In this context, it is hard to imagine that Hitler especially advocated the entry of his girlfriend’s father into the NSDAP, never mind required it. Rather, it seems as though Friedrich Braun, like many teachers in the “Third Reich,” merely accommodated the National Socialist regime at first before eventually, not least out of opportunism, making his turn toward the new worldview official. More than 80 percent of the members of this profession became members of the NSDAP only after January 30, 1933, and thus had the reputation among the Party leaders of being “opportunists.”46 To prevent such people from joining, a ban on new members was put into effect starting in 1933 and cancelled only on April 20, 1937, after which point all “Party aspirants” had to fill out an additional two-page questionnaire with their applications, describing in detail their efforts to date for the “movement.” All of these new members, no matter what date they filed their application, were given a membership acceptance date of May 1, 1937.47
In addition, the Nazi educational politics since 1935 had moved in the direction of turning all teachers into “National Socialist People’s educators.” Especially in Bavaria after late November 1936—when Adolf Wagner, the powerful Gauleiter and Interior Minister known for his fanatical anti-Semitism, took over the additional title of Bavarian State Minister for Education and Culture, a post that had been vacant for two years—those who were not Party members were given considerably less leeway. Since that was precisely when Friedrich Braun submitted his application, according to his own testimony, Adolf Wagner could well have played a crucial role in prompting Friedrich Braun’s entry into the NSDAP, along with Braun’s own personal reasons.48
Still, Braun’s membership was not merely a formality. On November 8, 1939, shortly after the war began, he took part in the memorial event for the failed Hitler putsch of 1923, in Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller—among the “old fighters,” no less.49 Friedrich Braun was not actually a member of the “old guard”: he had been a Party member for only two years, and he is not known to have been particularly active in Munich NSDAP circles. Thus he actually should not have been admitted to this event at all—it was an occasion reserved for “Party fanatics,” according to Ian Kershaw. But it is possible that Eva Braun—perhaps through Heinrich Hoffmann—arranged for an invitation for her father so that he could hear the “Führer.” In any case, he ended up in the middle of the dynamite attack against Hitler that took place on that night, leaving eight dead and sixty-three wounded. Friedrich Braun survived, though he was wounded, while Hitler, after an hour-long speech that “decisively broke with England” (as Goebbels recorded), had left the hall a quarter of an hour before the detonation.50 The episode shows that there was certainly no unbridgeable chasm between father and daughter, or distance between Friedrich Braun and the Nazi state.
7. THE MISTRESS AND THE INNER CIRCLE
Eva Braun’s rise from anonymity into the inner circle around Hitler necessarily brought with it new acquaintances and new relationships that were very demanding for the socially inexperienced young woman from Munich. She thus stayed extremely reserved at first with all the other guests on the Obersalzberg, who were the Nazi leader’s close staff members. Instead, she surrounded herself primarily with her younger sister and friends she invited to the Berghof herself or brought with her from Munich. She came into contact with Hitler’s confidants exclusively on the Obersalzberg (with a few exceptions). In any case, her contact there was limited at first to a few people whom Hitler selected personally and considered trustworthy.
Albert and Margarete Speer
Albert Speer was a central figure in Hitler’s inner circle. And Speer’s presence, and that of his wife, in what he himself called “Hitler’s court” was of great importance to him and his position in the regime. His presence and “human” proximity to Hitler offered unique access to power and success to this architect who had lived until 1932 with, for all practical purposes, no income. As a result of this proximity, he suddenly had “the most exciting prospects” for professional success, at not even thirty years of age, and in 1937 he rose to be General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital, appointed by and reporting directly to Hitler. He now had sole control over the planning and carrying out of all municipal construction projects.
Social life on the Obersalzberg, on the other hand, was described by Speer as a “waste of time”: it was “agonizing” for him, he said, and “what remain[ed]” of it “in [his] memory” was only “a curious vacuity.”1 Still, he worked assiduously to fit in with this community and included his wife, Margarete, from the start as well. Margret Nissen, Speer’s younger daughter, said that her mother’s role on the Obersalzberg consisted in “being there to perform official duties at her husband’s side.”2 Whenever they were wanted, the Speers took part in lunches, dinners, afternoon diversions, or parties, at the Berghof or elsewhere. They also made particular efforts to include Eva Braun, who, like them, was athletic and enthusiastic about sports. They took her skiing, for example, even though Hitler “didn’t like to see” such outings for fear of injuries.3 In a private document written a few years before her death, from which her daughter published excerpts, Margarete Speer described how drastically their daily activities were curtailed by Hitler’s needs. Here is the usual procedure for “lunch with the Führer”:
The phone rings. It might be two, three, sometimes even four o’clock. A friendly male voice: “The Führer requests your presence at the table.” I’ve been ready for a long time, sitting around waiting. Albert and I are fetched….4
While Margarete Speer—after waiting in her apartment for the summons, sometimes for hours on end—is served her food at the Berghof, a governess and a housekeeper take care of the six Speer children. The youngest daughter later said, looking back on her childhood on the Obersalzberg, that she had “grown up basically without parents in those years,” since her mother and father were “more often traveling” than at home.5 Margarete Speer’s activities were thus not limited, as one might have expected, to her own household. Rather, she apparently neglected her family to support her husband’s career, based as it was solely on his personal ties to Hitler. To that extent, Margarete Speer may not have been acting in a political sphere, but in a “private” sphere she was no less significant and professionally useful. And she enjoyed such a life. Unlike her husband, who later made derisive comments about it, she described “living in that circle” around Hitler as “heady” to the journalist Gitta Sereny,6 and even before the appearance of her husband’s memoir Inside the Third Reich, she criticized his view of the past to Joachim Fest, complaining that Albert Speer never remembered “for one second that we were happy then.” After reading the book itself, which became a best seller, she is said to have told her husband: “Life hasn’t left me much, but now you’ve ruined the little I had left!”7