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Eva Braunin elämä
Merkittävä elämäkerta vaietusta naisesta: miten tavallisesta saksalaistytöstä tuli Hitlerin rakastajatar.
Adolf Hitlerin rakastajatar Eva Braun on yksi historian suurista epähenkilöistä. Hän tapasi Hitlerin ensi kertaa vuonna 1929 ja oli tämän rakastajatar 14 vuotta. Naimisiin Eva Braun ja Hitler menivät 29. huhtikuuta 1945, vuorokautta ennen yhteistä itsemurhaansa bunkkerissa.
Miten tavallisesta keskiluokkaisesta tytöstä tuli historian kammotuimman miehen mielitietty? Miksi hän luopui miehen vuoksi avioliitosta, äitiydestä ja vanhempiensa hyväksynnästä? Eva Braunin elämä on tarina kokonaisesta sukupolvesta, josta on tähän asti vaiettu: toisen maailmansodan kokeneista saksalaisnaisista, heidän toiveistaan, peloistaan – ja syyllisyydestään.
Adolf Hitlerin rakastajatar Eva Braun on yksi historian suurista epähenkilöistä. Hän tapasi Hitlerin ensi kertaa vuonna 1929 ja oli tämän rakastajatar 14 vuotta. Naimisiin Eva Braun ja Hitler menivät 29. huhtikuuta 1945, vuorokautta ennen yhteistä itsemurhaansa bunkkerissa.
Miten tavallisesta keskiluokkaisesta tytöstä tuli historian kammotuimman miehen mielitietty? Miksi hän luopui miehen vuoksi avioliitosta, äitiydestä ja vanhempiensa hyväksynnästä? Eva Braunin elämä on tarina kokonaisesta sukupolvesta, josta on tähän asti vaiettu: toisen maailmansodan kokeneista saksalaisnaisista, heidän toiveistaan, peloistaan – ja syyllisyydestään.
579 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
70 people are currently reading
1090 people want to read
About the author
Angela Lambert
21 books7 followersAngela Maria Lambert was a British journalist and author. She is best known for her novels A Rather English Marriage and Kiss and Kin, the latter of which won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
December 11, 2011
I hesitate as I start out in the writing of this review, because to attack The Lost Life of Eva Braun feels almost as if to attack Angela Lambert herself. In retrospect, this should have been an early warning of one of the book's deepest flaws, that Lambert is acting as such a deeply and personally involved interpreter of events rather than pretending any kind of objective distance as a historian. She admits from the very first pages that she has an agenda in defending Eva Braun from a slew of male historians who dismiss her as a "bimbo" or any number of other gendered insults by offering a female perspective on Hitler's mistress. She also states that she seeks to understand her own German mother, who was born in the same year as Braun and only miles away, and was understandably very reticent to talk about her experiences growing up in Hitler's Germany. Anecdotes about Lambert's mother and aunts litter the book; this is a problem. One cannot give an objective account when the historical subject has become aligned with one's own mother and, increasingly, the entirety of German womanhood over the period between WWI and WWII.
Eva Braun was Hitler's mistress; even that statement seems to cast aspersions, doesn't it, implying looseness of sexual morals (in a time period where slut-shaming was seen as right and good) and psychopathy by default because, well, he was Hitler. Shouldn't she have just known? Shouldn't she have sensed something? The only explanations for her long-term fidelity to one of the twentieth century's greatest monsters that many can accept is that she was either an equal participant, or so stupid that it's a wonder she managed to cross the street without guard. This is a dangerous strategy to take, for it places Hitler above the realm of man and into a fairytale monster, makes it inconceivable that any right-thinking person could have been seduced by him. As history can attest, his type is not actually that uncommon.
Unfortunately, Lambert, in trying to overturn both of these views of Eva Braun, only winds up further condemning the woman that she was trying to save. Braun was Hitler's long-term secret, known only to a handful of those in his inner circle. As such, there is very little information on her save for oral history carried (and tinged by) her family, whose surviving members Lambert was lucky in being able to interview before they passed. That's still not a lot of information on which to base a book. There is enough before Braun fell under Hitler's sway to paint the picture of a naïve, vivacious young woman who was eager to please and not terribly troubled by being dominated, a personality profile that psychopathic men are drawn to often enough. For every serial killer who lived alone, there is another who has a spouse standing in the wings and swearing against all evidence that their loved one could not possibly have done such things. This was Eva at 17, however; she was thirty-three when she committed suicide with Hitler, and had been living in the seat of power for much of her adult life. In her zeal to prove that Eva wasn't the ditz that Hitler's perpetually jealous and backbiting inner circle wanted to dismiss her as, Lambert does her job a little too well: no, Braun was not stupid, however much she became very good at playing compliant and passive in order to accommodate Hitler's whip-crack moods. She was surrounded by the most powerful men of the Reich and their wives, many of whom, contra Lambert's assertions that the women were deliberately kept in the dark, knew very well what was going on, and yet is supposed to have been blithely innocent of any knowledge. (As Lambert herself admits, largely by Braun's own design.) Lambert attempts to counteract this by pointing to Eva's sweet nature and usual gentleness (and that of Albert Speer, who himself ain't no great shakes as a human being) as if knowing the difference between right and wrong makes her better than the likes of Goebbels, Eichmann, et. al. even as she passively refused to act upon this enlightenment. At one point, in fact, Lambert also attempts to deflect blame from Eva by stating that many Jews who knew that something was very, very wrong at the end of those trains even if they didn't know the full extent of it still chose to stay rather than face the difficulties and uncertainties of fleeing to reluctant asylum nations. At that point I had to put the book down for a bit and go play with the cat until my temper could cool. It's a rare misstep for Lambert herself; on the whole, while I doubt her historical conclusions, she's very careful not to diminish the sufferings of the Jews or the ordinary German people throughout the war.
Lambert also attempts to say that heroism is something to be lauded when it is displayed, not condemned when it is not, and in that sense she is correct. One gets the impression, however, that she is moving beyond trying to redeem Eva Braun and into an attempt to redeem her own mother and perhaps every adult woman of Hitler's Germany as a whole. Lambert's mother married an Englishman and was living in England during the war, where by Lambert's account she was treated very cruelly by her in-laws on the basis of her nationality. She might or might not have had the knowledge, but she certainly didn't have the power to do anything about it; she needs no redemption. As it is extremely gray as to how much the average woman in Germany knew at the time, we cannot condemn them out of hand, either. (Though it is curious that Lambert, in nearly the same breath as she says that we cannot expect heroism as a necessary component of decency--rightly, or most of the human race would fail outright--eagerly lists the number of German women who did go above and beyond to protect Jews while it was a struggle to keep immediate family members from starving to death.) But they weren't enjoying the fruits of power (Lambert also excuses Braun's increasing high-handedness with her own family as the strain of maintaining a relationship with a psychopath, while dismissing elder sister Ilse's coldness towards Eva as jealousy rather than ideology; Braun's family was ardently against the anti-Semitism of Hitler's policies), they weren't putting a relationship with Hitler above all else as late as 1945, when there was little not to know.
It's an odd sort of historical biography wherein the most interesting personality in the stew is that of the author herself. One gets the sense in reading this book that in every portrait of Braun Lambert is actually seeing Ditha. Darlin', your mother ain't the one that did it.
Eva Braun was Hitler's mistress; even that statement seems to cast aspersions, doesn't it, implying looseness of sexual morals (in a time period where slut-shaming was seen as right and good) and psychopathy by default because, well, he was Hitler. Shouldn't she have just known? Shouldn't she have sensed something? The only explanations for her long-term fidelity to one of the twentieth century's greatest monsters that many can accept is that she was either an equal participant, or so stupid that it's a wonder she managed to cross the street without guard. This is a dangerous strategy to take, for it places Hitler above the realm of man and into a fairytale monster, makes it inconceivable that any right-thinking person could have been seduced by him. As history can attest, his type is not actually that uncommon.
