Hitler Is Alive! Page 9

  Hitler’s Lovers & Friends

  Steffi—as she was called by her fellow ladies who lunch in the Manhattan smart set of the late ’40s and ’50s—was actually Stephanie von Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfuerst, confidant of and courier for Adolph Hitler. She preferred not to talk about the old days.

  The real star of this section, however, is Eva Braun and her diary. We find Eva’s dear-diary entries first questioning why Adolph is always away ruling the world and doesn’t have any time for her. But later entries—and pictures—reveal how when the cat’s away, the mice will play. Eva did not take being second to world domination in her man’s heart sitting down; she took it lying down!

  But Adolph readily admits he’s no Don Juan. When one woman after another falls for him, then attempts suicide, he reflects, “I do not bring women luck … a fact which repeats itself in a most unusual way throughout my life.”

  Then we get Adolph Hitler as the crime kingpin who still enjoys personally doing hits from time to time, especially when it involves his woman. One unlucky artist from Munich’s Schwabing neighborhood—the “Greenwich Village of Germany”—received direct from Der Fuehrer a high-dosage lead supplement to the torso after he was discovered getting a little too Bohemian with Eva.

  But in a touching moment that proved Hitler was not always cold and lacked empathy, when it came time to have his favorite dog killed—after all, the Russians were advancing and there was no way he’d let his prized German Shepherd fall into their hands—he made sure it was done as humanely and painlessly as possible.

  Finally, after years of being neglected by her one true love, Eva Braun’s dream comes true and she can once and for all call herself “Mrs. Adolph Hitler.” Sometimes happy endings are worth waiting for.

  LOVES AND INTRIGUES OF HITLER’S GIRL CONFIDANT

  By RUTH REYNOLDS

  Onetime secret courier of the Nazis, now stars in US social circles

  Top drawer socialities in Manhattan wag their tongues these days when, in the fashionable spots, they meet the still beautiful “Princess’ Stefanie Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfuerst who was reported to be, for years, Hitler’s personal messenger, the biggest thing since Mata Hari.

  But those are fighting words with the Princess these days and no one asks her about it, or about her long fight to stay in the United States, or about her three years in an internment camp at Seagoville, Tex.

  Although a woman of the world, Stefanie is still an extremely trim, attractive blonde woman, as witty and clever as ever. She has seen much of life.

  As a woman of the world, she developed a repertoire of parts she could play when she found a new friend she wanted to charm. But no longer does she spice conversation with famous names as easily as one shakes pepper into soup. She is content to be Society—with a capital S—and to hope that her friends will forget about her amazing career and the suspicions that she was once a valuable lady spy for the Nazis.

  Steffi, as she is called by her friends, was the daughter of a Viennese family. No illustrious ancestors people her family tree—at least not so she could claim them.

  Steffi was lonely as a child. Her schoolmates at a finishing school for the daughters of the wealthier bourgeois of Vienna were forbidden by their parents to be friends with her because her mother’s husband, a lawyer named Richter, served two years on a conviction for fraud and her mother had open liaisons with a wealthy merchant.

  Steffi burned with ambition to be somebody and learned well her mother’s teaching that there was happiness only when one was living in the lap of luxury.

  While she was still young, Steffi met her first “lap”—Arthur Levier, a wealthy young man about town who had come from Switzerland to study at one of Vienna’s technical schools—and in the Hotel Sacher by night. Through Arthur’s friends, Steffi met other men. Many of them became infatuated with her charms and fell in love with her. One of these was Archduke Maximilian, brother to the heir to the throne. After love died, Max and Steffi were bound by friendship.

  Through Max, Steffi met Prince Friedrich F. Hohenloe, etc., who fell madly in love with her. They were married in the London Registry office on May 12, 1914, and on Dec. 5 of that year, their only child, Prince Franz Joseph, was born in Vienna.

  Friedrich’s relatives were infuriated by the marriage. In the first place they were Catholic. Steffi was Jewish. In the second, they could trace their ancestors back to the 12th century. Steffi couldn’t even be certain of her father. Also, they had a code of conduct for princesses. Steffi had none.

