Thus the end was conceiveable. Nonetheless, life on the Obersalzberg continued to take its “peaceful course.” Below, Speer, Brandt, and Goebbels were among the regular guests. Eva Braun showed “a series of color films” that she had shot of Hitler in earlier years at the Berghof. “I have never seen him so relaxed on film,” Goebbels remarked.7 The Minister of Propaganda praised Eva Braun’s “critical discernment” in “questions of film and theater,” and recorded: “We sit there around the fire until 2 a.m., exchanging memories, taking pleasure in the many beautiful days and weeks that we spent together. The Führer asks about people, now this one, now that one. In short, the atmosphere is like that of the good old days.”8 For more than four months—from late February until July 16, 1944, with only brief interruptions—Hitler stayed at the Berghof. It was his last time there, and he probably suspected it would be. He postponed his departure several times. There had been hints for months that an attempt on his life from his own military was looming.9
Eva Braun heard about the assassination attempt on the afternoon of July 20. She had once again left the Berghof to go swimming with her best friend Herta Schneider at Königssee, just five miles away. On the way back, a chauffeur fetched the women and told them what had happened. Schneider later told the American journalist Nerin E. Gun that Eva Braun, back at the Berghof, tried to phone Hitler at his headquarters in Rastenburg, and suffered a nervous crisis when she still could not reach him after many attempts. When she finally did get through to Hitler, she reportedly said: “I love you, may God protect you,” and cried tears of joy after hanging up the phone.10 Hitler had apparently already made plans with her at the Berghof for the eventuality of his death, given the rumors that had been circulating for some time of a possible assassination attempt. Goebbels noted after a discussion with the Nazi leader in Rastenburg on August 24, 1944, for example, that Hitler told him about premonitions he had had even before his departure from the Obersalzberg, which had weighed on him like a “nightmare,” and about having “told [Eva Braun] precisely” what she “needed to do upon his death.” She had apparently brushed aside “such admonitions,” however. Instead, she had told Hitler that “in such a case, there would be only one thing left for her, namely to seek her own death as well.”11
It must certainly have been quite clear to Eva Braun that without Hitler she would be in a weak and vulnerable position vis-à-vis her many enemies. But would this fear justify suicide? And why would Hitler, otherwise so silent about private matters, have given Goebbels this advance notice of his girlfriend’s plans? Eva Braun seems to have completely and utterly bound her life to that of Hitler, early on and quite consciously. She had already proven many times over that she was prepared to do the utmost for him. He, in turn, clearly valued this kind of attestation of loyalty, especially as he saw himself increasingly surrounded by “traitors,” and he therefore must have emphasized his appreciation of her. The whole episode makes clear that their double suicide nine months later was no accident. Hitler and Braun had already decided what roles they were to play in the last act. They may even have made arrangements for it together.
To Hitler’s close confidants, the assassination attempt came as a shock. They all knew, of course, how dependent they were on the “Führer.” But while his girlfriend sat waiting for news at the Berghof, Goebbels and Speer in Berlin helped crush the revolt. Goebbels took an active role by putting the “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” (Hitler’s Personal Bodyguard Regiment), stationed in the capital, on alert and by arranging for a special announcement to go out over the German radio: “Assassination Attempt Failed.” Speer, who had come to the Ministry of Propaganda for a meeting on the afternoon of July 20, stood at his side and offered advice.12 Still, there was not exactly rock-solid cohesion among Hitler’s henchmen in light of this threat from within, since Speer, for instance, found his name on a government list of traitors, was exposed to numerous suspicions, and feared intrigues on the part of his rivals, Goebbels and Bormann.13
In any case, the failed attack in no way inspired doubts in Hitler’s circle about the continuation of the war. The members all explicitly declared their faith in Hitler and their belief in the “final victory.” None of Hitler’s longtime companions and convinced National Socialists saw Hitler as the cause of the human suffering in Europe. Ilse Hess, for instance, had complained of the “destruction of our beautiful, beloved Munich” after the heavy bombardment of the Bavarian capital in spring 1944, and when she heard that “the Führer had stood before the rubble, deeply shaken,” she declared:
I imagine that it must have been terribly difficult for him! To wait relentlessly until eventually the one favorable and right moment comes for the last great strike—and to have to look on as one after another of the things closest to his heart is annihilated—not to mention the loss of life! But it is 1944 and we will never give up hope!14
Among the German population as well, Hitler grew more popular after the attempt on his life became known, while the subversives reaped widespread disapproval and outrage. In fact, the events of July 20 had been, to quote German historian Hans-Ulrich Thamer, a “resistance without the people.” Yet the attack left a deep mark on the Nazi leader himself. More than ever, he saw himself as a hero chosen by Providence, the only man who could save Europe from “Bolshevism.” If anything happened to him, he had told his secretary the night before the assassination attempt, there was “no one who would be able to take over as leader.”15
A Trophy for Eva Braun
On the very afternoon of July 20, Christa Schroeder received orders from Hitler to send his uniform, shredded by the explosion, to Eva Braun on the Obersalzberg. The secretary—who said of herself that she “played a greater part [in Hitler’s life] than a member of the family”—recalled that Braun was supposed to save the pants, which “were in tatters and threads from top to bottom,” and the jacket, whose back was now missing “a square patch.” She also remarked that the Nazi leader was “in a way proud of this trophy.”16 In fact, Hitler was euphoric after the incident and transformed the damaged uniform, which at first sight testified to his vulnerability, into a kind of sign of victory with which he tried to emphasize his triumph over his enemies. He might have imagined presenting the uniform to the German public, after a victorious end to the war, as proof of his heroic struggle.
First, though, Hitler was showing his girlfriend that he, too, could not escape injury, but was putting his own life and body on the line like every other soldier in battle. Of course, he stayed in his bunker in the “Wolf’s Lair” as though in a fortress, surrounded by several circles of barbed wire fences monitored by the Waffen-SS.17 But he imagined himself as a warrior, a hero making sacrifices for his People, and he made sure that Eva Braun, whom he spoke about in the headquarters “almost every day,” shared his self-image.18 It is said that she “nearly fainted” when she caught sight of Hitler’s uniform.19 But the claim that Eva Braun received a love letter along with the uniform—Hitler supposedly addressed her, using an Austrian pet name, as “dear Tschapperl” in the letter, added a sketch of the barracks, and signed it with the initials A.H.—is surely a legend. Nerin E. Gun quotes this letter from memory, but its contents and provenance are highly doubtful, and it is extremely unlikely that Hitler, who in general avoided writing personal letters, would have dedicated such a personal document for his secretary to type up in precisely the days after July 20, 1944, in an atmosphere of paranoid mistrust of the people around him.20