Heinrich Hoffmann Munich locations

HEINRICH HOFFMANN AND MUNICH

Similar to his contemporary, a female cinematographer and director, Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003), Heinrich Hoffmann has become notoriously associated with the heritage of the Nazi regime, not because of his immediate involvement in the crimes. He neither sent people to the concentration camps nor participated in the decision-making of the Second World War. Along with that, he called himself a friend of Adolf Hitler, and being the photographer next to the German dictator and all key events in the history of the NSDAP, Hoffmann self-consciously glorified the murderous regime. To some extent, he made Hitler the undisputed ruler in Germany. Similar to a pen, which can be more powerful than a sword, thousands of photographs put in the right time and place in front of the right audience proved to be a disastrous image-making. Even though at the end of his life, Heinrich Hoffmann pretended to be a bystander, an artist, his personality and relation to Hitler and the Nazi regime were more complex, and thus worth attention. 

Henrich Hoffmann was born three and a half years before Hitler, on September 12, 1885, in the Franconian city of Furth, now part of Nuremberg. He was introduced to the art of photography by his own father, Robert Hoffmann, who worked as a court cameraman first under Luitpold Karl Joseph Wilhelm Ludwig, Prince Regent of Bavaria (1821-1912), and later for King Ludwig III (1845-1921). The boy’s uncle of the same name, Heinrich (1862-1928), was also a famous photographer. At the turn of the XX century, young Henrich worked in the photo atelier of his father, and once reaching eighteen, he spent the next years on journeys, working as a cameraman in Germany, Switzerland, France, and England. He gained experience from famous photographers of his time until he finally came to Munich in 1909. Even though Henrich enjoyed his career development and the lovely atmosphere in London, he wanted to come back home to Germany. Upon arriving in Munich, he bought a small premise on Schellingstrasse 33 and turned it into a photo studio, thus following the example of his father and uncles, who had opened their atelier in Regensburg back in the 1880s. Previously having dreams of becoming a painter and prevailed on by his father, a twenty-four-year-old Henrich Hoffmann completely tied himself with the world of photography. 

With the opening of his own atelier and a ‘Hoffmann Fotoreport’ service in Munich, Henrich Hoffmann quickly gained a reputation as a skillful portrait photographer. His services were in demand among Bavarian politicians and Bohemians, whose portrait taken by Hoffmann appeared from time to time on the pages of local newspapers, including the famous weekly ‘Münchner Illustrierte Zeitung’. Hoffmann’s political views before the outbreak of the First World War remain unknown, but on August 2, 1914, a day before Germany declared war on Belgium and France, he took one of his most well-known photos. Hoffmann took a series of photos of the patriotic crowd that gathered on Odeonsplatz square in front of the Feldhernhalle war memorial. Among this mob was a twenty-five-year-old shabby painter named Adolf Hitler, who had come to Munich in May 1913, who, like the men around him, supported the outbreak of war. Years later, Hitler told Hoffmann that he was among the crowd that day, and the enlargement of the August 2, 1914 photo revealed him in the center of the shot. This photo contributed to the establishment of the ‘Hitler myth’ during the Third Reich era, pointing to him as a war veteran and a man of the people. 

 

Not aware of the existence of Hitler at the time, Hoffmann was assigned as a war photographer on the Western Front. He spent the next four years mainly in the rear, far away from the battlefields, and among other matters, Hoffmann worked on developing photos of the air reconnaissance. Along with the service, his photo business also drew profit from selling postcards during the war, which saved his atelier on Schellingstrasse 33 from closure. At the end of the Great War, Henrich Hoffmann came back to Munich, and in the next several months, he made himself a chronicler of the uneasy period in German history. First, in November 1918, he documented the proclamation of the so-called ‘People’s State of Bavaria’ led by a former theater critic, Kurt Eisner. After his assassination came the governments of Martin Segitz and later of Johannes Hoffmann, when finally, in April 1919, the communist radicals proclaimed the notorious ‘Bavarian Soviet Republic’. 

