One woman who was not inside the Führerbunker during the final days of the Second World War in Europe was a sister of Eva Braun, Gretl. Gretl would give birth a week after the death of Hitler and her sister Eva. And she then named her daughter after her much loved sister.
But her husband, a man who has been described as one of the most horrific and awful Nazis of them all, was also killed, having been executed upon the orders of the Führer. At the end of the war, Gretl Braun had very few people left. All of those whom she had loved and cared about had been killed inside of Berlin.
However, she enjoyed a life for many years mixing in the Nazi inner circle, and she was someone who lived a very lavish life inside of Hitler’s palaces and mountain retreat. There is much documented about the life of Gretl Braun in the war years and before, and she was almost a constant companion of her sister, who would then go on to marry Adolf Hitler. But what happened to her after World War II?
Margarete Berta “Gretl” Braun was born on the 31st of August 1915 inside of Munich, and she was the youngest of the Braun sisters. As a young woman, she attended school but dropped out at the age of 16. And she worked as a clerk for a photography company of Heinrich Hoffmann, who would become the official party photographer for the Nazis and the personal photographer of Adolf Hitler.
Eva Braun was also employed in Hoffmann’s studio, and it was through this link that she first met Hitler. After meeting Hitler in the studio for the first time, the Braun sisters’ lives would be changed forever.
Hitler would attempt to woo Eva Braun especially, who was described as a pretty, empty-headed blonde with a round face and blue eyes, and he would then pay for a three-bedroom flat for Eva and Gretl Braun to stay in, and Hitler would then visit. Their father was not very happy with this, and he even wrote to Hitler to complain about the fact that the Führer was much older and was intervening in the lives of his daughters. Inside of their flat, the Braun sisters held many parties with senior Nazis, but Gretl remained in the shadows and regularly visited Hitler’s other houses and complexes such as the Berghof in Obersalzberg.
It was said of Gretl and Eva that they were charming young ladies who gave generous tips, sometimes a cigar, even to the postmen.
Hitler spent more and more time with Eva Braun, and Gretl was often there a lot. He was more smitten with Eva, and he was actually rather offended by the smoking that Gretl regularly did. He said during one time to her that, “Give up cigarettes and I’ll give you a villa.”
But Gretl replied with, “My Führer, a villa would be a great joy to me, but only one, whereas smoking gives me 20 little satisfactions every day, satisfactions that last and multiply.” She was regularly attending gatherings at the Berghof and she spent much time flirting with other men who came along to the inner circle meetings.
For some reason, Adolf Hitler tried to find Gretl Braun a husband. He considered Heinrich Hoffmann, the son of Heinrich Hoffmann his photographer. However, Gretl did not find him attractive, and she actually began to see an American diplomat.
This ended shortly after, and she then began to see Hitler’s adjutant, Fritz Darges. One of Hitler’s secretaries stated of this that Gretl Braun was in love with Fritz Darges too, but the love 𝒶𝒻𝒻𝒶𝒾𝓇 with her was a little too dangerous and not private enough for young Fritz, so he hadn’t been able to make up his mind. Darges would suspiciously be sent to the Eastern Front suddenly to fight the Red Army.
Presumably, Hitler did not approve of the match.
Hitler then tried to persuade Walter Hewel, a close friend, to marry Gretl. But Hewel did not like the idea at all. It was claimed that Hitler promised Hewel that after marrying Gretl, he would appoint him an ambassador in Rome.
Hitler was so angry when Hewel married someone else, he banished him from his presence. However, he eventually forgave him and he returned to the inner circle. It’s not known why Hitler believed that he was in a position to marry off his girlfriend’s sister.
Gretl then got herself involved with Hermann Fegelein, Himmler’s SS liaison to Hitler. Fegelein was a terrible war criminal, and it was said of him that Hermann Fegelein was a daring cavalryman type. He had a very large nose and wore the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.
No wonder he was used to women flocking around him. In addition, he had a refreshing, sometimes very dry wit, and never minced his words. He went to Bormann’s nocturnal parties, drank to the health of all the important men there, and all the women were at his feet.
