Eva Braun

A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Damion Searls is a writer and award-winning translator of more than a dozen books, most recently Mirjam Pressler’s Treasures from the Attic: The Extraordinary Story of Anne Frank’s Family and Hans Keilson’s rediscovered World War Two novel Comedy in a Minor Key, which was a New York Times Notable Book and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. He lives in New York City.

Copyright

This Is a Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf.

Translation copyright © 2011 by Damion Searls

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto.

www.aaknopf.com

Originally published in Germany as Eva Braun: Leben mit Hitler by Verlag C. H. Beck oHG, Munich, in 2010.

Copyright © 2010 Verlag C. H. Beck, Munich.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gortemaker, Heike B., [date]

Eva Braun : life with Hitler / by Heike B. Gortemaker ;

translated from the German by Damion Searls.—

1st American ed.

p. cm.

“This Is a Borzoi book”—T.p. verso.

Originally published in Germany as Eva Braun : Leben mit Hitler, by Verlag C. H. Beck, Munich, in 2010.

Includes bibliographical references.

eISBN: 978-0-307-70139-8

1. Braun, Eva. 2. Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945—Friends and associates. 3. Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945—Family. 4. Mistresses—Germany—Biography. 5. Spouses of heads of state—Germany—Biography. 6. Women—Germany— Biography. 7. Germany—History—1933–1945—Biography. I. Title.

DD247.B66G67 2011

943.086092—dc22

[B] 2011009551

Front-of-jacket photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

Jacket design by Gabriele Wilson

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Footnotes

1

Translator’s note: “Fuhrer,” which is also the ordinary German word meaning “leader,” is now known in English as Hitler’s title. It should be kept in mind that calling Hitler the “Fuhrer” was heavily ideological, the way referring to someone as “Our Dear Leader” would be in English. For that reason, Gortemaker puts “Fuhrer” in quotes throughout her book when it is an idolizing reference to Hitler.

2

Translator’s note: “Volk,” the German word for a people or tribe, also has a different connotation in the Nazi context. I have translated it as “the People” (capitalized), to emphasize its idealized, monolithic meaning, and have translated the adjective form, “volkisch,” as “Populist,” meaning “nationalist” or “xenophobic” in addition to the normal English sense of “populist.”

3

Translator’s note: “Gauleiter” is a Nazi bureaucratic term for a regional Party administrator, roughly equivalent to a Party “governor.”

4

Translator’s note: German paramilitary organizations, made up largely of defeated German soldiers returning from World War I and often deployed semiofficially to fight communists. Many Freikorps members later joined the SA and SS.

5

Translator’s note: Sometimes translated as “coordination” or “integration,” this term refers to the nationalization under National Socialism of previously private or independent organizations.

6

Translator’s note: The “Volksgemeinschaft” was the Nazi social ideal of a racially unified and hierarchically organized “People’s community.”

7