Henrich Hoffmann took photos of the events in Bavaria, and in the fall of 1919, he published a 32-page brochure called “Ein Jahr Bayerische Revolution im Bilde” (A Year of the Bavarian Revolution in Pictures). The context of the photo album was anti-revolution and of a right-wing nature; many photos were purposely staged or edited for Hoffmann’s views. The first edition, with one hundred and thirty black-and-white plates, included 10,000 copies. With the second one in January 1920, the total number of issues reached an enormous 120,000, thus making Henrich Hofmann one of the unevident architects of right-wing propaganda in Bavaria in the early 1920s. Like Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Hoffmann became radicalized and formed his political direction probably in 1919. It is important to note that even though Hoffmann joined the NSDAP as early as April 6, 1920, and probably met with Hitler for the first time the same year, the two became relatively close only three years later. 

In his 1955 memoirs, Hoffmann cultivated the idea, which was exploited by several generations of historians, that Hitler consciously avoided being photographed before the fall of 1923 as a sophisticated propaganda concept to create an aura of mystery around himself. The reality was more banal, like many other issues regarding Adolf Hitler. First of all, he avoided the outsider press being too uncertain in the image they would present him outside his artificial self-made image. Years later, he expressed frustration regarding the images of Benito Mussolini not being properly staged. The second reason for Hitler’s uncertainty was his banal fear of attracting excessive attention outside Bavaria, especially from the police. So when Hitler allowed Heinrich Hoffmann to make his first staged photo set in September 1923, Hitler got enough confidence in the Nazi supporter Hoffmann, who had previously proved himself a trustworthy member of the right-wing circles in Munich and knew Hitler’s associates such as Dietrich Eckart (1868-1923). Hoffman eliminated Hitler’s fears of possible damage to his self-made image, and from then on, the failed painter could control and orchestrate his public presentation with the help of masterfully staged visual imagery of Heinrich Hoffmann. 

After publishing the first allowed photographs of Hitler, the latter made Hoffmann a member of his inner circle and later a ‘Führerfotograf’ (Führer’s photographer). In November, Hoffmann did not directly participate in the failed Beer Hall Putsch and arrived at the Feldherrnhalle after key events had happened, though he later took several photos from the trial against Hitler and other putschists. On December 20, 1924, when Hitler was released from the Landsberg prison forty kilometers to the West of Munich, Henrich Hoffmann and Adolf Müller (1884-1945) were the two people who picked up the released prisoner. Muller was Hitler’s friend, and a year later, he acted as a publisher of Mein Kampf and later became the key Nazi publisher. Hoffmann and Muller came to Landsberg in the afternoon in the latter’s newly bought Mercedes-Benz, and when the trio reached the gates, Hoffmann took one of the most well-known photos of Adolf Hitler posing near the car with the Landsberg prison in the background. 

Henrich Hoffmann did not shy himself from the NSDAP during Hitler’s imprisonment and governmental ban of the party, and on April 24, 1925, he joined the reestablished party, receiving party number 59. In the years to come, he and Hitler continued to stage and carefully orchestrate Hitler’s public image through postcards, pamphlets, brochures such as ‘DEUTSCHLANDS ERWACHEN’ (Germany’s Awakening), and many others. Hoffmann’s involvement in the policy extended beyond photography, and in 1926, he became a member of the Upper Bavarian District Council and, in 1929, a City Councilor of Munich. On November 14, 1933, Henrich Hoffmann received his golden party badge and became a professor in 1938 and a Reichstag delegate in 1940. During the Third Reich era, Hofmann’s photographic empire rose dramatically, reaching 683,000 Reichsmark in annual sales in 1933 and an enormous fifteen million by 1943, when he owned ten philias with a total staff of more than 300 people, earning 3,235,000 Reichsmark in profit. He ended the War with six million in savings and property, including houses in Munich, Altotting, Haag, Amsterdam, and Strasbourg. 

Henrich Hoffmann was married twice, first to an actress and singer, Therese Baumann (1886-1929), with whom he had two children: Henriette Hoffmann, later Schirach (1913-1992), and Henrich Junior (1916-1988). They met each other in Hofmann’s photo atelier on Schellingstrasse 33. On April 18, 1934, six years after Therese’s death, he married female composer Erna Grobke (1904-1996). Heinrich Hoffmann was arrested by the US Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) on June 30, 1945. In 1947, the Munich House of Court classified him as category I or ‘Hauptschuldige’ (Major offenders) for his propaganda activities, involvement in the Nazi movement, and profiting from the regime. A year later, his initial ten-year conviction was suspended to three years, and in 1950, it was extended to five, but he had already spent them in prison, so Hoffmann was released on February 4, 1950. The same year, he was reclassified to the second category of ‘Offenders’, and in 1955, he appealed to restore his confiscated property. In February 1946, Hoffmann was compensated with 350,000 Deutschmark, and on December 16, 1957, he passed away at the age of seventy-two. 

