During the days when Nazism was at its peak, the world shuddered at the very thought of the German dictator. Hitler: the name evoked fear in the hearts of millions who waited to hear what the man did next in his ambitious, actually insane, desire to change the way the world looked. Those who followed his ideological vendetta with apprehension had every right to think that he was completely preoccupied with his objective of being the monarch of all he surveyed. Not surprising, since he simply did not come across as someone who had an eye – and more importantly, a heart – for anything else.
Yet, since he did have more relationships than he might have remembered, did he simply go ahead with his women as if they were meant to be used, thrown or simply neglected? Interpretations are many. Most of them suggest that Hitler, while having a charm of his own, did not do justice to a single woman in his life. He could not have, since he seldom felt the need to be loyal and respectful towards the woman who was his object of attention at any given time.
One of his many lovers was Geli Raubal with whom he shared a turbulent relationship till it came to a close. Born in Austria on 4th June 1908, Geli was the eldest daughter of Angela Raubal, who was Hitler's half sister. It is said that she called him Uncle Alf, and that the only piece of jewellery she opted to wear was a gold swastika, a gift from the man.
As Hitler became politically powerful, rising like a meteor to become the leader of the Nazi party, he kept his niece under observation, a situation made possible because her mother was functioning as the housekeeper in his residence. So possessive was he that she was not allowed to mix with her friends. But, Geli was not somebody who could be controlled no matter how powerful the source of restraint might have been. She dressed simply, a matter of personal choice, and managed to let her individualistic spirit loose despite the watchful eyes of Hitler and his trusted ones. Geli even succeeded in having an affair with Emil Maurice, who had served as Hitler's chaffeur once and was also a founding member of the SS.
It was in 1931 that Geli passed away. She was just 23, that age in which people start living. Her body was discovered in Hitler's Munich apartment. A gunshot had pierced her heart, and her death was officially termed as suicide. Among the stories doing the rounds was that Hitler had killed her for being unfaithful. A second story was that she had killed herself because she was expecting Hitler's child, and yet another that she had been murdered by his right hand man Heinrich Himmler because she had intentions of blackmailing him. Speculations on how and why she had died continue to interest researchers even today, explaining the charisma of the man, if nothing else. But, nobody has been able to find a specific answer to end all the controversies surrounding her untimely death.
It is widely believed that Hitler was so passionately in love with Geli that he began to wither away after she died. Buried in Vienna's Central Cemetery, the most popular belief is that Geli shot herself because she could not handle the fact of knowing that Hitler was having an affair with a teenager. That girl was Eva with whom Hitler used out for drives in his Mercedes, a fact Geli resented.
Both of them used to have serious quarrels before the former died, and the reason could well be connected to her uncomfortable questions grounded in reality for which he had no answer. After her death, many were compelled to ask themselves: if he loved Geli the way he did, why is it that he fell for Eva whom he did not only marry but also die with? Hitler's affection for Geli is also explained by the story that he wanted to kill himself after she died, and that he turned into a vegetarian since the sight of meat reminded him of her corpse.
While such situations complicate the confusion manifold, what is beyond doubt is that Hitler was not a one woman man. For, another woman to have happened in Hitler's life was Renate Muller who lived for a few years more than Geli. Born in Munich on 26 th April 1906, Muller was an awesome beauty who entered the world of films in Berlin in the late 1920s. She made an instant impact and, along with the legendary Marlene Dietrich, was seen as someone who epitomised everything that could have made it to Page 3 in Berlin had the journalistic concept highlighting the rich and the famous been in existence at that time.
Muller who featured in around 20 films happened to come across Hitler in the mid 1930s. The meeting took place near the Danish coast where she was shooting for a film, resulting in movie roles that glorified Nazi principles. While the exact nature of their equation remains unclear, it is widely said that problems arose when her relationships with the Nazi leaders worsened because she expressed her unwillingness to star in propaganda flicks. She was also pressurised to let go of her Jewish lover. Muller turned into a morphine addict as she lived in fear, dying in 1937 sometime after a few Gestapo officers entered a hotel she was living in. She either jumped out of the window, or the officers threw her out of it, leading to a horrible death. The official proclamation was that epilepsy had taken her life.
Hitler was even at the centre of a scandal because of one Maria Reiter, a 16-year-old who perpetrated suicide as well. But he did not stop at merely three or four women. There were more. One attractive person who came into his life was Johanna Maria Magdalena Goebbels, who went on to act as the First Lady of the Third Reich. When the Red Army descended upon Berlin in May 1945, Goebbels is said to have murdered her six children, the most-talked about act of her life.
Although married to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Propaganda Minister, it seems that she and her husband, at some point of time in their lives, had agreed upon an open marriage. Both of them had their share of affairs, with she having a relationship with her husband's deputy Karl Hanke as well. After the Red Army invaded Berlin, she and her husband committed suicide. But, well before that happened, Johanna had admitted to the fact that she had agreed to a marriage with Goebbels only because she could be close to Hitler, the man who had decided against marriage since Germany, and not a woman, was the only thing he loved. How charismatic Hitler was can be understood if one realises that here was an intelligent woman who affirmed that she could give her life because of the man.
None of these relationships made the sort of news that his relationship with Eva did, and obviously since the twosome were together for the maximum time. Johanna committed suicide since left without a choice. But the others killed themselves – or appeared to have done so - in the youth of age when life might have offered so many other possibilities. As a matter of fact, Eva had tried to kill herself twice earlier, once by shooting herself in the neck, and again by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. It is said that Hitler became more protective towards her after her second attempt, and that he set his eyes on very few women thereafter.
Hitler once said that "a highly intelligent man should take a primitive and stupid woman," and certainly not somebody who dabbles in "politics." Through such a statement, his dictatorial mindset came to the fore most clearly. It also showed why those like Geli and Muller might have driven themselves to death, having realised that life will never be worthy of living again.
Torment. Uncertainty. Loss of peace. Humiliation. All that ended when Eva, like all others, paid the price for her passion with her life. That Hitler killed himself too might have made her less unhappy.
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