Did Hitler Murder His Niece?

As we’ve previously covered in our video What was Hitler Like as a Child?, Adolf Hitler had in some ways a rather nice childhood, centering around an upper-middle class lifestyle and all the opportunities and niceties that entails. But on the other hand, he was regularly severely abused as a child by his alcoholic father, who also regularly abused Hitler’s mother. Needless to say, Hitler didn’t exactly have the best role model for good, healthy relationships. And it gets worse. For example, his father, Alois, seemingly lived by the work credo of every store shelf stocker of “see a hole, fill a hole” when it came to women, whether he was in a relationship already or not.

For example, Hitler’s mother, Klara, was not only his father’s third marriage but became his father’s mistress while still married to the second wife, and possibly before when he was married to his first wife. Just to give you a very brief synopsis on this one, Klara, who was Alois’ niece or cousin depending on who his father was (this isn’t clear), was 16 when she found herself working for Alois when he was still married to his first wife. Later, she was fired when his future second wife, but current mistress, demanded he get rid of the servant girl owing to her jealousy of her. However, once wife #2 got sick with tuberculosis, Klara was re-hired as a housekeeper and caretaker for Alois and wife #2’s children. At this point, and as noted possibly before, Alois was apparently like “Don’t mind if I do!” and began sleeping with his niece/cousin, who got pregnant with the couple’s first child, Gustav, right around when wife #2 died.

Alois could have made a fortune on reality TV.

From all this, it may not be a total surprise that Hitler’s later love life was reportedly… a little abnormal, and not what anyone, even many in his day, would call healthy. Which brings us to the topic of today- Hitler’s niece, Angela “Geli” Raubal, who for a couple years there he more or less kept virtually imprisoned in his home as his mistress, and also had some rather interesting kinks tied up in all that that quite disturbed her. And then, suddenly, just after an alleged heated argument between the pair, Geli was writing a pleasant letter to a friend in Vienna about an upcoming get-together, when she inexplicably stopped writing mid-word and shot herself with one of Hitler’s guns… By all accounts, Hitler was out of town when she did this. But let’s just say even reporters in the country at the time found the entire thing suspicious and accused Hitler of murdering his niece or driving her to her suicide with his behavior.

So, did the future Fuhrer kill his beloved niece, or was she just one of a string of Hitler’s lovers (according to a report done by the the predecessor to the CIA, 6 known women) who suddenly decided they didn’t want to continue breathing, leading up to his last lover in Eva Braun who ended her life by his side.

Well, let’s dive into it all, shall we?

First, perhaps important to point out here was that in his teen years, Hitler allegedly was determined that if the woman he loved couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be with him, both he and she should go all Romeo and Juliet and kill themselves.

On this one, enter his first crush, one Stefanie Isak. With his rather obsessive relationship,… well, relationship that existed in his head anyway…, described in detail in his best friend growing up, August Kubizek’s, The Young Hitler I Knew published in 1955. In it, Kuzibek states Hitler developed an extreme four year long juvenile obsession with Stefanie, who he never seems to have bothered to talk to in person.

Kubizek claims Hitler first became infatuated with her when he was 16. “Adolf gripped my arm and asked me excitedly what I thought of that slim, blonde girl walking along arm-in-arm with her mother. ‘You must know, I’m in love with her.’”

Hitler then took to standing near a bridge she would cross over most days around 5 pm. As to why he never bothered to go talk to her, Kubizek says, “It would have been improper to address Stefanie, as neither of us had been introduced to the young lady. A glance had to take the place of a greeting. From then on, Adolf did not take his eyes off Stefanie. In that moment he was changed, no longer his own self.”

Or, at least, that seems to have been Hitler’s excuse for not talking to her, because other men seem to have had no issue flirting with the girl, much to Hitler’s chagrin. Kubizek states, “There was a lot of flirting and the young Army officers were particularly good at it… Poor, pallid youngsters like Adolf naturally cannot compete with these lieutenants in their smart uniforms… It annoyed him intensely that Stefanie mixed with such idlers who, he insisted, wore corsets and used scent.”

