southeast of the city center, where, on September 12 at 10 a.m., a roll call of the Reich Labor Service took place with an accompanying march “past the Fuhrer”; on the following day came the roll call of the political leaders; and on the last day, September 16, starting at 9 a.m., the presentation of the armed forces, ending that night with a ceremonial tattoo.8 In 1935, though, the zeppelin field was still bare—the well-known monumental stone architectural features, including the gigantic gilded swastika, were built only two years later. The tribunals, speaker’s platform, and colossal eagle lit with several spotlights were still made of wood in 1935; Speer’s idea of a “cathedral of light,” created from the beams of antiaircraft spotlights, was tested out for the first time this year, but not yet put into full effect.9
For Eva Braun, meanwhile, the convention meant a further development in her relationship to Hitler. For the first time, she was allowed to take part in an official NSDAP event along with the wives of leading Nazis—Ilse Hess, Margarete “Marga” Himmler, and Gerda Bormann, among others. Her presence apparently met with resistance from some of the women, though, especially Hitler’s energetic half-sister, Angela Raubal, who kept house for him in Berchtesgaden. Herbert Dohring, the later manager of the Berghof household, recalled after the war that “Frau Raubal and Frau Goebbels and all these ministers’ wives” were “completely shocked” that “this young, capricious, and dissatisfied-looking girl was sitting there on the VIP rostrum.”10 Dohring, twenty-two years old at the time and thus slightly younger than Braun, was a member of the “Fuhrer protection command” stationed in the Deutscher Hof hotel and responsible for Hitler’s personal safety; he could hardly have learned anything of the conflicts among the women on the VIP stage from his own experience. He had possibly not even met Eva Braun by that point in time. His judgment must therefore have been based partly on rumors, partly on his later experiences at the Berghof.
Still, Julius Schaub, Hitler’s personal adjutant and close associate of many years, who followed the Nazi leader “like a shadow,” in Christa Schroeder’s words, also claimed that there was “a rather tense relationship” between Raubal and Braun at the convention.11 Schroeder herself, a secretary in the “Fuhrer’s personal staff” in the Reich Chancellery since 1933, remarks that Angela Raubal could not stand Eva Braun from the beginning, and that Raubal expressed to her brother her disapproval of Braun’s, in her view, “very conspicuous” behavior in Nuremberg. Schroeder said that Raubal later had to “leave the mountain”[8] on Hitler’s wish, and “all the other ladies” who made themselves noticeable “with disparaging remarks” were not permitted “to enjoy” the “hospitality of the house” for long.12
Angela Raubal did in fact leave the Obersalzberg on February 18, 1936, after more than seven years there, but she returned, it seems, for occasional visits. In any case, on May 22, 1936, she wrote in a letter to Rudolf Hess from Dresden that she was planning to accompany her husband on a study trip at the end of June that would pass through Munich and Berchtesgaden. She added: “Especially since my brother was here in Dresden and I spoke to him again after such a long time and he promised to come over to see us for coffee soon, I have been so wildly happy, I am afraid the gods will envy me.”13 Apparently Hitler had reestablished contact with his half-sister after only a few months. It is no longer possible to ascertain whether Eva Braun was the only reason for Raubal’s departure.14 The recollections of the members of Hitler’s personal staff clearly show, however, how dramatic Eva Braun’s rise seemed from the point of view of the staff and the servants. The sudden departure of Hitler’s half-sister clearly showed them that anyone who dared to criticize Eva Braun or her relationship with Hitler would have to reckon with being laid off. As a result, the young woman’s position in the inner circle became practically untouchable.
Nonetheless, even in Nuremberg, only a few initiates knew who Eva Braun actually was. On the record, she remained invisible, and she did not stay at Hotel Kaiserhof like the wives and other female guests, such as Hitler’s architect Gerdy Troost, Marga Himmler, and Gerda Bormann. (Like all lodgings in the city during the convention, Hotel Kaiserhof could be entered only with a “residence pass” given out by the management.) Instead, it is very probable that Braun, along with Marianne (Marion) Schonmann, a friend she had brought along from Munich, moved in Heinrich Hoffmann’s circle as his colleague.15 So it cannot be ruled out that she, like her boss, stayed with Hitler’s entourage in the Deutscher Hof on the Altstadtring, across from the Opera House, where Hitler occupied the second floor of the hotel, as per tradition, during his stay in this “most German of all cities.” Hitler had personally prohibited the wives of other Party members from being housed there, so he may well have presumed that Eva Braun, accompanied by Hoffmann, would arouse the least attention there.16
A photograph taken on the occasion of Hoffmann’s fiftieth birthday on September 12, 1935, in Nuremberg, shows that Hoffmann’s circle at the time included not only Braun and Schonmann, his family, and other colleagues, but also Max Schmeling and the photographer Atto Retti-Marsani.17 Presumably, Braun also received complimentary tickets to the various events at the convention through Hoffmann. In general, tickets for the convention, which were sent out from the Braune Haus (Brown House) in Munich in the “Fuhrer’s” name and signed by Rudolf Hess, were extremely sought-after and hard to come by. Ilse Hess, loyal to the Party line as always, decisively rejected a relative’s request in the run-up to the convention as follows: “Unfortunately, the tickets are in such short supply that even many old comrades-in-arms in the movement are having to stay away. In these circumstances, it is even less possible for me to give preference to a relative who is not among the long-standing Party faithful.”18 Eva Braun, meanwhile, was able to remain discreet, with Hoffmann’s help, even though she became a fixture in Hitler’s innermost circle from then on. Within a year—with or without a suicide attempt—she had managed to decisively change the circumstances of her life with Hitler, entirely to her benefit.
Eva Braun now lived in her own apartment, and a few months later would move with her younger sister Gretl into her own house, with a garden, in Bogenhausen, a neighborhood in Munich filled with aristocratic villas. In addition, she was a constant presence at the Berghof from 1936 on, and received Hitler in his refuge on the Obersalzberg, which became her second residence along with Munich. She even occasionally traveled abroad with him. Since she was concealed in his retinue as a “private secretary,” outsiders had no idea that this young blond woman might be the lover of the unmarried dictator. Eva Braun’s “constant presence,” which made such an impression on Hanfstaengl, was apparent only to those who themselves had, or had once had, close personal contact with Hitler.19
It is true that the formal status of lawfully wedded wife remained unattainable for Braun, but did that make her life a “lost” one, as the British biographer Angela Lambert put it right in the title of her book
Ernst Hanfstaengl, who made these claims after the war, was himself strongly under Hitler’s spell and had, despite his upper-middle-class family background and education at Harvard University, supported the NSDAP as early as 1922. After his failed putsch on November 8–9, 1923, Hitler fled first to a house in Uffing am Staffelsee in the Upper Bavarian Alpine foothills some forty-five miles from Munich owned by the Hanfstaengl family. And during Hitler’s following yearlong prison term in Landsberg am Lech, Hanfstaengl was among the faithful supporters who visited him many times in jail.22 Hanfstaengl’s intimate knowledge of Hitler’s personal relationships was limited, though, to the 1920s and early 1930s. By the 1935 convention, he had been cut off from personal contact with Hitler for more than a year. Having fallen into disgrace, he flew to Great Britain in 1937 and tried, unsuccessfully, to achieve rehabilitation with Hitler as a “patriot and Party comrade,” via Hans Heinrich Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery, and Julius Streicher, Gauleiter of Nuremberg.23
Years later, the fact that Hanfstaengl had once been in close personal contact with Hitler unexpectedly