  She kept up her friendship for Archduke Maximilian and arranged such lavish parties and revelries for him that the censure of Emperor Franz Josef beat on Max’s head and it was suggested that Princess Stefanie might better leave Vienna for a while.

  The World War was under way. Why didn’t she go to the Front as a nurse?

  Steffi arrived at a Polish field hospital. Here was a new world to conquer. After all, the doors of Viennese aristocrats had never been opened to her, not even after her marriage to one of them.

  But her stay at the field hospital was short. Her superior, Prof. Otto Zuckerkandl said:

  “She may be a princess but she is certainly no nurse.”

  On Nov. 21, 1916, the Emperor died. Stefanie intended to take her place among the princesses at the funeral services. But one of her husband’s relatives, who was Lord Chamberlain, saw her before she reached the spot designated for mourning princesses. He told her she was, “not worthy to take a place among the mourners at the bier of this great monarch.”

  Stefanie was never daunted by such snubs—but they may explain why, in later years, she did the things she did and fought like a tigress to keep the place she thought she rightfully deserved.

  The World War came to an end. So did the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Stefanie, calling herself a persecuted aristocrat, went to Paris. By this time she and her husband were completely estranged. On July 29, 1920, they were divorced in Budapest. The prince married again—but Steffi kept right on using the title. She had little money but her mode of life remained unchanged.

  Jeno Hermanyi-Herzman, an international banker and friend of Maximilian’s days came back into her life, eased her financial burden and made it possible for her to travel. Hermanyi’s friends were high government officials, political leaders and diplomats. Steffi met them. It was at this period of her life that she began to build up her political connections which have stood her in good stead.

  But when economic disaster over Europe overwhelmed Hermanyi and he took his own life, Steffi was again left to her own resources—until she met a gentleman with estates in both Austria and Germany, Count Alexander Beroldingen. Her star began to rise.

  She met Lord Rothermere, younger brother of the eminent British publisher, Lord Northcliffe. Rothermere had inherited the Northcliffe newspapers when his brother died in 1922.

  Harold Sidney Harmsworth, Lord Rothermere, enjoyed talking international politics and, for Beroldingen’s sake, Steffi tried to persuade him to back editorially the return by Poland of the Polish corridor to Germany.

  But before she could get very far with that the British Lord visited Hungary, was impressed, wrote a flattering editorial about that country, and won paeans of praise from the Hungarians.

  Steffi saw which way the bandwagon was going—toward Hungary, not toward Poland. She climbed aboard—and let it be known that it was she who inspired the editorial.

  A popular movement started in Hungary to make Rothermere’s son, Esmond, 29, King of Hungary—and Steffi did her best to keep this movement alive. But before it died, for Beroldingen’s sake she had persuaded the publisher to become pro-Nazi editorially. Beroldingen next suggested that she go to Germany. Perhaps she could meet some Nazi officials and work for them. He was correct.

  One of the gentlemen the Princess met in Berlin was Capt. Fritz Wiedemann, Hitler’s World War company commander who was later to be German Consul General in San Francisco.

  W
iedemann, impressed by Steffi’s aristocratic name, her social gifts, her knowledge of politics introduced her to Hitler and to the Propaganda Chief, Josef Goebbels. The question of her non-Aryan status was settled quickly.

  Steffi was made a part of the German Foreign Service in the West, with headquarters in London, not too far from her dear friend, Lord Rothermere. Her job in London was to create an atmosphere of friendliness toward the Nazi regime. She did her job well.

  These were golden days for Steffi. She was being paid by the German government and also by the British publisher.

  She obtained an interview with Hitler for Rothermere in 1934, arranged a meeting between Wiedemann and the British Viscount Halifax, another between Konrad Henlein and Viscount Runciman and was thus, according to Wiedemann, “helpful in laying the ground work which made the Munich agreement possible”—and gave the Nazis more time to prepare for fight. (Steffi now says it was another Hohenloe who arranged these meetings.)