Unfortunately, Lambert, in trying to overturn both of these views of Eva Braun, only winds up further condemning the woman that she was trying to save. Braun was Hitler's long-term secret, known only to a handful of those in his inner circle. As such, there is very little information on her save for oral history carried (and tinged by) her family, whose surviving members Lambert was lucky in being able to interview before they passed. That's still not a lot of information on which to base a book. There is enough before Braun fell under Hitler's sway to paint the picture of a naïve, vivacious young woman who was eager to please and not terribly troubled by being dominated, a personality profile that psychopathic men are drawn to often enough. For every serial killer who lived alone, there is another who has a spouse standing in the wings and swearing against all evidence that their loved one could not possibly have done such things. This was Eva at 17, however; she was thirty-three when she committed suicide with Hitler, and had been living in the seat of power for much of her adult life. In her zeal to prove that Eva wasn't the ditz that Hitler's perpetually jealous and backbiting inner circle wanted to dismiss her as, Lambert does her job a little too well: no, Braun was not stupid, however much she became very good at playing compliant and passive in order to accommodate Hitler's whip-crack moods. She was surrounded by the most powerful men of the Reich and their wives, many of whom, contra Lambert's assertions that the women were deliberately kept in the dark, knew very well what was going on, and yet is supposed to have been blithely innocent of any knowledge. (As Lambert herself admits, largely by Braun's own design.) Lambert attempts to counteract this by pointing to Eva's sweet nature and usual gentleness (and that of Albert Speer, who himself ain't no great shakes as a human being) as if knowing the difference between right and wrong makes her better than the likes of Goebbels, Eichmann, et. al. even as she passively refused to act upon this enlightenment. At one point, in fact, Lambert also attempts to deflect blame from Eva by stating that many Jews who knew that something was very, very wrong at the end of those trains even if they didn't know the full extent of it still chose to stay rather than face the difficulties and uncertainties of fleeing to reluctant asylum nations. At that point I had to put the book down for a bit and go play with the cat until my temper could cool. It's a rare misstep for Lambert herself; on the whole, while I doubt her historical conclusions, she's very careful not to diminish the sufferings of the Jews or the ordinary German people throughout the war.
Lambert also attempts to say that heroism is something to be lauded when it is displayed, not condemned when it is not, and in that sense she is correct. One gets the impression, however, that she is moving beyond trying to redeem Eva Braun and into an attempt to redeem her own mother and perhaps every adult woman of Hitler's Germany as a whole. Lambert's mother married an Englishman and was living in England during the war, where by Lambert's account she was treated very cruelly by her in-laws on the basis of her nationality. She might or might not have had the knowledge, but she certainly didn't have the power to do anything about it; she needs no redemption. As it is extremely gray as to how much the average woman in Germany knew at the time, we cannot condemn them out of hand, either. (Though it is curious that Lambert, in nearly the same breath as she says that we cannot expect heroism as a necessary component of decency--rightly, or most of the human race would fail outright--eagerly lists the number of German women who did go above and beyond to protect Jews while it was a struggle to keep immediate family members from starving to death.) But they weren't enjoying the fruits of power (Lambert also excuses Braun's increasing high-handedness with her own family as the strain of maintaining a relationship with a psychopath, while dismissing elder sister Ilse's coldness towards Eva as jealousy rather than ideology; Braun's family was ardently against the anti-Semitism of Hitler's policies), they weren't putting a relationship with Hitler above all else as late as 1945, when there was little not to know.
It's an odd sort of historical biography wherein the most interesting personality in the stew is that of the author herself. One gets the sense in reading this book that in every portrait of Braun Lambert is actually seeing Ditha. Darlin', your mother ain't the one that did it.
July 23, 2008
This is the first historical book that I've read cover-to-cover without skipping any chapters or sections. The author has a great narrative voice and blends fact with description very well. As I read I found myself becoming attached to Eva Braun, almost as if I was reading a friend's biography rather than a stranger's. Another great thing about this book is that it really helped me understand and (gasp) feel sympathy for the German people during WWII. This book opened my eyes in new ways and I just can't stop thinking about it. Great read!
June 30, 2015
Ugh. So disappointing. In fairness, I only lasted about 50 pages, but I couldn't take anymore. When I first started it, I loved the chatty tone of the book. The further I read, though, I became increasingly annoyed.
1) The author repeats herself SO MUCH. I think this is my biggest issue. I read three footnotes that were nearly word-for-word identical. Then she would restate the same information in the main portion of the book.
2) I'm not sure the author understands how footnotes are supposed to work. It was largely her own personal commentary.
3) She references one man (sorry, the book is not in front of me and the name escapes me) who was found by a Judge to be an incredible liar and a Holocaust denier. Only a short while later, she uses his statements/research to back up her own beliefs. Say what?
4) The author desperately needed an editor. There were TYPOS! Not just one, but many. It was distracting and made me doubt the author's credibility.
Had the book been much shorter, I might have continued to give it a go. But at 500+ pages? Not happening.
1) The author repeats herself SO MUCH. I think this is my biggest issue. I read three footnotes that were nearly word-for-word identical. Then she would restate the same information in the main portion of the book.
2) I'm not sure the author understands how footnotes are supposed to work. It was largely her own personal commentary.
3) She references one man (sorry, the book is not in front of me and the name escapes me) who was found by a Judge to be an incredible liar and a Holocaust denier. Only a short while later, she uses his statements/research to back up her own beliefs. Say what?
4) The author desperately needed an editor. There were TYPOS! Not just one, but many. It was distracting and made me doubt the author's credibility.
Had the book been much shorter, I might have continued to give it a go. But at 500+ pages? Not happening.
July 27, 2011
Had the Germans been the good guys and the Allies the bad guys of world war two the love story of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun would have rivaled perhaps even that of Romeo and Juliet in the public imagination despite their age difference (23 years) and Hitler's very low libido brought about, I suspect, partly by his being a vegetarian and eating too much cakes and pastries (up to now, in fact, there are questions as to his true sexual orientation or if he and Eva have had normal sex).
When you look at any image of Hitler you'll think caricature as there is even now a rap song at youtube which uses Hitler's video while he's making a speech, as if he's transported to the 21st century and has become P. Diddy's pal. But during his time Hitler was more than a rap star. All Germans sieg heiled him and which greeting he answered with an effeminate-looking bye-bye wave of his hand. And with this all Germany was ready to follow him even to his grave--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPAxaF...
In order to claim you've really read this review you must finish watching this film--one of the 1001 films you must see before you die--a real classic, multi-awarded before the war, and which had not before been made readily available to our generation until youtube came. Unless you've seen the entire film, by this brilliant female film-maker Leni Riefenstahl who survived Hitler and lived up to the ripe old age of 101, don't click "like" in this review as I may ask you some questions to test if you've really read this entire review which, to repeat, includes this film! If you fail this test, then the "like" is exposed as untrue, reflecting badly on yourself. So finish watching or else forever hold your peace.
Ah, Eva Braun, what had you done to yourself? You were the only woman (apart from his mother) who had truly loved this down-and-out bum from Vienna. He who rose to political prominence like Barack Obama--with his oratorical skills, his capacity to reduce complicated issues with fiery catchphrases, each speech like a hot-pumping fornication ending in an orgasm of words. With religious, upright Christian parents who hated your guy, during the time when moral liberalism was just a dream, you privately stood by Hitler's side, as his mistress for 14 years and anonymous to the world. The author has made a strong case about you not knowing the evil deeds your dear Adolf (the author's mother also being German and more or less your contemporary) and it may have well been just the case. You saw only the softer side of the man--the hardworking leader of the Third Reich, who loved his dog Blondi, adored by many including women, with piercing, blue, mesmerizing eyes, the charismatic charmer, the man who wouldn't marry you or have children because he claim he wants to devote all his time to Germany (the true reason would have made himself and whatever children he might sire unfit to live by his own state-sponsored standards--but this was a reason he kept hidden from everyone all his life).
Not to take anything away from the sufferings of your Adolf's victims, but those last days you had with him, inside that spacious and well-provided for bunker in Berlin, with what you decided to do, and what they did to Hitler's bitch Blondi who just had a set of beautiful puppies you called "sausages," and what Josef and Magda Goebbels did to their five very young, well-mannered, innocent children (Magda: "Where will my children go? The shame of being Geobbels children will always rest upon them."--tragically she was wrong. All ten of Martin Bormann survived and his eldest son, also named Martin, became a Catholic priest), was as harrowing as any guilt-free martyrdom and made me excitedly finish this book in one or two sittings, even ahead of Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day" which I have been grappling with for months already.