 

THE FIRST ATELIER AT SCHELLINGSTRASSE 33 (1909-1919)

As I have already written above, Heinrich Hoffmann settled in Munich in 1909 after several years of journeys and learning as a photographer. He purchased a small premise on Schellingstrasse 33 and turned it into a photo atelier, later known for his portraits. While the German word ‘Schellen’ has several translations: a bell, a clamp, a grip, and even diamonds, the street got its current name in 1857 after a German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854), who had lived in Munich for four decades and served first as secretary of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and later as a lecturer at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. At the turn of the XX century, Schellingstrasse became one of the favorite meeting places for Munich artists, writers, and actors. Among its frequent visitors were: an Austrian novelist, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), a German poet, Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), the famous novelist Thomas Mann (1875-1955), the poet and a mentor of the Stauffenberg brothers, Stefan George (1868-1933), and many others. It is worth noting that the infamous communist Lenin attended Café Altschwabing during his stay in Munich. 

 

 

SCHELLINGSTRASSE 50 (1919-1929). PHOTO STUDIO AND THE NSDAP HQ

Henrich Hoffmann appreciated the location of his photo atelier as Schellingstrasse was one of the main transport arteries in the Munich districts of Maxvorstadt and Schwabing. A two-kilometer street ran in parallel to the well-known art galleries and ended in the east next to the famous Bavarian State Library. Hoffmann’s photo studio complied perfectly with the bookish and artistic atmosphere of the neighborhood, and it should come as no surprise that he chose a location for a new atelier on the same street. He sold the premises on Schellingstrasse 33, but unfortunately for Hoffmann, the inflation ground off much of the sum acquired. On August 1, 1919, he rented premises further down the street on Schellingstrasse 50, where he would spend the next ten years of commercial activity. In 1921, he bought out the rented rooms previously owned by Munich actor Max Nadler (1875-1932), and around this time delved into the movie industry. With two other partners, he founded Hokomar-Filmgesellschaft, where Hokomar was formed from the first letters of the three surnames of the owners: ‘Ho’ from Hoffmann, ‘Ko’ from Matrin Kopp, and ‘Mar’ from Atto Marrsini. The production company produced only one comedy film with Munich actors, on which Hoffmann worked as a cameraman and a screenwriter, and it became bankrupt, getting him back to photography. 

The financial situation of Hoffmann’s Weiss-Blau-Altelier (White-Blue Atelier) in the early 1920s was constrained, and he was looking for a chance to rent empty rooms in his studio to someone. Finally, in 1925, the solution came not from a fellow photographer but from Adolf Hitler, whose intimate circle Hoffmann had already entered. On February 27, 1925, the NSDAP leader announced the refounding of the party, and during the initial period, the party offices were temporarily accommodated by the ‘Franz Eher Nachf. Verlag publishing house on Thierschstrasse 11. Later on, it was Henrich Hoffmann who suggested his vacant rooms on Schellingstrasse 50 to Adolf Hitler, who agreed to rent twelve out of thirteen premises, which was a bit of great luck for Hoffmann. The deal was drawn on June 4, 1925, and on June 24, the new Nazi office was opened. The opening became possible thanks to the donations of wealthy party supporters, including Elsa Bruckmann (1865-1946), who helped the new Nazi offices with furniture. 

The new spacious headquarters allowed the NSDAP to go nationwide from here, while according to one of the party’s principles, the seat of the party should always be in Munich. Philipp Bouhler (1899-1945), a young and ambitious Nazi, was appointed by Hitler as Reichsgeschäftsführer der NSDAP (Reich Managing Director of the NSDAP), simply speaking, the boss of the new headquarters. Max Amann (1891-1957), who had previously been Bouhler’s chief and the first managing director, became the head of the party’s publishing empire. Another participant of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Franz Xaver Schwarz (1875-1947), left his job to become ‘Reichsschatzmeister’ (National Treasurer). Among other purposes, the new offices at Schellingstrasse 50 accommodated the party archive with the database of member cards. In early 1928, Gregor Strasser (1892-1934) became the Chairman of the NSDAP Organizational Committee as ‘Reich Organization Leader’ with an office in the party headquarters on Schellingstrasse. Strasser already accommodated one of the rooms here starting from 1926 with young Heinrich Himmler as his assistant. 

