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 Life Of Ms Lambert's Mother With Occasional References To Eva Braun
Summary: 1 Stars
As much as I hesitate to disparage any writer's work I feel it as my duty to any prospective reader to forewarn him or her not to consider buying this book.
Firstly, and most importantly it offers nothing in way of information or insight into the life of Eva Braun.
The style, as already mentioned below is ponderous and tepid. I recognise the author's mother may have shared a similar family and cultural background to the eventual Mrs Hitler, but surely all comparison ends there! I was often prompted to think a better alternative title may have been what I have entitled this monograph; "The Life Of Ms Lambert's Mother With Occasional References To Eva Braun."
I found nothing of value in this book, and fought to stay awake whilst reading it. You will find yourself skipping large portions of the book and leaping over endless anecdotal footnotes about Ms Lambert's family that bear no relevance to the supposed theme of the book.
If you really must read it, then obtain it from your local library.
Book Review: Hefty Book - With Some Nuggets of Interest
Summary: 2 Stars
This book tempted as a special offer in a supermarket - and was undoubtedly quite a lot of reading for very little outlay. Unfortunately however this was ideal product placement - since much of it is as fluffy as the holiday romances on the same shelves. Indeed the 'Mills and Boon' (or is it 'Beauty and the Beast' ?) plot here is that a naive, pretty, but narcissistic and willful, little girl is taken in by an evil monster - and - essentially no fault of her own - lands up prematurely dead and universally reviled.
There are nuggets from interviews with relatives, old family photos etc - and these are interesting in a purient sort of way. There are also some good 'social history' descriptions of Germany and Austria about the turn of the last century. Nevertheless several hundred pages are given up to quite nebulous 'background' - familiar material on the history and politics of the period, and observations on the parallels between the authors own family and that of Eva Braun. If this volume could have been carefully edited to about a quarter of its final length it would have been much more engaging.
Book Review: The meaningless life of Eva Braun!
Summary: 1 Stars
Much like other reviewers of this book, I was sorely disappointed by this hash of a biography.
Firstly, I use the term 'biography' very loosely as the narrative appears to wander at will almost from the start. Primarily, Angela Lambert's book suffers from being unsure whether to focus upon depicting Eva Braun's existence or that of various close relatives of the author. The reader is 'treated' to excerpts and events from Angela Lambert's mother's life on many occasions, all without any discernable reason that is significant for the understanding of Eva's life!. And all with a passion that is infuriating, considering the lack of information that Angela Lambert herself admits, is available to writers studying the life of Eva.
Secondly, Lambert like many before her, is inevitably side-tracked from her aim of giving the reader a clearer understanding of this much misunderstood woman, by focusing at length on the background, upbringing and emotional condition of Adolf Hitler. Obviously, Eva Braun's life cannot be written without reference to Hitler, but attempting to portray the dictator's inner psychological and emotional state at any given occasion is surely not only redundant, given the wealth of better informed material available, but inconclusive when determining Eva's impact upon his life (negligible at most!).
Angela Lambert herself writes at the beginning of her book that very little information, bar 22 pages of Miss Braun's diary, is available to historians on the subject of Eva's life, which worried me a little, considering I was about to begin a 600 page life of the woman!
In the end, I believe Angela Lambert has contributed very little to the debate around Eva's relationship with Hitler and her beliefs with regard to Nazism and conflict-ridden Germany, although she does come dangerously close to portraying Hitler as one deserving of sympathy in certain quarters. This is German history for Mills and Boon fans, not those seeking enlightenment on the subject at hand!