When you look at any image of Hitler you'll think caricature as there is even now a rap song at youtube which uses Hitler's video while he's making a speech, as if he's transported to the 21st century and has become P. Diddy's pal. But during his time Hitler was more than a rap star. All Germans sieg heiled him and which greeting he answered with an effeminate-looking bye-bye wave of his hand. And with this all Germany was ready to follow him even to his grave--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPAxaF...
In order to claim you've really read this review you must finish watching this film--one of the 1001 films you must see before you die--a real classic, multi-awarded before the war, and which had not before been made readily available to our generation until youtube came. Unless you've seen the entire film, by this brilliant female film-maker Leni Riefenstahl who survived Hitler and lived up to the ripe old age of 101, don't click "like" in this review as I may ask you some questions to test if you've really read this entire review which, to repeat, includes this film! If you fail this test, then the "like" is exposed as untrue, reflecting badly on yourself. So finish watching or else forever hold your peace.
Ah, Eva Braun, what had you done to yourself? You were the only woman (apart from his mother) who had truly loved this down-and-out bum from Vienna. He who rose to political prominence like Barack Obama--with his oratorical skills, his capacity to reduce complicated issues with fiery catchphrases, each speech like a hot-pumping fornication ending in an orgasm of words. With religious, upright Christian parents who hated your guy, during the time when moral liberalism was just a dream, you privately stood by Hitler's side, as his mistress for 14 years and anonymous to the world. The author has made a strong case about you not knowing the evil deeds your dear Adolf (the author's mother also being German and more or less your contemporary) and it may have well been just the case. You saw only the softer side of the man--the hardworking leader of the Third Reich, who loved his dog Blondi, adored by many including women, with piercing, blue, mesmerizing eyes, the charismatic charmer, the man who wouldn't marry you or have children because he claim he wants to devote all his time to Germany (the true reason would have made himself and whatever children he might sire unfit to live by his own state-sponsored standards--but this was a reason he kept hidden from everyone all his life).
Not to take anything away from the sufferings of your Adolf's victims, but those last days you had with him, inside that spacious and well-provided for bunker in Berlin, with what you decided to do, and what they did to Hitler's bitch Blondi who just had a set of beautiful puppies you called "sausages," and what Josef and Magda Goebbels did to their five very young, well-mannered, innocent children (Magda: "Where will my children go? The shame of being Geobbels children will always rest upon them."--tragically she was wrong. All ten of Martin Bormann survived and his eldest son, also named Martin, became a Catholic priest), was as harrowing as any guilt-free martyrdom and made me excitedly finish this book in one or two sittings, even ahead of Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day" which I have been grappling with for months already.
May 22, 2019
Eva Braun, an ordinary girl, full or happiness and humor. At seventeen she was working at a photo shop were she met Hitler. He was taken by her polite manner and kindness.
When she became his mistress he provided well for her. She lived in luxury. She also had a dress designer that would come to apartment.
When Hitler had to take care of politics and would be gone for weeks. She would be sad. Then he would bring her little gifts on his return.
Hitler provided a flat for Eva and her sister Gertl.
Hitler and Eva were never together in public. She was there too, but in the background.
Eva did have a chance to leave the bunker in 1945 just before the war ended. She refused to go.
She love Hitler. They were married the same day they took the cyanide.
This story were very well written, with all the footnotes and pictures.
When she became his mistress he provided well for her. She lived in luxury. She also had a dress designer that would come to apartment.
When Hitler had to take care of politics and would be gone for weeks. She would be sad. Then he would bring her little gifts on his return.
Hitler provided a flat for Eva and her sister Gertl.
Hitler and Eva were never together in public. She was there too, but in the background.
Eva did have a chance to leave the bunker in 1945 just before the war ended. She refused to go.
She love Hitler. They were married the same day they took the cyanide.
This story were very well written, with all the footnotes and pictures.
April 26, 2014
This was devastating. Eva Braun was not in any way a bad person, just a naive and misguided one, hopelessly in the thrall of a very damaged father figure with an unnatural amount of charisma. Just like the rest of Germany. But she was the only one who slept with him. Her life was a nightmare. A vile gilded cage existence surrounded by butcher birds and half out of her mind with obsessive love. And never allowed to read a newspaper or hear a radio in case she learned the truth. Catastrophe looms over every single page of this book, but for Eva I felt only sympathy and pity. The best biog I've read this year.
January 2, 2016
Before the actual review, a side note: the footnotes in this book are the most badly edited footnotes I have ever seen in my life. Aside from the fact that the footnotes are frequently repetitious, the numbers in the text are sometimes on the wrong page. Sometimes there seems to be a footnote missing. Sometimes there are two different places pointing to the same footnote. It's just bafflingly awful.
And while I'm bitching about format and production, there was a very poor choice made at some point: there are occasional interpolations from the author's life (e.g., her visit to Berchtesgaden and the almost entirely eradicated ruins of the Berghof), and someone chose to set those off from the main body of the text by indenting them in the same way they indented the block quotes. This meant that, as a reader, I could never be sure when I hit an indented passage, what the species of text was going to be. It was jarring and confusing, and it would have been so easy to fix.
Okay, enough of that.
This is a strange book, since I have to call it both a success and a failure. As a biography of Eva Braun, it is definitely a success. Lambert has done her research; she's dug out the primary sources, she's talked extensively with Eva Braun's only surviving relative. She's asked (most of) the hard questions and done her best to come up with answers. It is a very good biography, and it illuminates a lot of things about, not only Braun, but about Hitler and the society of the top-level Nazis (and their wives) and about German society, specifically the expectations and opportunities of German women in the first part of the twentieth century.
On the other hand, Lambert has a second project, and that I have to call a failure. Lambert's mother was German, a month younger than Eva Braun; Edith "Ditha" Schröder married an Englishman rather than becoming Hitler's mistress, but Lambert's secondary thesis is that by comparing Eva and Ditha, we can understand them both better and empathize with them.
It is true that Lambert's memories of her mother do help to illuminate Eva Braun's largely inaccessible inner life: her resolute, willful ignorance of politics; her unthinking, culturally ingrained racism; the way in which her dependence on a mostly absent and inaccessible man (Lambert's English father seems, from Lambert's account, to have been about as much support to his wife as a pot-hole) made her life miserable and claustrophobic ... even Ditha's brutal sentimentality (when she translated her father's memoir from German to English, she bowdlerized it and inserted encomiums to her mother, and then destroyed the original). In fact, the most broadly useful insight I gained from Lambert's book is her idea that brutality and sentimentality are conjoined twins.
But the question of empathy is harder. I felt sorry for Edith Schröder Helps, but I did not like her. I did not forgive her (which seems to be Lambert's goal). And I found that that question--can we forgive Edith for being the person that she was?--actually hindered the project of understanding, because Lambert's personal need to forgive/defend her mother (and by extension her German female relatives) gets tangled up in her primary project to the point that she seems to feel that she and her readers also have to forgive Eva Braun.
I can understand Eva Braun without forgiving her. I can believe that she had no idea what Hitler was doing after he came to power, and I certainly don't think she could have changed anything if she had known. I can even admire, in a way, her stubborn loyalty to Hitler. But--and this is something Lambert never discusses--even if she did not know what he was doing, she still chose, willfully, not to know that he was the sort of person who would do those things. (Hitler: not noted for hiding his light under a bushel.) And I can understand that; I can see where that choice emerged from her personality and her upbringing and the society around her. But she made the choice. She chose to pursue Hitler (Eva made all of the running in their relationship until her second suicide attempt convinced him he had to pay a little more attention to what he was doing to her); she chose to sacrifice her entire life to him, with increasing quantities of literalness as she went along. And either she made that choice knowing what he was and deciding to shut her eyes to it, or she deliberately shut her eyes before she made the choice. And she kept them shut every day from 1929 to 1945.
