, Wilhelm Frick, and Hermann Göring as minister without portfolio and acting head of the Prussian interior ministry, as well as Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, NSDAP lawyer Hans Frank, Heinrich Hoffmann, and other followers. As the night progressed, Hitler managed to withdraw to a small room next to the chancellor’s ballroom and reception hall, where he held forth in a monologue for hours on end before his comrades-in-arms.71 A large number of phone calls and telegrams had already arrived from Germany and abroad, acknowledging the change of government, to the point that the telephone lines were sometimes jammed. Nevertheless, Hitler, it is said, tried to reach Eva Braun by phone in Munich that night.72
Eva Braun did not actually have her own phone. In the early 1930s, a telephone was a luxury item that only a few private households could afford, especially in a time of general economic hardship. Long conversations on the telephone were still rare; in general, the phone was used for brief communications or to call for help in emergencies. There were, however, already some four hundred thousand connections in the metropolis of Berlin, population four million. The German postal service was just beginning to promote the purchase of telephone connections, with a brochure called “You Need a Telephone Too.”73 In any case, Hitler could reach Eva Braun by phone only at the office of his friend Hoffmann. She apparently spent nights at the office, sleeping on a “bench” and waiting for her lover’s phone call.74 Only after Hitler was introduced to Braun’s best friend Herta Ostermayr at Café Heck in Munich, which was after he had come to power, did he “always” call the Ostermayrs “from Berlin”—as Herta later recalled—“since the Brauns didn’t have a phone.”75 This arrangement did not last long, though—the official phone book of May 1, 1934, lists Eva Braun with her own phone number at 93 Hohenzollernstrasse. Even though the address was that of her parents’ apartment, the name in the phone book was hers alone,76 which shows that the phone line was acquired especially for her, so that she could talk on the phone with Hitler undisturbed.
On January 30, 1933, there was no such possibility. If we are to believe Nerin E. Gun, it was a nun collecting donations from the Brauns on the afternoon of January 30 who told Eva the news from Berlin. Eva Braun’s first reaction was happiness; then, in the following days at Photohaus Hoffmann, she enthusiastically collected photographs of the National Socialist rally in Berlin while her father and her sister Ilse expressed reservations about the change in government. According to Gun, Franziska and Ilse Braun, who lived together in the family home in Ruhpolding in Upper Bavaria after Friedrich Braun’s death on January 22, 1964, stated that Eva Braun grew very pensive after her initial reaction of high spirits, because she was afraid that she would be able to see Hitler even less often than before.77