Reich Press Chief Otto Dietrich, on the other hand, in his reminiscences published in 1955 under the title 12 Jahre mit Hitler (Twelve Years with Hitler; published in English as The Hitler I Knew), passes over this day of waiting on the Obersalzberg. He writes that he had not known at the time that Hitler was “launching an attack” on Poland “but wanted to avoid war with England.”26 Dietrich presumably did not suspect the existence of Eva Braun’s photographs. These are not posed pictures but snapshots that reveal the general tension. She later pasted them into a photo album and added typewritten captions pasted under the pictures—for example, “… and then Ribbentrop left for Moscow”; “… and the Führer hears the report over the radio.”27
The Minister of Propaganda had already, on the evening of August 21, arranged for the announcement of the upcoming German-Soviet Pact over German radio, and instructed the editors of all the newspapers “to publish [news of the pact] on the first page, very large.”28 On the morning of August 22, Goebbels held a press conference in Berlin for foreign journalists, while Hitler, at the same time, informed fifty officers, including the commanders of the various armed forces, in his Alpine residence that he was definitively resolved to go to war, a war that he would be “hard and ruthless” in waging.29 The Nazi leader spent the following days getting constant reports about the domestic and foreign reactions. The announcement of a Nonaggression Pact between the two powerful dictators, which Goebbels described as a “worldwide sensation,” did not, however, produce the desired reaction in either England or Poland. Both governments immediately announced that their positions were unchanged; Britain in fact strengthened its mutual assistance pact with Poland (it was formally signed only on August 25), and the Polish government refused further discussions with the Nazi leadership.30
As we would therefore expect, Eva Braun’s photo diary contains the following entry: “… but Poland still does not want to negotiate.” This comment was not “naive”; it matched the view of many Germans who thought that Poland would not risk a military conflict with its powerful neighbor in these circumstances.31 Moreover, Poland’s refusal to accede to Germany’s demands, withdraw from Danzig, and permit passage to East Prussia was criticized outside of Germany as welclass="underline" the demands were seen as perfectly legitimate outside of National Socialist circles, too. In addition, Nazi propagandists had succeeded in imputing their own country’s war intentions to the Western powers. Goebbels, for example, in an address to the Danzig population on June 17, 1939, accused “Polish chauvinists” of wanting “to smash us Germans to pieces in an upcoming Battle of Berlin,” while England had “given them a blank check” to do so and was trying “to encircle the Reich and Italy.” Right up to the invasion of Poland, the Minister of Propaganda constantly repeated the basic ideas of Hitler’s conspiracy theory, in which Hitler wanted peace but the “encirclers” in London, Paris, and Washington wanted war. As a result of the effectiveness of the German propaganda, the Nazi leader, apparently successful at everything, enjoyed the widespread reputation in Germany of being a savvy politician on the international stage, outwitting Western powers who acted moralistic but ultimately did nothing.32
Was Eva Braun aware of the historic significance of these days that she spent at the Berghof, days whose drama she clearly was trying to capture on film? There is no testimony on the subject, contemporaneous or later. No information from any of the women present—who included Margarete Speer, Anni Brandt, and Gerda Bormann—has been preserved. Eva Braun’s photographs themselves, however, imply that she was well aware of what was happening, as does the fact that she went along to the capital immediately afterward. She presumably rode to Berlin via Munich in one of the ten Mercedes that left the Obersalzberg on August 24, 1939. The “court,” as Speer said, had repaired to the Chancellery.33 Hitler’s “situation room” was in the great hall of the Old Chancellery, and it became the center of the “Führer headquarters” in Berlin after the start of the war.34 Eva Braun was living in her rooms on the upper floor of the Old Chancellery, but it is unclear how well informed she was about the developments. On September 1, though, she apparently witnessed in person, along with her sister Ilse who was then living in Berlin, the session of Parliament hurriedly called by Göring in which Hitler declared war on Poland. His justification was: “This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5:45 a.m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met by bombs.”35 No one knew at the time that the alleged Polish attack on a German radio station in Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia, which German propaganda cast as “the cause of the outbreak of the war,” was a fabrication by the SS, along with all the other “border incidents” that had allegedly taken place in the previous days.36
In the former Kroll Opera House near Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, closed since 1931 and housing the National Socialist sham-parliament since the Reichstag fire of February 1933, there were several hundred seats available for visitors and journalists, in the two tiers of boxes. According to Ilse Braun’s description as relayed by Nerin E. Gun, Eva Braun cried when Hitler, dressed in battle dress with the SS insignia on his left sleeve, announced:
My whole life, from this moment on, belongs to my People. I want nothing more than to be the first soldier of the German Reich. I have therefore put on this tunic, which was been the holiest and most priceless to me, and will take it off only after our victory, or not live through its end.37
The members of Parliament stood up at these words, as per protocol, and “a thunderous cry of Heil” resounded in the chamber. Eva Braun, though, according to her sister, said: “If something happens to him, I’ll die too.”38 Christa Schroeder, Hitler’s secretary, expressed herself in similar terms two days later, on September 3, shortly before 9 p.m., when she set off for the Polish front with Hitler in the special train (still bearing the code name “Amerika”) from Berlin’s Stettin station. Great Britain and France had declared war against the German Reich that day. Hitler’s—and his entourage’s—hope that England would continue its wait-and-see policy was thus shattered; the Nazi regime had unleashed a great war. Suitably depressed, Christa Schroeder wrote to her friend Johanna Nusser: “In a few hours we will leave Berlin…. For me it means going with the leader through thick and thin. As for the worst case, I don’t want to think about that yet, but if it happens—my life is over.”39
The Berghof as “Führer Headquarters”
With the start of the war, Hitler’s Alpine residence became a “Führer headquarters” whenever the commander in chief of the Wehrmacht was staying there. Only the military adjutant on duty was with him at all times; Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) and Alfred Jodl, Hitler’s most influential military adviser and Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command in the OKW, were housed a couple of miles away in the “Sub-Chancellery” in Berchtesgaden. The Wehrmacht command staff, meanwhile, worked in a special train in the Salzburg train station until the end of 1942.40 Briefings on the military situation, however, took place at the Berghof every afternoon and evening. As a result, Otto Dietrich recalled, the women had to stay in their rooms “until the ‘noon briefing’ ended, around 2 p.m., and the generals drove off again.” The same procedure was repeated after dinner, when the “OKW gentlemen” arrived once more. Eva Braun, her friends, and the secretaries repaired to the downstairs rooms of the Berghof most of the time, where there was a bowling alley and where they could watch movies.41