I can understand that. I can recognize that it was a terrible waste of whatever else Eva Braun might have been and I can regret that. I can be infuriated on her behalf that German society, patriarchal and authoritarian, gave her so few options and all of them either bad, or impossible for a woman not as obsessively driven as Leni Riefenstahl, or completely dependent on the character of the man she chose to yoke herself to. I can pity her for the caged and miserable life she led, although a gilded cage is a hell of a lot better than a concentration camp. But I still don't forgive her, and I wish Lambert had used less of her energy in trying to convince me to.
And while I'm bitching about format and production, there was a very poor choice made at some point: there are occasional interpolations from the author's life (e.g., her visit to Berchtesgaden and the almost entirely eradicated ruins of the Berghof), and someone chose to set those off from the main body of the text by indenting them in the same way they indented the block quotes. This meant that, as a reader, I could never be sure when I hit an indented passage, what the species of text was going to be. It was jarring and confusing, and it would have been so easy to fix.
Okay, enough of that.
This is a strange book, since I have to call it both a success and a failure. As a biography of Eva Braun, it is definitely a success. Lambert has done her research; she's dug out the primary sources, she's talked extensively with Eva Braun's only surviving relative. She's asked (most of) the hard questions and done her best to come up with answers. It is a very good biography, and it illuminates a lot of things about, not only Braun, but about Hitler and the society of the top-level Nazis (and their wives) and about German society, specifically the expectations and opportunities of German women in the first part of the twentieth century.
On the other hand, Lambert has a second project, and that I have to call a failure. Lambert's mother was German, a month younger than Eva Braun; Edith "Ditha" Schröder married an Englishman rather than becoming Hitler's mistress, but Lambert's secondary thesis is that by comparing Eva and Ditha, we can understand them both better and empathize with them.
It is true that Lambert's memories of her mother do help to illuminate Eva Braun's largely inaccessible inner life: her resolute, willful ignorance of politics; her unthinking, culturally ingrained racism; the way in which her dependence on a mostly absent and inaccessible man (Lambert's English father seems, from Lambert's account, to have been about as much support to his wife as a pot-hole) made her life miserable and claustrophobic ... even Ditha's brutal sentimentality (when she translated her father's memoir from German to English, she bowdlerized it and inserted encomiums to her mother, and then destroyed the original). In fact, the most broadly useful insight I gained from Lambert's book is her idea that brutality and sentimentality are conjoined twins.
But the question of empathy is harder. I felt sorry for Edith Schröder Helps, but I did not like her. I did not forgive her (which seems to be Lambert's goal). And I found that that question--can we forgive Edith for being the person that she was?--actually hindered the project of understanding, because Lambert's personal need to forgive/defend her mother (and by extension her German female relatives) gets tangled up in her primary project to the point that she seems to feel that she and her readers also have to forgive Eva Braun.
I can understand Eva Braun without forgiving her. I can believe that she had no idea what Hitler was doing after he came to power, and I certainly don't think she could have changed anything if she had known. I can even admire, in a way, her stubborn loyalty to Hitler. But--and this is something Lambert never discusses--even if she did not know what he was doing, she still chose, willfully, not to know that he was the sort of person who would do those things. (Hitler: not noted for hiding his light under a bushel.) And I can understand that; I can see where that choice emerged from her personality and her upbringing and the society around her. But she made the choice. She chose to pursue Hitler (Eva made all of the running in their relationship until her second suicide attempt convinced him he had to pay a little more attention to what he was doing to her); she chose to sacrifice her entire life to him, with increasing quantities of literalness as she went along. And either she made that choice knowing what he was and deciding to shut her eyes to it, or she deliberately shut her eyes before she made the choice. And she kept them shut every day from 1929 to 1945.
I can understand that. I can recognize that it was a terrible waste of whatever else Eva Braun might have been and I can regret that. I can be infuriated on her behalf that German society, patriarchal and authoritarian, gave her so few options and all of them either bad, or impossible for a woman not as obsessively driven as Leni Riefenstahl, or completely dependent on the character of the man she chose to yoke herself to. I can pity her for the caged and miserable life she led, although a gilded cage is a hell of a lot better than a concentration camp. But I still don't forgive her, and I wish Lambert had used less of her energy in trying to convince me to.
May 12, 2015
There are too many problems with this book for me to describe them all. Therefore, I will limit myself to the main one. The author's mother was a German of similar age to Eva Braun. This, apparently, is enough to warrant spending large amounts of time speculating on what her mother would have thought about various aspects of Eva and Hitler's lives. She writes these meandering diatribes (including a picture of her aunt for no apparent reason) about herself and her family that have nothing to do with The Lost Life of Eva Braun. Frankly, it comes across as narcissistic and childish. When you throw in the typos, poor grammar, in-cohesive writing style, horribly inappropriate references (an Earthlink email address? Really?), and blatant misunderstanding of what footnotes are for...this book is an embarrassment for the publisher. I would not recommend it to anyone.
January 3, 2008
Very interesting story about someone rather neglected in history. The book could have been better edited, but it was easy to read, and the photos were fascinating.
April 7, 2020
I did my thesis on Lee Miller's photojournalism during WWII so I spent 4 months completely immersed in the war. At the end of it all I sat back and said, "Wait a second. Hitler had a girlfriend through the whole thing. WHO WOULD EVER-?! WHAT?! WHY!!??? HHHHOOWW?! WWWWHOOOO????????!" I decided to find out. I found this book at my library and it's in nearly pristine condition, I doubt it's been taken out more than 4 times. It's pretty new, too, published in 2006. Come to think of it, the librarian that checked it out for me didn't even know we had it.
On to the review:
It's been the intention of history to remove all humanity from Hitler & co., to portray them strictly as monsters and not human beings. Documents like personal letters were destroyed in order to keep evidence of their humanity from the public. I take issue with that, as holding them up as symbols of evil, caricatures even, removes the elements that we all have in common with them which makes it so easy for us to say "That will never be me" or "I'll never fall in love with a fascist dictator" but...it's possible. It's possible, is all I'm saying.
The Lost Life takes an amazing perspective on the war because it's not in the concentration camps or Anne Frank's attic or any of the many many armies involved, it's civilian life in Europe, particularly Germany, at the time. Angela Lambert's mother was actually born within a few weeks of Eva Braun, so Lambert uses stories from her mother's life to supplement the little information available about Eva's childhood, and also to give her back that bit of human-ness: Eva's practically a ghost, floating through modern history as we know her name and little else.
That's about as much as most people knew at the time, as well. Hitler refused to make their relationship public, and Eva didn't end up even moving in with him until the late thirties even though Eva was essentially promoted to Hitler's #1 lady after his niece, Geli Raubal, committed suicide. And even after they began living together only the very, very top of the Nazi hierarchy and the personal maids of Hitler and Eva even knew who she was- on the phone directory for the Berghof (Hitler's main house in the German countryside) she was listed as a secretary. The few times they attended the same public event she was forced to sit far from Hitler with the other, actual, secretaries. At the Berghof she was confined to her room.
And while it's easy to view her as an anti-Semite and racist Nazi, Eva and most of her family never joined the Nazi party (except for her father, but he only did it to please Hitler). In fact, Hitler even presented her with an award he had made for non-Nazis that provided him with great services. And given her strict Catholic upbringing and patronage of Jewish clothing and shoe designers throughout the war (even after the ban on Jewish merchants was placed) it's unlikely that she was anti-Semitic. And given Hitler's strict orders that no one ever discuss anything war or politic related with Eva it's possible she never even knew about the camps, and even attempted to intercede with Hitler on behalf of a few friends (of course he ignored her, but she tried and reacted to the few incidents she did hear about.)
Lambert's book is impeccably researched (did anybody know that we, the United States, actually hold Eva's personal diary in our archives? We confiscated it during the war and it now resides in the National Archives in Maryland, along with Eva's own personal photo albums and home movies she took while living at the Berghof) and richly detailed. Her chapters on the last few weeks of Eva and Hitler's life in the underground bunker are vivid and emotional. The paragraphs on how Eva and the maids pitched in to make the last few days of the six Goebbels children as comfortable as possible knowing that their parents had already decided to murder them when the time came are particularly heartbreaking.
It's an incredible book with a unique angle on history and human nature. It also gives an in-depth look to German childhood in the early 20th century, showing how the stars aligned to make Hitler and Eva perfect for each other (Fathers, love your daughters for who they are so they don't fall in love with the first older man that shows them the slightest bit of positive attention). An absolute must-read for anyone that...no. An absolute must read for anyone, period.
