The Lost Life of Eva Braun by Angela Lambert Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Lost Life of Eva Braun
Book Review: The first English biography about Eva Braun by someone of her own gender
Summary: 2 Stars
Lambert in her Introduction about Nerin Gun's biography ("Eva Braun: Hitler's Mistress"): "[...] his accuracy cannot be relied on. His book is chatty rather than authoritative, cites few dates, has not a single footnote and no bibliographical references, so nothing he asserts can be verified."
The author has indeed added footnotes so we can check the reliability, but official sources are unfortunately limited so she has relied on written and oral evidence from the people who knew her best (plus opinions from Lambert's personal friends). The "magnetic pull" to Hitler and other characters who lived in the dictators entourage is understandable but at times redundant. I fail for example to see the relevance to include a description of the director Leni Riefenstahl and her films; despite sentences like "Leni Riefenstahl's seductive images of athletes with sculpted muscles and gleaming skin are echoed by pictures of Eva in a swimsuit". The book could have been thinner. Some remarks could have been avoided or reformulated, unless the conclusions are based on fact. Perhaps Heinrich Himmler's wife was "a pathetic creature who had suffered shell schock while nursing at the front during the war", but considering the psychological effects on the human mind in times of war it would seem as a harsch judgement. Some photographs are rare and others have been published several times before (like the "rare snapshot" with Goebbels, Speer and others; the "unknown man" by the way, is most likely Karl Hanke). The author has added captions like: "Eva Braun - not a pretty baby", and "In photographs like these [...] her flat stomach proves that Eva was never pregnant." During a summer break Braun and her friends travelled to the Italian Riviera (Portofino) with a plane named "Orenzmark". Authentic film suggest that the name of the plane was "Grenzmark". Another plane or a spelling mistake?
This is apparently the first English biography about Eva Braun by someone of her own gender, and Lambert's effort to fill a gap is commendable, but the main problem besides Gertraud Weisker's (Braun's cousin) contribution is the lack of research material. A nice effort but nothing remarkable. I would probably recommend this biography to readers who appreciate books by Guido Knopp.
Book Review: fascinating and fab
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this book - very very interesting. One of the best books I have read of late. Book Review: A very interesting book
Summary: 4 Stars
Those who are deeply interested in events connected with World War II should read this book. It contains many interesting facts. Some of these have not been documented elewhere, while others have been forgotten by the world's press.
The book is only let down by the unnecessary large number of footnotes (almost 800). I believe much of the information in these footnotes should have been incorporated in the text while references should have been relegated to the end of the book.
One last thing. Lambert rightly extends her gratitude to those who helped her in her work. Maybe she would be interested to know that those tasked with proof-reading were not as assiduous in their work as she was. There are some typing errors, blatant repetitions and in one case some numbers did not add up!
Book Review: Slow, plodding and not very well written
Summary: 2 Stars
This book looked great on the shelf, the cover prompted me to buy the book, however, as previously remarked by other reviewers, large footnotes on the pages, often taking up more than the text itself were a struggle. I found it very hard to keep reading this book, despite my interest in the topic. Why could the footnotes not have been referred to in an appendix at the back? Also the writing and research was as speculative as Nerin Guns....just as chatty and just an uninformative! I didnt understand why the author also had to put her own italics on other peoples quotes. This did nothing to accentuate the point, infact other readers I have spoken to about this book thought that she was just tagging her own point of view onto the quote.
I appreciated Ms Lanbert was trying to parallel her mothers life with Eva's, but at times its was a tedious and unnecessary addition, and I found myself skipping forward to the the text about Eva Braun, because again it was speculative, and boring.
I was hoping that this book would give me an even better idea of the life of Eva Braun, but I came away knowing not much more than I did before I started the book. What I did get from this book was a pain in my head, from the sheer annoyance of those footnotes! I certainly wont be prompted to read any of this authors books again.
Book Review: Heavy going but empathy for her subject
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased the hardback copy of this book and did find it heavy going at times but found it hard to put down.
It is important to remember that the bulk of these events happened between 70-80 years ago and therefore the amount of eye-witnesses would have to be very few. Angela Lambert draws analogies from her own life in how it dovetails with Eva Braun's and compares their lives.
It is hard to understand how a vivacious pretty German girl fell in love with a man synonymous with evil - but fall in love with him she did. Lambert touches on the suicide of Geli Rauble, Hitler's niece and outlines the family trees of both Hitler and Eva and it should be known that Hitler's surviving family members now no longer use the name of Hitler to distance themselves from the past.
To me, Eva came across as a feather-headed young woman at times, interested in films, gossip and make-up but hardly any different from some young women of today. However, it appeared that this is what attracted her to Hitler - the very fact that she didn't spout politics and opinions. She was an escape from all that for him - but the only thing Eva seemed to crave from Hitler was the one thing he really couldn't give her - his time. Surrounded by sycophants, she was never taken seriously - as both Bormann's and Goebbels wives had all proved their worth in supplying German with nearly 20 children between them, Eva would have looked rather worthless in their eyes and this was how she was treated.
It is still hard to work out why Eva felt the need to go to her death with Hitler but perhaps something in her mind told her that she should truly prove her love for him by following him to the grave.
Despite all that has been said about Eva being an evil person, who hated children and all that, she comes across as a surprisingly likeable young woman who simply fell in love with the wrong man. Many women down the years and ages have done the same, the only thing is that the wrong man in this instance was Adolf Hitler.
The book is heavy going sometimes with the constant checking of footnotes but Lambert has certainly given this her best shot with what little resources were available to her and that only one of Eva's relatives was still alive at the time.
Despite what other reviewers have said, I took up this book with every intention of becoming more informed of Eva and as I said, I actually came away from it having discovered a young woman that was ordinary but extremely likeable.