Formerly uneventful building of Schellingstrasse 50 served as the Nazi command center for six years between June 1925 and May 1930. Hitler dreamed about a massive renovation of the headquarters, but party expenditures used to grind off most of the income. For example, in 1927, the NSDAP earned 254,000 Marks while expenses amounted to 252,000, thus leaving no money for building renovation. Even the idea of selling symbolic bricks to potential donors met with constrained results. One of the Nazi structures that accommodated the headquarters was the so-called ‘Supreme SA leadership (OSAF). Its ‘Oberster SA-Führer’ (Supreme SA Führer), Franz Pfeffer von Salomon (1888-1968), transformed splinter groups into a powerful paramilitary organization with the help of his apparatus, including his chief of staff, Dr. Otto Wagener (1888-1971), whom Salomon hired in 1929. When future Hitler’s secretary Christa Schroeder came to Schellingstrasse 50 for the first time in March 1930, she was impressed by the contingent of OSAF, mainly formed by the Bavarians, former soldiers, and officers. Shroeder herself applied to a newspaper advertisement in Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten and won the position among 87 other female applicants. 

As years passed, Hitler felt that the party headquarters on Schellingstrasse did not fit anymore for the expanding Nazi organization, and the NSDAP purchased Palais Barlow near Königplatz in May 1930, which was officially opened on January 1, 1931. The party apparatus moved to a new building known as the ‘Brown House’, while Schellingstrasse 50 was left in a supportive role, which changed only after the end of the Second World War. While the building exterior has changed slightly in the past eighty years, the only detail that still reminds one of the dark past of the location, apart from the courtyard where many photos were taken in the late 1920s, is the silhouette of an eagle with outspread wings above the entrance from Schellingstrasse. The swastika sign was obviously and rightfully obliterated, and the eagle is barely noticeable. 

It is interesting to note that Schellingstasse Street had other connections with the history of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler and his entourage, apart from Hoffmann’s ateliers and the 1925-1930 NSDAP headquarters. Schellingstrasse 39-41 was the location of the editorial office of the infamous Völkischer Beobachter newspaper, which the party bought in late 1920. During the summer of 1923, before the failed putsch, the Nazis used some premises here as their headquarters. In the 1920s, Heinrich Hoffmann lived in house number 9 on the adjusting Schnorrstrasse, only a few minutes walk from his atelier on Schellingstrasse and the Nazi party headquarters. As a guest at this home, Adolf Hitler was introduced to some impactful personalities, for example, to Bernhard Stempfle (1882-1934), a Catholic priest who gained great influence on Hitler and later assisted in writing Mein Kampf. 

The notorious Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974), who came to Munich in 1925, lived on Schellingstrasse 29, where he later organized the headquarters of the so-called Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund or NSDStB (National Socialist German Students’ League). In 1932, he married Hoffmann’s daughter, Henriette (1913-1992). Schelling Salon on Schellingstrasse 56 was one of Hitler’s favorite restaurants in Munich. The famous Munich pub survived the Second World War, and it has been owned by the same Merh family since 1872. Another interesting location on Schellingstrasse was the local Mercedes-Benz dealer’s office, where Hitler bought his first Mercedes after his release from Landsberg prison. He purchased the car from the Benz dealer Jacob Werlin (1886-1965), an Austrian who sold cars in Germany. He met Hitler in 1923 because his office was located just next door to the Völkischer Beobachter headquarters. Later on, he became Hitler’s link with the automobile industry, joined the SS in 1932, and the NSDAP a year later, and ended the war in the rank of SS-Ehrenführer (SS Honorary Leader). 