  She managed to get her finger in every pudding and some of them had a great many plums for the little woman who had risen above so many snubs.

  Steffi, according to the publisher, was not backward about pressing him for money. Consequently, in June, 1939, she charged that under her agreement she was to receive $20,000 a year for life. She lost the suit.

  In October, 1939, she walked into the London Ritz for luncheon.

  “Get out, dirty spy!”

  Someone at a table of women said it, loud enough for all to hear and loud enough for all to know that it was directed at Steffi. The snubs had begun.

  But in 1939, Hitler sent Steffi to the United States to discuss some diplomatic questions with Wiedemann. She said to reporters that she would indulge in no more politics and that she had as much to do with politics “as a rope dancer.”

  Nevertheless when a movement began in 1940 to deport her she was found in San Francisco with Wiedemann. Movement after movement to effect this deportation was begun but Steffi managed to stave it off and in May, 1941, Attorney General Robert Jackson, said that the movements would be dropped inasmuch as Steffi had provided the United States with some very interesting information. It is to be presumed that this information concerned Wiedemann and other Nazis.

  But in December, 1941, after Pearl Harbor, Steffi was caught in an FBI roundup and in January 1942 was interned as an enemy alien “for the duration.” For her “the duration” ended in June 1945—and now she is back in New York where memories are short and friendships quick.

  EVA BRAUN’S DIARY

  Here, revealed for the first time, is the only known document describing the intimate details of Hitler’s secret affair with the attractive blonde who shared his Nazi life.

  Hitler’s favorite portrait of Eva Braun.

  Of all the fanatically loyal people who attended Adolf Hitler and are still with him in his present hideout, none have known him so intimately as the young, voluptuous blonde from Munich, Eva Braun. Hitler took Eva as his mistress in the early 1930s, and she is with him as his wife today. She has been with him longer than any of his political or military advisers, or any of his personal servants.

  Eva’s intimate tie with Hitler was for a long time a secret, but when they heard about it, Allied Military authorities became eager to capture her. All documents describing her relationship with Hitler were of tremendous importance.

  An intense search, at the end of World War II, by US Army Intelligence, turned up one of the most controversial and intimate papers of the Hitler years—Eva’s diary.

  Its authenticity, together with the identification of photographs from Eva’s personal album, has been established by the US Army. The Police Gazette publishes this historical document for the first time, with the exclusive, personal photos. It is the only existing record of the love life of Hitler.

  The diary was discovered in Bavaria in Eva’s treasure chest with a dozen photo albums which recorded Eva’s family life and her years of amorous friendship with Hitler. The treasure included an 18th Century silver set bearing the royal emblem of the Polish Crown (the set was valued at between $500,000 and $1,000,000); a brooch worth $50,000; 50 diamonds, and thousands of dollars.

  These valuables remained of the hundreds Hitler had collected all over Europe to bring back to his mistress. Authorities also found what must have been one of the most highly-prized of Eva’s possessions: the bloodstained uniform Hitler wore on July 20, 1944, the day of the attempted assassination.

  The uniform had been ripped off Hitler after the explosion. If US authorities had not recovered it, it would have become a shocking symbol to rally the forces of neo-Nazism and remind them of the traitors who had tried to overthrow Hitler in the past.

  The fact that Eva was entrusted with this prize indicates the important role she played in Hitler’s plans.

  Eva Braun was attractive enough to have distracted any man, no matter how absorbed he was with the problems of his party, his country and the world. She was 5-feet-3, well-proportioned, with shapely legs, and a warm smile.

  She met Hitler in the late 1920s, when she was sent by the well-known German photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, to take pictures of the Nazi leader. She worked, at the time, as an apprentice for Hoffman, who was notorious for the beauties he kept around the shop. While taking his picture, she caught Hitler’s fancy, and soon captured his affections.

  A few years later, at Hitler’s suggestion, she resigned from her job at the photo studio.