5 stars
Blauthor, Blauthor!
On to the review:
It's been the intention of history to remove all humanity from Hitler & co., to portray them strictly as monsters and not human beings. Documents like personal letters were destroyed in order to keep evidence of their humanity from the public. I take issue with that, as holding them up as symbols of evil, caricatures even, removes the elements that we all have in common with them which makes it so easy for us to say "That will never be me" or "I'll never fall in love with a fascist dictator" but...it's possible. It's possible, is all I'm saying.
The Lost Life takes an amazing perspective on the war because it's not in the concentration camps or Anne Frank's attic or any of the many many armies involved, it's civilian life in Europe, particularly Germany, at the time. Angela Lambert's mother was actually born within a few weeks of Eva Braun, so Lambert uses stories from her mother's life to supplement the little information available about Eva's childhood, and also to give her back that bit of human-ness: Eva's practically a ghost, floating through modern history as we know her name and little else.
That's about as much as most people knew at the time, as well. Hitler refused to make their relationship public, and Eva didn't end up even moving in with him until the late thirties even though Eva was essentially promoted to Hitler's #1 lady after his niece, Geli Raubal, committed suicide. And even after they began living together only the very, very top of the Nazi hierarchy and the personal maids of Hitler and Eva even knew who she was- on the phone directory for the Berghof (Hitler's main house in the German countryside) she was listed as a secretary. The few times they attended the same public event she was forced to sit far from Hitler with the other, actual, secretaries. At the Berghof she was confined to her room.
And while it's easy to view her as an anti-Semite and racist Nazi, Eva and most of her family never joined the Nazi party (except for her father, but he only did it to please Hitler). In fact, Hitler even presented her with an award he had made for non-Nazis that provided him with great services. And given her strict Catholic upbringing and patronage of Jewish clothing and shoe designers throughout the war (even after the ban on Jewish merchants was placed) it's unlikely that she was anti-Semitic. And given Hitler's strict orders that no one ever discuss anything war or politic related with Eva it's possible she never even knew about the camps, and even attempted to intercede with Hitler on behalf of a few friends (of course he ignored her, but she tried and reacted to the few incidents she did hear about.)
Lambert's book is impeccably researched (did anybody know that we, the United States, actually hold Eva's personal diary in our archives? We confiscated it during the war and it now resides in the National Archives in Maryland, along with Eva's own personal photo albums and home movies she took while living at the Berghof) and richly detailed. Her chapters on the last few weeks of Eva and Hitler's life in the underground bunker are vivid and emotional. The paragraphs on how Eva and the maids pitched in to make the last few days of the six Goebbels children as comfortable as possible knowing that their parents had already decided to murder them when the time came are particularly heartbreaking.
It's an incredible book with a unique angle on history and human nature. It also gives an in-depth look to German childhood in the early 20th century, showing how the stars aligned to make Hitler and Eva perfect for each other (Fathers, love your daughters for who they are so they don't fall in love with the first older man that shows them the slightest bit of positive attention). An absolute must-read for anyone that...no. An absolute must read for anyone, period.
5 stars
Blauthor, Blauthor!
May 2, 2019
I'm incredibly conflicted about rating this book, as I have mixed feelings about it. There are few biographies of Eva Braun and I'm glad I read it, but there are so many problems with this book. Let's discuss the positive first, then I'll dive into the negatives.
The author has a unique way of looking at the subject and does her best to treat Eva Braun as a human being, with all of the personality and faults that exist within every person. She appears to have conducted quite a bit of research and I learned a number of details that I was not previously aware of, though I'll likely double check many of them. Ms Lambert also clearly made an effort to incorporate cultural information/mores into her interpretations of the relationships within the Braun family, as well as other individuals.
However, here are the problems I encountered multiple times and encourage fellow readers to be aware of:
1) Much of the author's work was influenced by the fact that her own mother was born in Germany within a month of Eva Braun and there were superficial similarities in their lives due to that. Ms Lambert therefore uses that to make correlations between the two women that she does not offer other evidence for. There is also a distressing tendency to switch from discussing Eva to suddenly including a block of print that at first glance appears to be a quote, but is actually the author reminiscing about some aspect of her own family/experiences that she feels is in some way related. This is not always identified, so the reader must take care not to mistake these for Eva Braun's words.
2) There is a marked tendency to assign a feeling or thought process to the individuals she is discussing, particularly to Eva. References to proof of this feeling, such as a diary entry, are not frequently included. They largely seem to be assumed on the part of the author.
3) There is an unusual focus on whether Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler ever had sex. Ironically, she also discusses at one point how odd it is that some historians seem so concerned with Hitler's sex life. However, the author raises the questions multiple times through the book whether the two ever had sex together and offers supporting arguments for her stance.
The author has a unique way of looking at the subject and does her best to treat Eva Braun as a human being, with all of the personality and faults that exist within every person. She appears to have conducted quite a bit of research and I learned a number of details that I was not previously aware of, though I'll likely double check many of them. Ms Lambert also clearly made an effort to incorporate cultural information/mores into her interpretations of the relationships within the Braun family, as well as other individuals.
However, here are the problems I encountered multiple times and encourage fellow readers to be aware of:
1) Much of the author's work was influenced by the fact that her own mother was born in Germany within a month of Eva Braun and there were superficial similarities in their lives due to that. Ms Lambert therefore uses that to make correlations between the two women that she does not offer other evidence for. There is also a distressing tendency to switch from discussing Eva to suddenly including a block of print that at first glance appears to be a quote, but is actually the author reminiscing about some aspect of her own family/experiences that she feels is in some way related. This is not always identified, so the reader must take care not to mistake these for Eva Braun's words.
2) There is a marked tendency to assign a feeling or thought process to the individuals she is discussing, particularly to Eva. References to proof of this feeling, such as a diary entry, are not frequently included. They largely seem to be assumed on the part of the author.
3) There is an unusual focus on whether Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler ever had sex. Ironically, she also discusses at one point how odd it is that some historians seem so concerned with Hitler's sex life. However, the author raises the questions multiple times through the book whether the two ever had sex together and offers supporting arguments for her stance.
February 4, 2014
This book takes a rather sympathetic view of Eva Braun, which the reader should rightly question. That said, the author evidences her empathy for Eva skillfully. I found myself thoroughly engaged in the question of German women's complicity and/or responsibility in Nazi atrocities and rise to power. Lambert pulls off a complicated stunt with impressive historical evidence and research. I found her footnotes most entertaining, she presents her source documentation with morbid humor and proper sarcasm which deflates any suspicions I had about her being a Nazi revisionist. I feel her carefully reconstructed portrait of Eva Braun is based on fair assumptions and does not stray from the tough question of what one "should" and "could" do when faced with the unfathomable evil that is literally sleeping in one's bed. [My, that sounds dramatic.]
In conclusion [My, that sounds sophomoric], Lambert's clever footnoting alone makes it worth giving this book a good spine crack. A wet dream for compulsive footnote/source diggers, Lambert manages to add life to all those little footnoted details that generally are too boring to peruse. It's the footnotes that sell humanization in the defense of Eva. Lambert takes a snarky tone with presentation of asshole Nazi shit propaganda and a humanitarian, psychoanalytic one when presenting Braun's "evidence" of relative innocence. Solid read.
In conclusion [My, that sounds sophomoric], Lambert's clever footnoting alone makes it worth giving this book a good spine crack. A wet dream for compulsive footnote/source diggers, Lambert manages to add life to all those little footnoted details that generally are too boring to peruse. It's the footnotes that sell humanization in the defense of Eva. Lambert takes a snarky tone with presentation of asshole Nazi shit propaganda and a humanitarian, psychoanalytic one when presenting Braun's "evidence" of relative innocence. Solid read.
October 25, 2010
Not as coherent as it might have been. The author has a deplorable tendency to repeat information, including entire passages appearing verbatim in more than one place, and also to inject herself and her family history into the book. The book would have benefited from better editing, as there are several errors (mostly in dates, obviously typos, but also occasionally in names, film titles, etc.) in the edition I'm reading.