Nevertheless, despite only occasionally exchanging glances, Kubizek insists Hitler felt the two were destined to be together. As Hitler claimed, “For such extraordinary human beings as himself and Stefanie. There was no need for the usual communication by word of mouth: extraordinary human beings would understand each other by intuition.”

As many a love struck teen does, he also began to invent all manner of things about her to fit his personal ideal, including that she was likely an exceptional opera singer, something he admired greatly. When Kubizek once told Hitler he couldn’t really possibly know anything about her at all, he states Hitler exploded on him, yelling, “You simply don’t understand, because you can’t understand the true meaning of extraordinary love.”

Further, when something he learned of her directly contradicted something he believed about her, he simply would come up with a workaround. For example, Hitler loathed dancing, and felt she must hate it too. But when the pair learned that Stefanie danced, Hitler excused the notion, “Stefanie only dances because she is forced to by society on which she unfortunately depends. Once she is my wife, she won’t have the slightest desire to dance.”

Not letting this one go, Kubizek states he then teased that Hitler should take up dance lessons so he could dance with Stefanie. To which Hitler purportedly doubled down on his previous sentiment, “No, no, never! I shall never dance! Do you understand? Once Stefanie is my wife, she won’t have the slightest desire to dance!”

As for his hatred of dancing, he states, “Visualize a crowded ballroom and imagine you are deaf. You can’t hear the music to which these people are moving, and then take a look at their senseless progress, which leads nowhere. Aren’t these people raving mad?”

Apparently becoming impatient with the whole affair, Kubizek also claims Hitler at one point planned out an elaborate kidnapping, “He hit upon a crazy idea: he seriously considered kidnapping Stefanie. He expounded his plan to me in all its details and assigned to me my role. I had to keep the mother engaged in conversation while he seized the girl.”

Going back to the whole Romeo and Juliet thing, Kubizek claims Hitler told him if he couldn’t have Stefanie as his woman, “He would jump into the river from the Danube bridge, and then it would be over and done with. But Stefanie would have to die with him — he insisted on that. Once more, a plan was thought up, in all its details. Every single phase of the horrifying tragedy was minutely described.”

Of course, owing to the fact that he never plucked up the courage to actually go talk to her, which likely would have been a severe disappointment to him had he done so as she couldn’t possibly live up to the ideas he had in his head, nothing ever came of his first foray into love. Indeed, the only known time he ever seemingly communicated with her at all was a postcard he sent her after he moved to Vienna. Stefanie apparently had no idea who the postcard was from at the time, but said he wrote, “He was going to return and marry me.” And that she should wait for him.

In the end, she didn’t wait for him and instead married one of those officers that had been flirting with her. And Hitler, whether he ever found out about this or not, never returned for her, presumably having grown out of his teenage infatuation at some point.

Fast-forwarding from there, the soon to be homeless Hitler didn’t by any known accounts have much luck with the ladies, but as he and the Nazi Party began their horrific rise, let’s just say the growing influence and power of the man attracted women in droves, despite his silly little mustache and that he was very naughty boy. This was something Hitler was keen on keeping going- both the ladies of the nation attracted to him and his ridiculous mustache. With several of the women he was involved with claiming he’d often say he had no interest in marriage because he couldn’t allow for anything to distract him from his mission and life’s work. He also allegedly stated that he felt he could exert more influence over the women of the nation if he was single.

On top of this, he stated, “The bad side of marriage is that it creates rights. In that case it’s far better to have a mistress. The burden is lightened, and everything is placed on the level of a gift.”

On top of that, he stated having children would be irresponsible of him as it would divide his attention from where it should be in his work. And that, “I’m aware that the children of a genius usually have a hard time in the world. They’re expected to achieve the same stature as their famous father, and they’re never forgiven if their achievement is only mediocre. Besides, they’re usually cretins.”