Those who were not his friends were his enemies, until he was firmly in the saddle. He was clever, but ruthless, and had some very attractive qualities, such as the honesty with which he admitted that at heart he was a terrible coward.
Fegelein has also been described as one of the worst SS war criminals and he was someone who oversaw a huge amount of war crimes and slaughter on the Eastern Front. Fegelein was probably more attracted to Gretl due to her position as the sister of the Führer’s girlfriend rather than her looks or her personality. The pair got married on the 3rd of June 1944 and it was said that Gretl Braun was, as one would say today, sexy, and Fegelein might have been thinking of the advantages of one day being Hitler’s brother-in-law.
The marriage took place and was celebrated as a great occasion on the Obersalzberg and in the tea house on the Kehlstein. The marriage was one of the last huge Nazi party celebrations before the war would turn against the Nazis.
And Fegelein was someone who was not afraid to make his wife jealous. He would dance with Eva Braun, his sister-in-law, and their movements were rather, let’s say, intimate, and many thought that Eva Braun held some romantic feelings for her brother-in-law. Fegelein did have many affairs, and the marriage was not very happy.
Three days after the wedding, the Normandy landings took place and Hitler left for his military headquarters a month later and he never went back to the Berghof.
Gretl Braun in January 1945 did go with her sister Eva to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin and the Führerbunker where Hitler would spend the last few months of his life. Eva and Gretl then went back to the Berghof on the 9th of February 1945, but Eva later returned back alone to Berlin. Gretl Fegelein was pregnant and she spent months inside of Hitler’s mountain retreat taking it easy until she gave birth.
Eva during this time remained by Hitler’s side and she wrote a final letter on the 23rd of April 1945 to Gretl and inside of this was a request for her sister to destroy all of her papers related to Nazi state business and also personal letters Eva ordered should be buried or kept by Gretl. Still today, none of these documents have ever been found.
Gretl’s husband, Hermann Fegelein, was in Berlin in the final days of the war in Europe, too. But on the 28th of April, 1945, he was arrested after fleeing the Führerbunker and was found blind drunk. He was later shot for desertion after Hitler had found out that Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and Fegelein’s boss, was attempting to surrender to the Western Allies.
The body of Hermann Fegelein, interestingly, has never been found after he was shot inside the Reich Chancellery Garden.
Hitler would marry Eva Braun on the 29th of April, also making Gretl the sister-in-law, technically, of the Führer, but only roughly for around 40 hours, as on the 30th of April, 1945, both Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler died inside of his study in the Führerbunker. Gretl Braun was informed about her sister’s death and she knew that when she returned to Berlin that it was likely she would never see her again. On the 5th of May 1945, she did give birth to a daughter, Eva Barbara Fegelein, the niece of Adolf Hitler.
After the end of the Second World War, Gretl Braun cut off contact with her family and she later remarried a man named Kurt Berlinghoff in February 1954 in Munich. She returned to live in Bavaria as the Nazi Reich was being dismantled and many of her friends were tried or imprisoned and some were even executed. Gretl and Eva’s father later revealed that he was against his daughters’ relationships or involvement with Hitler and the inner circle and he accused the Führer of taking advantage of Eva and Gretl, practically grooming them, bringing them into his dangerous life.
In 1971, Gretl’s daughter, who was known as Little Eva, after her aunt, died by ingesting poison after her boyfriend was involved in a fatal car crash. In the later 1970s, she was tracked down by one of her cousins, who revealed that she was living in a small town named Steingarden, close to Munich, and that she had Alzheimer’s. On the 10th of October 1987, Gretl Braun died at the age of 72.
She had never since the end of the Second World War spoken publicly about her relationship with Hitler or the inner circle and it’s not known if she was remorseful for the actions of the group of war criminals that she was closely associated to. She was buried inside of the newer Friedhof Rupolding in Bavaria and her grave is one which carries the remains of her daughter and her second husband who were also interred in that same plot.
Gretl Braun was a sister-in-law of Adolf Hitler and she would die in obscurity decades after the end of the Second World War. She would never speak out about what happened inside of the leadership of the Nazi party and she died taking these secrets with her to the grave.