April 17, 2011
This is a poor biography, largely due to the subject (Eva Braun is such a non-entity and there is a paucity of real detail) and Lamberts inability to stick to the script. Is this a history or a biography? So many references to real events are lifted from others (Kershaw and Burleigh are much better writers and more respected historians, using Wikipedia is just lazy research). All Lambert is left with is conjecture, poorly realised imagination and feminist drivel.
April 28, 2014
I have always been curious about how Eva Braun, a young woman working in a photographer's studio, ended up being the companion of Adolf Hitler. This book is very informative and non-judgmental. The author is also a skilled writer, so the story flows almost like fiction. Definitely worth reading to fill in the background of Braun.
September 19, 2007
It was an interesting read. Leading up to Hitler's take over, how the German people became swayed by their stoic way of life and how Eva was so captivated by all of it. I was amazed at how small a part she played in the political movement.
August 24, 2008
This book answered my questions as to who Hitler was, why the German people supported him, and what his homelife was like. It was an interesting read and opened my eyes to better understand this terrible period in history.
May 14, 2024
As I began writing this review, I realised I didn't have anything nice to say. It was an interesting read, and it was the first book I read about Eva Braun, but it took me more than a week to finish. The information about her life and as a woman was fascinating; I don't think I've ever thought this deeply about her. So, if the goal was to demonstrate that she was a real woman with many emotions who gave her life for love, rather than just another name in history books, I believe it was accomplished.
But the writing style was simply tiring. The author repeated herself too many times, and the events were not presented in chronological order; she was talking about 1939, then 1942, and then again about 1933, which was exhausting. Most of the time, I had no idea when the events I was reading about had occurred. About halfway through the book, I gave up trying to figure out the chronology of events.
Another thing that irritated me was that she insisted on discussing political events when a brief mention would have sufficed. There was also an entire chapter dedicated to Hitler, which I didn't see the point of, especially given the thousands of books and documentaries about him.
I understood the need to draw a parallel between Eva Braun and the author’s mother, as they both lived at the same time and had similar experiences up to a point, but describing the events after the war was unnecessary. However, after halfway through the book, the author described her own experiences in Germany and trips she took while researching for the book. This seemed to be included primarily to make the book longer. I believe that if she had written only about Eva Braun, her life and experiences, in a nice chronological order, without repeating herself and without any other information unrelated to Eva Braun, the book would have been half the size.
Overall, I don’t think I would recommend this book to anyone.
But the writing style was simply tiring. The author repeated herself too many times, and the events were not presented in chronological order; she was talking about 1939, then 1942, and then again about 1933, which was exhausting. Most of the time, I had no idea when the events I was reading about had occurred. About halfway through the book, I gave up trying to figure out the chronology of events.
Another thing that irritated me was that she insisted on discussing political events when a brief mention would have sufficed. There was also an entire chapter dedicated to Hitler, which I didn't see the point of, especially given the thousands of books and documentaries about him.
I understood the need to draw a parallel between Eva Braun and the author’s mother, as they both lived at the same time and had similar experiences up to a point, but describing the events after the war was unnecessary. However, after halfway through the book, the author described her own experiences in Germany and trips she took while researching for the book. This seemed to be included primarily to make the book longer. I believe that if she had written only about Eva Braun, her life and experiences, in a nice chronological order, without repeating herself and without any other information unrelated to Eva Braun, the book would have been half the size.
Overall, I don’t think I would recommend this book to anyone.
December 11, 2021
Angela Lambertin elämäkerrassa raotetaan salaisuuden verhoa, millainen nainen oli Hitlerin käsipuolessa kolmannen valtakunnan loppuun saakka ja syvennetään pariskunnan rakkaussuhdetta aina kaksoisitsemurhaan huhtikuun lopussa 1945 Berliinissä.
Yli viiteensataan sivuun on saatu mahdutettua hyvin lukuisa määrä lähteitä ja silminnäkijähavaintoja ja muistiinpanoja, kuka oikein oli tuo müncheniläinen valokuvausliikkeen myyjä, joka oli Adolf Hitlerin pitkäaikainen rakastajatar ja aviovaimo viimeiset 36 tuntia elämästään.
Kirjassa on yhteensä kuusi osaa, ja alkuun lähdetään Evan perheestä ja nuoruudesta. Nimeäminen on aika mahtipontista, kun puhutaan ”valtakunnanrakastajattaresta” ja välillä tytönhupakosta. Näkökulmia saadaan, kun mukaan lisätään vähäiset päiväkirjamerkinnät ja muutamat mustavalkovalokuvat sekä nuoruudenystävien ja Berghovin asukkaiden ja lopulta johtajan bunkkerista selvinneiden muistikuvia.
Kirja on hyvin toimitettu ja lähteiltään monipuolinen, mutta silti tämän luettuani käsitys Evan ei juurikaan syventynyt. Tosin häntä kuvataan toisaalta yhdeksi führerin uskollisimmista tukijoista mutta toisaalta kiipijäksi, joka onnistui lopulta pääsemään valtakunnan kanslerin ykkössuosikiksi parin itsemurhayrityksen jälkeen.
Siinä mielessä kirja pyrkii objektiivisuuteen, että vaikka kauhistellaan siellä sun täällä natsien tekemiä rikoksia ihmisyyttä vastaan, mukaan on lisätty liittoutuneiden hirmutekoja ja siviilikohteiden massiivisia tuhoamispommituksia.
Evasta ei tehdä mitään natsia, eikä hän sellainen ollutkaan, vaan hän hoiti oman roolinsa kunnialla ihan loppuun saakka ja kasvoi ihmisenä (lainausten mukaan) ”mitättömästä müncheniläistytöstä” bunkkerin ainoaksi ”järkkymättömän ihailtavaksi kuolemankanditaatiksi”.
Yli viiteensataan sivuun on saatu mahdutettua hyvin lukuisa määrä lähteitä ja silminnäkijähavaintoja ja muistiinpanoja, kuka oikein oli tuo müncheniläinen valokuvausliikkeen myyjä, joka oli Adolf Hitlerin pitkäaikainen rakastajatar ja aviovaimo viimeiset 36 tuntia elämästään.
Kirjassa on yhteensä kuusi osaa, ja alkuun lähdetään Evan perheestä ja nuoruudesta. Nimeäminen on aika mahtipontista, kun puhutaan ”valtakunnanrakastajattaresta” ja välillä tytönhupakosta. Näkökulmia saadaan, kun mukaan lisätään vähäiset päiväkirjamerkinnät ja muutamat mustavalkovalokuvat sekä nuoruudenystävien ja Berghovin asukkaiden ja lopulta johtajan bunkkerista selvinneiden muistikuvia.
Kirja on hyvin toimitettu ja lähteiltään monipuolinen, mutta silti tämän luettuani käsitys Evan ei juurikaan syventynyt. Tosin häntä kuvataan toisaalta yhdeksi führerin uskollisimmista tukijoista mutta toisaalta kiipijäksi, joka onnistui lopulta pääsemään valtakunnan kanslerin ykkössuosikiksi parin itsemurhayrityksen jälkeen.
Siinä mielessä kirja pyrkii objektiivisuuteen, että vaikka kauhistellaan siellä sun täällä natsien tekemiä rikoksia ihmisyyttä vastaan, mukaan on lisätty liittoutuneiden hirmutekoja ja siviilikohteiden massiivisia tuhoamispommituksia.
Evasta ei tehdä mitään natsia, eikä hän sellainen ollutkaan, vaan hän hoiti oman roolinsa kunnialla ihan loppuun saakka ja kasvoi ihmisenä (lainausten mukaan) ”mitättömästä müncheniläistytöstä” bunkkerin ainoaksi ”järkkymättömän ihailtavaksi kuolemankanditaatiksi”.
May 14, 2014
The definition of 'Photobomb': to ruin (a photograph) by appearing in the image without the photographer’s knowledge, often in some dramatic or comical way.
This book is the literary version of a photobombed photo!
Angela Lambert photobombed Eva Braun.