This all brings us to 1925 and Obersalzberg when the 36 year old Hitler was in need of a housekeeper, so invited his older half sister Angela Raubal, to take the job.

As an interesting aside here, before working for Hitler, Angela worked as a cook for the Mensa Academica Judaica Association of Jewish Students. According to the alluded to famed 1943 OSS report A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend, written by psychoanalyst Walter C. Langer, while working at the boarding house, “Some of our informants knew her during this time and report that in the student riots Angela defended the Jewish students from attack and on several occasions beat the Aryan students away from the steps of the dining hall with a club.”

In any event, once Hitler hired his sister to run his household in 1925, she relocated and brought along with her her 17 year old daughter also named Angela, but called Geli, which is handy for not confusing everyone in this piece.

Variously described by some as a young beauty, others claimed her charms lay elsewhere. For example, Hitler’s British nephew Patrick, who incidentally would serve in the U.S. Navy during WWII, would state, “Geli looks more like a child than a girl. You couldn’t call her pretty exactly, but she had great natural charm. She usually went without a hat and wore very plain clothes, pleated skirts and white blouses. No jewelry except a gold swastika given to her by Uncle Adolf, whom she called Uncle Alf.”

On that note of plainness, this seemingly would have been to Hitler’s liking, as he famously had a particular distaste for things like makeup and cosmetics and similar things, with the fuhrer even known to chastise women for wearing perfume or use hair dye. And as for fashion, when Hitler came to power, he established a German Fashion Board (Deutsches Modeamt) to help push his brand of very simple feminine beauty, emphasizing, among other things, no make-up, natural hair, and slightly plump, curvy women, rather than the, to quote, “boyish bodies” that Parisian fashion promoted.

Thus his plain, curvy niece was most definitely his cup of tea.

And so it was that when, in 1927, Hitler asked Angela to relocate to Berchtesgaden on the Bavarian Alps to manage his larger, private residence, the Berghof villa, he also requested Geli remain with him in his Munich apartment. It is not clear if Geli accepted of her own volition, or was forced to accept by the domineering Adolf or her mother, or whether it was simply a practical measure given during this time period she would study medicine at Ludwig Maximilian University. What is known is that for the ensuing four years, uncle and half-niece would live together in Munich, though did maintain separate bedrooms for whatever that’s worth.

That said, it seems Hitler had other female love interests at the time. For example, around this exact time he allegedly had a relationship with a teen girl by the name of Maria Reiter, who tried to kill herself in 1928 after Hitler refused to have her as anything more than a mistress lest it distract him from his mission. Though she claims he told her if she would wait for his work to progress sufficiently, at some point he would marry her… And then proceeded to do as he seemingly did with every significant woman in his adult life, neglect the crap out of her completely until they killed themselves or at least attempted it. In Reiter’s case, she claimed she hung herself, but her brother-in-law walked in as she was doing it and saved her life.

Whatever the case with all that, Hitler seemingly had immediate great affection for Geli, and his close confidant and then SA Chief of Staff Otto Wagener claims Hitler told him, “I can sit next to young women who leave me completely cold. I feel nothing, or they actually irritate me. But a girl like the little Hoffmann or Geli – with them I become cheerful and bright, and if I have listened for an hour to their perhaps silly chatter – or I have only to sit next to them – then I am free of all weariness and listlessness I can go back to work refreshed.”

Note here, the Hofmann cited here was one Henriette Hofmann, daughter of his official photographer Heinrich Hoffman, with Henriette and Geli quickly becoming close friends.

Hitler’s own close friend Ernst Hamfstaengel, who would later defect and work with U.S. Officials during WWII to profile various Nazi leaders including Hitler, would chime in he felt “that the services [Geli] was prepared to render had the effect of making him behave like a man in love… he hovered at her elbow with a moon-calf look in his eyes in a very plausible imitation of adolescent infatuation.”

