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: Yes, Magnificent!
Summary: 5 Stars
I thoroughly agree with the comment from Publishers Weekly: Magnificent.
It is indeed! Angela Lambert has done her homework. Much research has gone into this fascinating portrait of Eva Braun. I've learned much from reading this work.
Book Review: Evan Braun: Seduced by a Dracula of Cold Evil this banal woman died at the feet of her false god Adolf Hitler
Summary: 4 Stars
Angela Lambert is an English novelist and non-fiction writer who has written this new biography of Hitler's mistress and wife (for the last 36 hours of her short life of 33 years) Eva Braun (1912-April 20, 1945 dying in the Berlin Bunker after ingesting a poison capsule).
Eva Braun was one of three sisters whose father taught school. The family was middle class practicing Roman Catholicism. The Brauns came from Bavaria one of the most conservative areas of Germany. Eva was the middle child. Eva was a lifelong hedonist who enjoying dressing up and having fun. Eva enjoyed skiing, hiking and gymnastics. It was when she was working as a photographer's assistant in the shop of Henreich Hoffmann in Munich that she first set eyes on Adolf Hitler. Hoffmann was a friend of Hitler whose photographs of the Nazi founder were widely published adding to Hitler's growing fortune. The printing of Mein Kampf also made a fortune for Hitler.
Eva was a virgin who was instantly besotted by Hitler. This foolish fraulein had a "thing" for strong, reticent, cold and controlling men like her own distant father. Hitler and Eva first had sex following the death of Hitler's niece Geli Raubel his niece and the daughter of his half-sister Angela. Geli committed suicide after Hitler discovered her affair with his chaueffeur Emil Maurice. Hitler and Geli had in all probability been intimate. His loss of Geli made him suicidal but the devotion given him by the unthinking Eva brought him back from the brink. One wishes that this evil man had committed suicide!
Eva was always kept in the background by Hitler who wanted people believe that his true love was the German people. Miss Braun was kept by Hitler in a small home he bought for her in Munich. Eva also spent a good
deal of time at Hitler's Alpine retreat the fortress Berghof. She never had the children or family she longed for.
Eva Braun was nonpolitical. She lived in a dreamworld in which looking pretty for her lover; dancing and having a good time were high priorities. She was not without virtues. Eva had a coterie of lifelong friends; was good to her parents (even though they despised Hitler and considered it shameful that their daughter had become his mistress); kind to others and loved animals. She probably did not know of the death camps. Her innocence and fatuous worship of Hitler is astounding to contemplate.
Hitler choose Eva because he felt inferior to well born, more intellectual and politcally engaged women such as Magda Goebbels. He was pursued by kooky ladies like the Englishwoman Unity Mitford but their relationship was platonic. Eva was a nurturing woman who gave Hitler unquestiioned loyalty, love and did not challenge him mentally or morally.
She comes across as shallow and less than bright. Her life was wasted on a mountain where she had leagued her soul to the unholy Satan who ruled Europe with cruel and vicious hatred.
Lambert's own mother was born in Hamburg in 1912 which was also the natal year of Eva Braun. Throughout this long biography of Braun she shares similarties between the way her mother was raised and the way Eva Braun grew to womanhood. Some readers may find this intrusive to the main story of Eva Braun but I thought it added insight into German life in the early twentieth century and the post World War I of high inflation, poverty and despair.
Angela Lambert's new work on Braun is only the second in English on the first lady of the Third Reich. I read the earlier 1969 work by Neren Gunn and found this new book much more intimate and revealing of a young girl seduced by the devil.
Eva Braun was more complex than I thought but in the end one has little sympathy with someone so politically naive and stupid as to fall for Hitler. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in World War II
and the role of women in the Third Reich.
Book Review: Too Many Errors
Summary: 1 Stars
I have to agree with the previous reviewer. This was a missed opportunity. The book is weighted down with information about the authors mother that just makes the book irritating. But mostly it is wrought with errors. The author states that Hitler attending the wedding of Eva's sister wearing civilian clothes -- all photos taken of this event show Hitler wearing his uniform -- he never again wore civilian clothes after 1939. This event was highly covered by photos and films and this is just a blantant mistake.
Another blantant error -- Johanna Wolf was Hitler's Chief secretary yet the author continued to cite another secretary as being the chief secretary throughout the book. This is just unacceptable to researchers to make such a blantant mistake -- the author did not do her homework.
Even though she states that Eva and her sister were very close in appearance and were misidentified in many photos the author makes the same mistakes with the photographs she has provided and even wrote about.
Very sloppy ! Hopefully a better biography is forthcoming by an author that knows his/her subject matter better.
Book Review: A missed opportunity
Summary: 3 Stars
Angela Lambert admits in the preface that she knew nothing about Eva Braun, Hitler or World War II before commencing on this book. Sadly, the limitations show. Her main sources are books published in the past 30 years, all common titles and almost none written in the German language. It's beyond comprehension that she didn't hire a German translator to assist in the project. It's impossible to write a competent book about either Hitler or Eva without being able to read German. The author did absolutely no research on primary sources, didn't visit the archives in Munich or Koblenz and sometimes shows an almost amazing lack of knowledge about her subject's life and times.
The most irritating aspect of the book is a questionable literary device, where Lambert interjects her mother into every chapter. I hate to break it to the author, but no one cares to slog through pointless stories about her mother when the book is supposed to be about Hitler's mistress. The lack of an editor is glaringly apparent in this area. This is by far the book's more crippling downfall.
However, there are some strong points to the book. Lambert's depiction of the early courtship between Hitler and Eva is excellent. In fact, her characterization of Eva is flawless throughout. It's too bad she didn't rely on interviews of Herta Schneider, Eva's best friend and confidante; these would have strengthened the book immeasurably.
Lambert also sensibly dismisses the ridiculous rumors that Hitler was gay, impotent, sado-maschochistic or perverted in bed. He was none of those things and she wisely proves this with abundant anecdotal evidence. Hitler's relationship with Eva was perfectly normal, though hardly of Latin intensity.
Nerin E. Gun's out of print biography of Eva remains the "must read" regarding Hitler's mistress. Lambert gives it the old college try, but lack of research ultimately compromises this biography. It's a fairly good book but the definitive look at Eva Braun has yet to be written.