 

A NEW PHOTO STUDIO AT AMALIENSTRASSE 25

For decades, some sources mistakenly mentioned that Hitler met Eva Braun for the first time at Hoffmann’s photo atelier on Schellingstrasse in October 1929. The date is correct, but this notorious couple originated at another location. Even though back in 1925, Hoffmann craved to rent his empty premises to someone and succeeded in doing so with Hitler and the NSDAP, by 1929, he made up his mind to buy larger premises for his new photo studio. He served notice regarding closing his atelier on Schellingstrasse 50 as early as September 10, simultaneously opening a new one on Amalienstrasse 25 on the corner with Theresienstrasse, just a few blocks away from the previous address. Amalienstrasse got its current name in 1812 after Amalie Auguste (1801-1877), Bavarian princess and Queen consort of Saxony. Hoffmann chose premises on the second floor above the well-known ‘Wiener Cafe Stefanie’, a well-known meeting place for Swabian Bohemia. The cafe was also informally called ‘Cafe Grossenwahn (Cafe of big illusion) since it was attended by both the intelligentsia and by those who considered themselves as such.  

Hoffman was obliged to make a new purchase with the loan he got from the Nazi party, as well as his inheritance, which allowed him not only to buy premises on Amalienstrasse but to expand his staff. One of these ‘additional’ staff was destined to become a seventeen-year-old Eva Braun, who would spend much of her next eight years in Hoffmann’s studio on Amalienstrasse. Eva was born in Munich at Isabellastrasse 45 on February 6, 1912, as the second child in a family of a schoolteacher, Friedrich Braun (1879-1964), and a former needlewoman, Franziska, born Kronberger (1885-1976). She had an older sister, Ilse (1909-1979), and in 1915, the third daughter, Margarete, was born. All girls were raised as Catholics after their mother, while Friedrich was a Lutheran. Their parents divorced when Eva was nine years old, but only a year later, they remarried, leaving the marriage unhappy and the relations at home constrained. From 1918 to 1922, Eva attended elementary school, then spent six years in secondary school (lyceum) for girls located on Tengstasse, finishing it with medium grades. In 1928, her family sent her to the Bavarian town of Simbach am Inn, where she spent a year in a prestigious Catholic ‘Institute of English Girls’. It is interesting to note that Simbach am Inn is located on the opposite side of the same river from the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn, where Adolf Hitler was born in 1889. 

Eva Braun knew nothing about Hitler and his birthplace across the river when she lived in Simbach am Inn in 1928-1929. The castle-like Baroque-style ‘Marienhöhe’ Institute was run by the Sisters of the Order, and here, girls were taught household science. Eva showed a talent for athletics and learned the basics of typing and bookkeeping, skills applicable to clerical work. After finishing one year in the Institute, Eva came back home to Munich. Since 1925, her family had been living in a new, more spacious apartment at 93 Hohenzollernstrasse, a few blocks from their previous home on Isabellastrasse. Eva once again joined her parents and younger sister, though her elder sister Ilse left the house in 1929. Leaving the strained financial situation of the early 1920s crisis behind, the Braun family afforded a servant, and a few years later, they even bought a car, a BMW 3/15. After returning to Munich, Eva had two short-lived occupations. She responded to an advertisement of Gunther Hoffmann (namesake), a forty-one-year-old gynecologist, and worked in his office on Theresienstraße 74 as a foster sister. She soon felt bored and tried to work as a typist at the document correspondence bureau on Türkenstrasse, but not for long. 

After several weeks of boredom, Eva or, more probably, her father Friedrich saw an advertisement for a work as an apprentice assistant at a newly opened photo atelier on Amalienstrasse 25, a twenty-minute walk away, a few tram stops from their apartment on Hohenzollernstrasse. Eva had been enthusiastic about photography since she was given her first camera four years before, and she used to take pictures of her school friends and family, but more often of herself posing in front of the mirror. Her father, Fridrich, probably because of his occupation as a teacher, nurtured his daughters in learning and hoped that photography could become a more desirable occupation for Eva, especially when she left her first two employers in a few weeks. A vacant position in Hoffmann’s atelier was a hybrid solution: being a secretary but in a photo studio. They replied to an advertisement stating that Eva had recently finished her education, had skills in typing and accounting, worked as a secretary, and had a true passion for photography. 