We’ll get to those “services” in a bit, but for now, Henriette would also state that Geli was “irresistibly charming: if Geli wanted to go swimming… it was more important to Hitler than the most important conference.”

Future head of Hitler Youth, Baldur von Schirach, stated of Hitler’s public behavior towards Geli, “(Hitler) followed her into millinery shops and watched patiently while she tried on all the hats and then decided on a beret. He sniffed at the sophisticated French perfumes she enquired about in a shop on the Theatinerstrasse, and if she didn’t find what she wanted in a shop, he trotted after her… like a patient lamb. She exercised the sweet tyranny of youth, and he liked it, he was a more cheerful, happier person.”

On this note of Hitler liking them young (and basically every woman he was alleged or proved to be involved with was usually around half his age), Hitler stated, “A girl of eighteen to twenty is as malleable as wax. It should be possible for a man, whoever the chosen woman may be, to stamp his own imprint on her. That’s all the woman asks for.”

He also allegedly liked slightly dimwitted women for similar reasons. As illustrated by his best friend Kubizek on why their friendship worked so well, Hitler did not like it when others would argue with him or give their thoughts. Kubizek stated, “He had to speak, and needed someone to listen to him… All he wanted from me was one thing – agreement.”

As for Geli’s side of things, one of Hitler’s housekeepers, Anni Winter, stated, “Geli loved Hitler. She was always running after him. Naturally, she wanted to become Frau Hitler… He was highly eligible… but she flirted with everybody; she was not a serious girl…. He liked to show her off everywhere; he was proud of being seen in the company of such an attractive girl. He was convinced that in this way he impressed his comrades in the party, whose wives or girlfriends nearly all looked like washerwomen.”

On that note of showing her off, von Schirach would describe the first time he saw Hitler bring Geli to an event, stating “The girl at Hitler’s side was of medium size, well developed, had dark, rather wavy hair, and lively brown eyes. A flush of embarrassment reddened the round face as she entered the room with him, and sensed the surprise caused by his appearance. I too stared at her for a long time, not because she was pretty to look at but because it was simply astonishing to see a young girl at Hitler’s side when he appeared at a large gathering of people. He chatted animatedly to her, patted her hand and scarcely paused long enough for her to say anything. Punctually at eleven o’clock he stood up to leave the party with Geli, who had gradually become more animated. I had the impression Geli would have liked to stay longer.”

Things did not remain all peaches and cream, however. Geli complained to early Nazi Party Leader Otto Strasser, who was soon to be exiled after trying to wrestle party leadership away from Hitler and take it in a very different direction, Strasser states, “During the 1931 Mardi Gras, Hitler allowed me to take Geli to a ball… Geli seemed to enjoy having for once escaped Hitler’s supervision. On the way back… we took a walk through the English Garden. Near the Chinese Tower, Geli sat down on a bench and began to cry bitterly. Finally she told me that Hitler loved her but that she couldn’t stand it anymore. His jealously wasn’t the worst thing. He demanded things from her that were simply disgusting. She had never dreamed that such things could happen. When I asked her to tell me, she described things I had previously encountered in my reading of Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis when I was a student.”

He elaborates, “Hitler made her undress…. He would lie down on the floor. Then she would have to squat over his face, where he could examine her at close range and this made him very excited. When the excitement reached its peak, he demanded that she urinate on him… Geli said the whole performance was extremely disgusting to her and… it gave her no gratification.”

SA Officer Wilhelm Stocker likewise stated, Geli “admitted to me that at times Hitler made her do things in the privacy of her room that sickened her but when I asked her why she didn’t refuse to do them she just shrugged and said that she didn’t want to lose him to some woman that would do what he wanted. She was a girl that needed attention and needed it often. And she definitely wanted to remain Hitler’s favourite girlfriend. She was willing to do anything to retain that status. At the beginning of 1931 I think she was worried that there might be another woman in Hitler’s life because she mentioned to me several times that her uncle didn’t seem to be as interested in her as he once was.”