  Eva was a natural blonde, but before she met the Fuehrer, she bleached her hair light, and had changed her hair style almost weekly in an effort to find the coiffure which suited her best. When Hitler became serious about her, all that changed. He insisted she restore her hair to its natural color, and adopt a more conservative hairdo. The new appearance didn’t hide her natural charms.

  From the beginning, she toured with Hitler in his small Opel as he went from one Nazi party meeting to another. As Nazism grew, and Hitler’s power—measured by the booming fanatic party spirit—increased, Eva was given a Mercedes. Later she received a villa in Munich, her home town, which is only a few hours drive from the Fuehrer’s Bavarian retreat—Berchtesgaden. By 1938, close friends of Hitler insisted he was about to marry Eva. He bought her an engagement ring and a wedding present. But unfortunately for Eva, the coming war and pressure of world affairs changed his plans.

  Outwardly, Eva appeared well-mannered and retiring. She was always conscious of her appeal to men—Hitler and others—and constantly dieted and treated her face to maintain her good complexion. She always dressed smartly, and had a passion for extravagantly daring lingerie.

  Eva was often unhappy because her status as Hitler’s mistress—instead of his wife—kept her in the background. And while she was behind the scenes, the wives of Frick, Goebbels and Goering were pushing Hitler socially. They introduced him to dancers, entertainers and prominent Nazi women to get him to take a wife.

  Stories were circulated, at the time, that Hitler often indulged in revels at which nude dancers performed. He always explained to Eva that his interest in them was purely artistic.

  On the other hand, when Hitler wasn’t in town, or when Eva wasn’t traveling with him, she didn’t sit home knitting. She flirted, danced, and otherwise entertained some of the SS guards at Berchtesgaden. And among her reported lovers were a number of handsome, young Bavarian Nazi party men. When Hitler was away, she threw gay parties where she displayed some of the lavish gowns from her huge Hitler-furnished wardrobe. During this time, at least three young Nazis attempted suicide because of their love for Eva.

  Like many mistresses famous in history, Eva was also a schemer. Shortly after the completion of Hitler’s retreat in Berchtesgaden, Eva moved in. She also managed to bring in, on practically a permanent basis, her sister Gretl, and her closest friend, Herta Ostermyer.

  Some time afterwards, Gretl, who was even more flirtatious than her sister, met Hermann Fegelein, a 37-year-old former jockey who had become a minor Nazi offi
cial. After a courtship of one week, they were married. The cagey Eva persuaded Hitler to be best man, and so the blessing of the Nazi party was given to Fegelein.

  So great was Eva’s influence that Fegelein advanced to the rank of General in the SS (Elite Guard), even though Hitler did not personally completely approve. He didn’t, however, want to act against Eva’s wishes. Eventually his feelings became too great, and in his last days in the bunker, Hitler ordered Fegelein executed for traitorous dealings with Himmler in a conspiracy to overthrow the Nazi government. Not even Eva’s pleas could spare Fegelein’s life.

  What kind of woman was the real Eva Braun, under the gay, flirtatious exterior? She was not an intellectual. She could not talk politics intelligently with anyone, let alone the Fuehrer. (She had done so poorly at school that friends nicknamed her “fathead.”)

  To a great extent, Eva was a frustrated woman. The lack of public recognition, plus the fact that affairs of the Nazi nation frequently took Hitler away, bothered her. She was also annoyed because he was sometimes so involved in world problems that even when he was with her, she couldn’t understand him. And often he lacked affection.

  So torn was she that several times she tried to commit suicide. Each attempt succeeded in bringing Hitler closer to her.

  Eva’s diary, which covers the most exciting days of her life between February 6 and May 28, 1935 (three years before Hitler was supposedly preparing to marry her) shows her as a childish, emotionally immature girl.

  The diary covers a dramatic period in German and world history—the Germans boldly took over the Saar, and shortly afterwards Hitler openly flaunted the Versailles Treaty and created a German army. In a “free election” three weeks before Eva began her diary, workers in the Saar voted themselves back into the German Reich.