As I already mentioned above, Eva Braun came to Hoffmann’s atelier in October 1929, and it was the newly opened studio at Amalienstrasse 25, not the already-closed office (after September 10) at Schellingstrasse 50. The position was aimed at a young girl to do bookkeeping, run correspondence, and sell films. It is interesting to note that in 1949, Hoffmann stated that it was his studio manager, Remer, who gave employment to Eva Braun, and he (Hoffmann) saw her for the first time already at work. From the start, her everyday duties put her behind the counter in the atelier. Eva Braun communicated with the customers, typed, created invoices, and sold pictures, postcards, and even photographic equipment to potential clients. In addition, she became involved in the process of photo processing, thus transforming her formerly teenage skills in this still novel yet respectful business. In a wider sense, Eva Braun fulfilled the dreams of many women of her time, being involved in the world of portrait and even fashion photography. 

A new photo atelier at Amalienstrasse 25 had a perfect location on the busy crossroad and the second floor above the popular ‘Cafe Stafanie’. Twelve windows and large banners with Hoffmann’s name faced Amalienstrasse and Theresienstrasse. The main entrance was from Amalienstrasse, which led clients through luxurious stairs to a spacious salesroom, where Eva Braun worked. This retail space was furnitured with flair: blue curtains, yellow-pink-silver furniture, and a large clock behind glass. The walls were covered with enlarged photographs, including those made with a new Rolleiflex series, which clients could buy, as well as equipment for photograph processing for privately owned laboratories. Hoffman’s studio also included a large atelier with professional background and lighting for portrait photography. A darkroom with developing baths and dry boxes capable of processing a film stock in less than half an hour. A laboratory with equipment for the enlargement of photos and making copies, and large storage rooms. 

When Eva Braun was hired in October 1929, she joined a small staff of four people, which, according to Hoffmann’s tax documents, would reach seventeen people by 1932. It was one of the Fridays in October 1929, the exact date is unknown, when Adolf Hitler came through the doors of Hoffman’s studio on Amalienstrasse and saw a seventeen-year-old Eva Braun for the first time. He knew every one of Hofmann’s employees, and Braun was new to him. As for the girl, she had already come up against Hitler through his photos made by Hoffmann. Her duties included assisting in photo processing, printing, and making copies, particularly those with Hoffmann’s most important client: Adolf Hitler. He came in the afternoon to select photographs from the last photo session with Hoffmann, and the photographer met him at the entrance. A forty-year-old Hitler shamelessly looked at the legs of a seventeen-year-old Eva Braun, who wore a short skirt and used the ladder to reach the upper shelves. Hoffmann introduced the girl as ‘Our good little Fräulein Eva’, and according to Hitler’s adjutant Julius Schaub, Hoffmann made a joke and introduced Eva Braun as his niece with a reference to Hitler’s niece, Geli Raubal. The two girls met each other a year later during the 1930 Oktoberfest. Not only had Eva Braun entered a new period in her life by starting work for Hoffmann. On October 1, 1929, Hitler moved from his small rented apartment on Thierschstrasse 41 to a huge nine-room apartment at Prinzregentenstrasse 16. Hoffmann introduced Hitler to Braun as ‘Herr Wolf’, a nickname the latter preferred at the time, also a part of his self-made image. After the war, Heinrich Hoffmann reflected Hitler’s first impression of Eva Braun as ‘sweet’. 

After their first meeting, Hitler became a more frequent visitor to Hoffmann’s atelier, and he started to give Braun rising attention by inviting her to the theater and, more usually, to join him at the Osteria Bavaria restaurant. This popular place was located at Schellingstrasse 62, just a few steps from the Nazi headquarters and a few blocks from Hoffmann’s new atelier on Amalienstrasse. Osteria Bavaria, an Italian restaurant, was opened as far back as 1890 and established itself as a desired destination in the Maxvorstadt district. At the beginning of the relations, Eva Braun was just one among a few young women who joined Hitler and his entourage during the lengthy evening discussions. At the same time, she told her friends that Hitler was in love with her and they were going to marry, her dream which would not become a reality until 1945. Later on, Hitler asked Martin Bormann to carefully check Braun’s genealogy, and the latter confirmed that the girl had no Jewish ancestors, thus making her an appropriate companion for the German dictator. As their relationship progressed, especially after the death of Geli Raubal in 1931, Eva Braun continued her work at Hoffmann’s office on Amalienstrasse, hiding her connection with Hitler. 

 

I am very grateful to war archives, museums, libraries, private collections, and writers for the historical photos in this article. To the extent that some author or a copyright owner may not want some of the above black-and-white photos to be used for educational purposes here, please contact me for adding credits or deleting the pictures from the article.