The author, Angela Lambert, is so emotionally involved with feminism and the Woman-ness of Eva Braun that she never steps aside to focus objectively on the subject so that you aren't simultaneously aware that she's writing her book. And yes, I'd opine that her overbearing personality hijacks the book without the author's knowledge, just as in a photobombed photograph.
The book was doomed from the start and I wish I would've put it down long before I wasted so many hours searching for info that could've been nicely covered in a magazine article rather than a lengthy book.
Unless one is approaching Eva Braun without any knowledge about her boyfriend and his Reich, I'd really only recommend reading
chapter 10, "Diary of a Desperate Woman." But, be aware that even here there's not so much meat as there is clutter on the self-involved author's steps in getting her hands on Braun's very truncated diary.
In her Introduction, and I purposely say "her" rather than "the" because this book is so much about herself, in this intro Lambert writes of an author she went to interview: "Arrogant and defiant, Irving made no attempt to hide his contempt for me (a woman, lacking proper academic credentials) and also for Eva Braun herself." THEN she footnotes her parenthetical comment with a defense of herself; her education: "a degree from Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics rather than History, let alone Third Reich history." This is weird. Who is this about anyway? Are we going to learn about Braun, or about the author's chip on her shoulder, man-hating feminism? Okay, it's just the intro, so I kept reading on, ignoring this red flag warning me that this woman is going to make herself a big, distracting part of HER book.
By editorializing about Irving in the introduction, Lambert had inadvertently already warned me that she's no historian and had come across as lacking proper academic credentials to a man she chose to interview. So why was I so appalled when on only page 5 she proceeded to prove her ignorance when she writes of Hitler, "He was the first politician to grasp the importance of projecting the right image...." Hmmm, I'm right away thinking of Caesar or Napoleon (one of Hitler's non-Germanic heroes). She's clearly no Art scholar either as Bonaparte certainly did exploit the medium of his day via portraits of himself in oil. Is she even aware that Caesar was an author?
Other problems with this book are:
1) the repeating of the same sentences like a drunkard feels the need to do
2)clumsy and improper sentences and punctuation. ex. from p.9 reads: "At their first meeting it was beyond Eva's -beyond anyone's- imagination to picture the genocide. Hitler would initiate, even if she'd read Mein Kampf...." Why the period in the middle of what is only one sentence?
3)the redundancy
4)the typos. As on p.216 where the word is "l7ynching" Very, very sloppy.
5)always the very distracting feminist agenda propaganda through the entire book. An outrageous example of this is found in the irrelevant footnote on the first page of chapter 17 that made me want to tear my (or her) hair out. Here Lambert finds it utter madness that the Church & Nazis promoted, "a woman's role was to marry, bear children and sustain and adore her man." The footnote: "Far fetched as it may seem, this is exactly the advice handed out today by...George W. Bush...." HUH? Weird? Why is this so "far fetched" to her?? And what in the world does this audacious comment have to do with Braun who, by the way, definitely was not Hitler's unmarried and childless lover by choice, as if being a liberated woman. Au contraire! Lambert knows this! She writes these very acknowledgements throughout the book -- over and over I might add. I have to laugh tho because I can still hear Hillary Clinton bashing Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" song and later watch the same sapphic woman standing by her philandering man!
To sum it up: I absolutely hated this author's writing and wasn't sold on loving or sympathizing with Braun by it. Not only that, but I'm fairly certain that Braun herself would not much care for this "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" author's cover of her life story. Eva, who adored being the center of attraction in a plethora of photographs sure wouldn't relish being photobombed by Lambert.
This book is the literary version of a photobombed photo!
Angela Lambert photobombed Eva Braun.
The author, Angela Lambert, is so emotionally involved with feminism and the Woman-ness of Eva Braun that she never steps aside to focus objectively on the subject so that you aren't simultaneously aware that she's writing her book. And yes, I'd opine that her overbearing personality hijacks the book without the author's knowledge, just as in a photobombed photograph.
The book was doomed from the start and I wish I would've put it down long before I wasted so many hours searching for info that could've been nicely covered in a magazine article rather than a lengthy book.
Unless one is approaching Eva Braun without any knowledge about her boyfriend and his Reich, I'd really only recommend reading
chapter 10, "Diary of a Desperate Woman." But, be aware that even here there's not so much meat as there is clutter on the self-involved author's steps in getting her hands on Braun's very truncated diary.
In her Introduction, and I purposely say "her" rather than "the" because this book is so much about herself, in this intro Lambert writes of an author she went to interview: "Arrogant and defiant, Irving made no attempt to hide his contempt for me (a woman, lacking proper academic credentials) and also for Eva Braun herself." THEN she footnotes her parenthetical comment with a defense of herself; her education: "a degree from Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics rather than History, let alone Third Reich history." This is weird. Who is this about anyway? Are we going to learn about Braun, or about the author's chip on her shoulder, man-hating feminism? Okay, it's just the intro, so I kept reading on, ignoring this red flag warning me that this woman is going to make herself a big, distracting part of HER book.
By editorializing about Irving in the introduction, Lambert had inadvertently already warned me that she's no historian and had come across as lacking proper academic credentials to a man she chose to interview. So why was I so appalled when on only page 5 she proceeded to prove her ignorance when she writes of Hitler, "He was the first politician to grasp the importance of projecting the right image...." Hmmm, I'm right away thinking of Caesar or Napoleon (one of Hitler's non-Germanic heroes). She's clearly no Art scholar either as Bonaparte certainly did exploit the medium of his day via portraits of himself in oil. Is she even aware that Caesar was an author?
Other problems with this book are:
1) the repeating of the same sentences like a drunkard feels the need to do
2)clumsy and improper sentences and punctuation. ex. from p.9 reads: "At their first meeting it was beyond Eva's -beyond anyone's- imagination to picture the genocide. Hitler would initiate, even if she'd read Mein Kampf...." Why the period in the middle of what is only one sentence?
3)the redundancy
4)the typos. As on p.216 where the word is "l7ynching" Very, very sloppy.
5)always the very distracting feminist agenda propaganda through the entire book. An outrageous example of this is found in the irrelevant footnote on the first page of chapter 17 that made me want to tear my (or her) hair out. Here Lambert finds it utter madness that the Church & Nazis promoted, "a woman's role was to marry, bear children and sustain and adore her man." The footnote: "Far fetched as it may seem, this is exactly the advice handed out today by...George W. Bush...." HUH? Weird? Why is this so "far fetched" to her?? And what in the world does this audacious comment have to do with Braun who, by the way, definitely was not Hitler's unmarried and childless lover by choice, as if being a liberated woman. Au contraire! Lambert knows this! She writes these very acknowledgements throughout the book -- over and over I might add. I have to laugh tho because I can still hear Hillary Clinton bashing Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" song and later watch the same sapphic woman standing by her philandering man!
To sum it up: I absolutely hated this author's writing and wasn't sold on loving or sympathizing with Braun by it. Not only that, but I'm fairly certain that Braun herself would not much care for this "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" author's cover of her life story. Eva, who adored being the center of attraction in a plethora of photographs sure wouldn't relish being photobombed by Lambert.
January 1, 2013
Разказ за живота на Ева Браун от детството й през запознанството с Хитлер до смъртта им в бункера. Представена е като леко вятърничаво момиче, интересуващо се от филми, забавления и клюки. Типична жена от своето време, възпитавана да бъде добра, подкрепяща съпруга, грижовна майка и нищо повече. Ева през всичкото време се надява да получава любов от Хитлер, остава в страни от политическата му дейност, неинформирана достатъчно нито за събитията, нито за неговата идеология, дори не е била член на Нацистката партия. И естествено се поставя въпросът има ли тя вина за зверствата на нейния човек и могла ли е да му повлияе. След като е изведен основният й мотив да се примири с положението си на добре крита любовница, става ясно, че жената нито е имала власт, нито й е минало много-много през главата да се намесва в работата на Хитлер. Основната й идея е била да оцелява във враждебната среда на високопставените нацисти /и техните съпруги/ от обкръжението на Хитлер, да му осигурява комфорт и да го развлича и срещу това да получава поне мъничко внимание, само насаме и от време на време.
