It is true, though, that Hitler appeared in his East Prussian headquarters right after the attack in an almost giddy mood. (The explosion had killed four people and wounded eleven.) Nicolaus von Below, who took part in the briefing on July 20 and was wounded himself, observed the “lively, almost happy expression on his face” and his “increased sense of mission.”21 Traudl Junge, the secretary Hitler sought out in his bunker immediately after the explosion, recalled that he was walking “upright and ramrod straight as he hadn’t for a long time.”22 As before, the Nazi leader rejected all thoughts of capitulation. From his point of view, it must not come to another “November 1918.” Even withdrawing from occupied areas so as to deploy the troops stationed there in defense of the Reich itself was never an option for him. The complexities of the war were beyond the dictator’s grasp: for him, there was only victory or annihilation. The “downfall was a duty.”23 And so, despite the hopeless military situation—the Red Army was already at the border of the German Reich, while the Allies were making inroads on all fronts—Hitler convinced himself that “Providence” had saved him on July 20, 1944, so that he could complete his “task.”24
Such convictions aside, Hitler’s health, unstable for years, took a dramatic turn for the worse after the assassination attempt. Even during Hitler’s last stay at the Berghof, Goebbels had noticed from Eva Braun’s movies that Hitler had “gotten older and older… during the war” and now walked “all bent over.”25 His stomach complaints had gotten worse after the war started, despite a strictly vegetarian diet. He also had higher blood pressure and was in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, with involuntary trembling in his arms and legs.26 Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, who as a young adjutant of the Chief of the General Staff of the Army first saw Hitler in person at a briefing on July 23, 1944, later recalled a “man of fifty-five with the posture of an old man.”27 Two months after the attack, Hitler suffered a full-blown physical collapse. Morell, his personal physician, noted in his daily calendar that “Patient A” had been feeling increasingly unwell since September 24, and was suffering from heart trouble, stomach aches, and a sore throat. “Finally,” Traudl Junge recalls, “the Führer stayed in bed one day. It was sensational news. No one had ever seen Hitler lying in bed.”28 A case of jaundice kept him on strict bed rest into mid-October; he lost a considerable amount of weight, and as a result he seemed haggard and old.29 The psychological strain increased. But since there was no way out for Hitler, and also no turning back, he devoted himself to the idea of one last great offensive in the west, despite the shortages of fuel and other supplies. He fantasized to Speer that “a single breakthrough on the western front” would “lead to collapse and panic among the Americans.”30
Eva Braun’s Will
At around the same time, on October 26, 1944, Eva Braun drew up her will in Munich.31 What made her take this step just then? Had Hitler’s illness, combined with the visible horrors of war in the destroyed city of Munich, made her aware that the end might be near? This assumption is at least plausible, especially as Gerda Bormann told her husband about a conversation with Eva Braun on the evening of October 23 on the Obersalzberg, in which Braun was deeply concerned that Hitler, who had barely recovered, was so close to the front. The Soviet troops had reached Warsaw and East Prussia in October 1944. Both women therefore hoped that Hitler would return to the Obersalzberg, because that was where, according to Gerda Bormann, it was “safest.” Martin Bormann put a damper on their hopes, however, since he knew that Hitler would under no circumstances abandon the “Wolf’s Lair.” At the same time, Bormann admitted to his wife that “sixty or eighty kilometers” was hardly a sufficient distance; he, too, wanted “more security for the Führer,” who needed a more appropriate location to recuperate.32
Proximity to the front was not the only problem. Hitler’s illness had led to conflicts and power struggles among his attending physicians. Karl Brandt and the other accompanying physicians held Morell responsible for the “Führer’s” poor state of health. Brandt accused Morell of having tried to poison Hitler with strychnine. Brandt was unable, though, to supply proof of this charge or to shake Morell’s position of trust, and as a result he was himself accused of “treason” and dismissed as accompanying physician on October 10, 1944. Despite losing this post, Brandt, who had been named Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation only four weeks earlier, remained one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi regime.33
These squabbles and the rumors of Hitler’s possible death connected with them could not have remained a secret to Eva Braun. In fact, it is likely that either Hitler himself or Anni Brandt, or Morell, or maybe even Bormann, kept her informed. In any case, the whole situation in the faraway “Wolf’s Lair” clearly seemed threatening enough to her that she began to reckon with the possibility of Hitler’s death. In her own life, on the other hand, little on the outside had changed. She continued to shuttle between the Obersalzberg and Munich, where she worked in Heinrich Hoffmann’s art publishing house and liked the work very much.34 Since her house in Bogenhausen had suffered serious damage from air attacks, she lived at the Berghof, where materially she lacked for nothing. And yet the thirty-two-year-old woman was preparing for her death.
Her will conscientiously divided up her property—in particular the jewelry, clothes, china, furniture, cash, and paintings—among her family and friends. According to Nerin E. Gun’s list, which, he wrote, reproduced the will “verbatim,” the paintings included works by Hermann Gradl, Hugo Wilhelm Kauffmann, Theodor Bohnenberger, Oskar Mulley, Heinrich Knirr, and Fritz Halberg-Krauss,35 all members of the Munich School of genre and landscape painters, Hitler’s favorite artists. (Gradl, Mulley, and Halberg-Krauss were represented in the National Socialist “Greater German Art Exhibition” that took place in the “House of German Art” in Munich until 1944.) We can only guess how Eva Braun came into possession of original paintings by these artists—she was certainly close to the source, as a colleague of Heinrich Hoffmann, a major art buyer. Hoffmann’s art press, where she now worked, also produced and sold the official postcards of the “Greater German Art Exhibition” exhibits.36 It is also possible that most of these pictures were gifts from Hitler. He had, for example, personally sought out Hermann Gradl in his studio in 1937, and had had portraits of himself painted by Heinrich Knirr and Theodor Bohnenberger, among others. Eva Braun apparently owned one of each of these “Führer portraits,” and was herself painted by Bohnenberger as well.37 She bequeathed this latter portrait to her sister Ilse, along with the house on Wasserburger Strasse. Gretl Fegelein (née Braun) was to inherit all of Eva Braun’s home movies, photo albums, and personal letters.