Има интересни факти, подкрепени със свидетелства на приближени на Хитлер и съвременници, роднини и приятели на Ева Браун. Приятно впечатление правят отклонения, в които авторката прави паралел между Ева Браун и собствената й майка, родена в Германия в осъщата година и възпитавана по сходен начин. Доста бързо баче книгата започна да ми става отегчителна заради повтарянето на общите идеи, изведени в самото начало. Дразнещо ми беше и неправилното транскрибиране на някои немски фамилни и географски имена. Има и едни свободни интерпретации по фотографиите от албумите на Ева Браун, от което се стига до доста категорични изводи.
Има интересни факти, подкрепени със свидетелства на приближени на Хитлер и съвременници, роднини и приятели на Ева Браун. Приятно впечатление правят отклонения, в които авторката прави паралел между Ева Браун и собствената й майка, родена в Германия в осъщата година и възпитавана по сходен начин. Доста бързо баче книгата започна да ми става отегчителна заради повтарянето на общите идеи, изведени в самото начало. Дразнещо ми беше и неправилното транскрибиране на някои немски фамилни и географски имена. Има и едни свободни интерпретации по фотографиите от албумите на Ева Браун, от което се стига до доста категорични изводи.
June 18, 2008
I thought I should know more about the woman my car is named after, so I picked up this biography. It's done in a fairly unique way, since the author's mother was born at the same time and very near to the same place as the subject. So it covers a lot of ground about what it meant to be a German woman at this time, and I think makes some interesting points about what these women — even Eva Braun — could have known or done about the Holocaust that was happening all around them. It doesn't absolve these women of blame, but it puts them in some context, and it certainly makes one wonder what one would do in a similar situation.
I found it fascinating how the Nazis struck out at their own weaknesses — Goebbels club foot, Hitler's inbred family — by persecuting people for their infirmities, among other things. Freud would have had a hey day.
Amid all this was Eva — eager to please, fatally in love with a charismatic, but truly psychotic, man. There's a tragic fatalism to her story, as if from almost the beginning, she was resigning herself toward and unhappy end, although I don't think anyone could have predicted the horror that lay ahead.
The book reads quickly and the device of pairing Eva's story with that of the author's mother is unique. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a different perspective on Germany during the war.
I found it fascinating how the Nazis struck out at their own weaknesses — Goebbels club foot, Hitler's inbred family — by persecuting people for their infirmities, among other things. Freud would have had a hey day.
Amid all this was Eva — eager to please, fatally in love with a charismatic, but truly psychotic, man. There's a tragic fatalism to her story, as if from almost the beginning, she was resigning herself toward and unhappy end, although I don't think anyone could have predicted the horror that lay ahead.
The book reads quickly and the device of pairing Eva's story with that of the author's mother is unique. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a different perspective on Germany during the war.
November 21, 2010
This book strives to show a sympathetic portrait of Eva Braun, Hitler's, younger by twenty years, girlfriend. Of course it is hard to swallow any "poor Eva" story compared to almost any one else in Germany, never mind the Jews. It is not any kind of apologist angle, don't get me wrong. She mostly seems to be saying that Eva was not a dumb blond. Or at least not a total bimbo? It is a good read, am not sure about the result.
The author is part German and her Mother is the same age as Eva, so she claims some contextual knowledge. She doesn't apologize or defend her mother, who seems conveniently dim about the era.
I found the book very interesting, although their was quite a lot of sun bathing. I did not know Eva was so young (33 at death). She was from what everyone calls a "good" Catholic family. She attempted suicide twice.
I'm really not sure what else to say about this book. I can muster up some sympathy for dumb girls in their twenties, but that is along the lines of Monica Lewinski. Am not sure what to say about this woman. Everyone said she loved her Adolph, is there a redeeming kernal in that? She definately loved his money. I'm not losing sleep over this one.
The author is part German and her Mother is the same age as Eva, so she claims some contextual knowledge. She doesn't apologize or defend her mother, who seems conveniently dim about the era.
I found the book very interesting, although their was quite a lot of sun bathing. I did not know Eva was so young (33 at death). She was from what everyone calls a "good" Catholic family. She attempted suicide twice.
I'm really not sure what else to say about this book. I can muster up some sympathy for dumb girls in their twenties, but that is along the lines of Monica Lewinski. Am not sure what to say about this woman. Everyone said she loved her Adolph, is there a redeeming kernal in that? She definately loved his money. I'm not losing sleep over this one.
January 11, 2014
Well. This was not a scholarly book, so the language was often quite folksy. The author included a bunch of information that I felt unnecessary, like statistics on the Holocaust. I am well aware that many groups were persecuted and killed.
The author included a lot of boring anecdotes about her mother, who was Eva Braun's age and living in Germany. She would not set up these anecdotes, but rather did big block quotes as if it was an Eva Braun quote. So I got tricked into reading those sometimes. I also thought the author over-explained things like the attempts on Hitler's life.
All that said, I did learn some things about Eva Braun and it was interesting to learn more about Bavaria and Munich during the war. I just wish I didn't have to go through nearly 500 pages to get there.
If you are looking to learn about Eva Braun, I would go with the other English language biography.
And finally, I have read a TON about World War II and HItler. So for the casual reader, this is probably just fine.
The author included a lot of boring anecdotes about her mother, who was Eva Braun's age and living in Germany. She would not set up these anecdotes, but rather did big block quotes as if it was an Eva Braun quote. So I got tricked into reading those sometimes. I also thought the author over-explained things like the attempts on Hitler's life.
All that said, I did learn some things about Eva Braun and it was interesting to learn more about Bavaria and Munich during the war. I just wish I didn't have to go through nearly 500 pages to get there.
If you are looking to learn about Eva Braun, I would go with the other English language biography.
And finally, I have read a TON about World War II and HItler. So for the casual reader, this is probably just fine.
September 13, 2014
The book needed an editor to pull Lambert back from truly poor footnotes --- she repeats things over and over, and there are literally footnotes on every page. By one hundred pages in I had decided to stop reading them, as only one in fifty contributed to the information on the actual page. That helped. It might also have been helpful to explain to Lambert that her mother's experiences as an exact contemporary of Eva Braun's had nothing whatsoever to do with Braun.
That being said, this book picked up considerable steam in the last third, when Lambert tries to come to grips with Braun's "guilt", or "how much did she know and when did she know it?", which Lambert seems to take as a metaphor for the entire German population. And if you tend to look at Eva Braun as similar to your mother, the answer is pretty much what you would expect.
Still, there is very little out there about Hitler's girlfriend. So if you're interested in the topic, have at it.
That being said, this book picked up considerable steam in the last third, when Lambert tries to come to grips with Braun's "guilt", or "how much did she know and when did she know it?", which Lambert seems to take as a metaphor for the entire German population. And if you tend to look at Eva Braun as similar to your mother, the answer is pretty much what you would expect.
Still, there is very little out there about Hitler's girlfriend. So if you're interested in the topic, have at it.
July 19, 2012
This is an exceptionally interesting book, with serious flaws. The author gives as detailed a portrait of Eva Braun and her relationship with Hitler as is likely possible given the paucity of surviving information; her insights, often derived from her own German mother, who was born within months of Eva, are often illuminating; her use of sources is wide-ranging. However, there are numerous irritating historical errors that sometimes bring into question the whole. Worthwhile reading, but with reservations.
September 25, 2008
The author, Angela Lambert is English with a German-born mother. Her mother was born, as I recall, the same year as Eva Braun and I loved how Ms. Lambert inserted her mothers' memories from the same time period.
This biography was very interesting and enjoyable. I have a fascination with World War II and the lives (real or imagined) of Europeans who lived through these times.
Before this biography, no one had expored Eva Braun's life in such detail.
This biography was very interesting and enjoyable. I have a fascination with World War II and the lives (real or imagined) of Europeans who lived through these times.
Before this biography, no one had expored Eva Braun's life in such detail.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 1, 2026
Done as well as can be expected given the paucity of source material. However, it was VERY poorly edited. Entire footnotes are repeated, sometimes information in the text appears also in the footnotes, etc. Disappointingly meh.
August 18, 2008
The author's mother was born in Germany the same year as Eva Braun. She talks about similarities growing up during the years between the World War I and II and Eva's relationship with Hitler.
May 30, 2016
Really, really, really interesting insight into one of the most alluring romances of all time.
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