The aforementioned O.S.S. report also claims Hitler enjoyed being abused during his spicy time as well. For example, the report claims that German actress Renate Müller stated when she spent the night with him, Hitler laid on the floor and begged for her to kick him while he curled up into a ball and screamed how he deserved to be punished. Noteworthy Muller was not long after undergoing treatment for an injury and drug addiction when she allegedly jumped out of the upper story window of her room, killing herself. That said, others claim Gestapo officers were seen entering the building just before this happened. And yet others, such as her sister, claim Muller simply fell accidentally owing to her alleged leg injury.

However, as with so much to do with Hitler’s love life and the women involved, it’s impossible to determine the veracity of so many of these claims. Other than to note, for what it’s worth, more than one individual directly involved on this one claimed Geli had told them the golden shower story.

On top of Geli allegedly being uncomfortable with Hitler’s kinks, he was also extremely controlling of her, with Heinrich Hoffman claiming, “The pressure under which Geli lives is burdensome to her, and what makes matters worse is that she’s prevented from saying how unhappy she feels…. Certainly, it flattered her that her serious and unapproachable uncle, who was so good at hiding his feelings from everybody else, was fond of her. She wouldn’t have been a woman if she hadn’t been flattered by Hitler’s gallantry and generosity. But it seemed simply intolerable to this child of nature that he should want to mother her every step and that she shouldn’t be allowed to speak to anyone without his knowledge.”

And then there was the jealousy, which seemingly went both ways. On the one hand, Geli was well aware Hitler had other ladies, and allegedly particularly loathed Eva Braun after Geli allegedly discovered a note from Braun that said, “Dear Herr Hitler, Thank you again for the wonderful invitation to the theatre. It was a memorable evening. I am most grateful to you for your kindness. I am counting the hours until I may have the joy of another meeting. Yours, Eva.”

And on the other side, Hitler’s jealousy with Geli was mixed. On the one hand, Hitler stated to Hoffmann, “I’m so concerned about Geli’s future that I feel I have to watch over her. I love Geli and could marry her…. But you know what my viewpoint is. I want to remain single. So I retain the right to exert an influence on her circle of friends until such a time as she finds the right man. What Geli sees as compulsion is simply prudence. I want to stop her from falling into the hands of someone unsuitable.”

But fall into other hands Geli apparently did, and Hitler didn’t seem to like it at all. The aforementioned SA officer Wilhelm Stocker, who frequently guarded Hitler’s home, stated, “Many times when Hitler was away for several days at a political rally or tending to party matters in Berlin or elsewhere, Geli would associate with other men. I liked the girl myself so I never told anyone what she did or where she went on these free nights. Hitler would have been furious if he had known that she was out with such men as a violin player from Augsburg or a ski instructor from Innsbruck. After she was satisfied that I wouldn’t tell her uncle – and I had a personal reason for not telling him – she often confided in me…”

During all this she apparently also began a relationship with Hitler’s longtime companion and chauffeur Emil Maurice, who though he had some Jewish ancestry was declared an honorary Aryan by Hitler in 1935. Maurice would state of this that he was in love with Geli and “I decided to become engaged to Geli… she gladly accepted my proposal.”

Seemingly corroborating this, Henriette claims Geli told her of her preference of Maurice instead of Hitler, stating, “Being loved is boring, but to love a man, you know, to love him – that’s what life is about. And when you can love and be loved at the same time, it’s paradise.”

As to what Hitler thought of the relationship, he seemingly tried to separate the two, though not at first permanently. With Geli writing in a letter to Maurice on December 24, 1928, “Uncle Adolf is insisting that we should wait two years. Think of it, Emil, two whole years of only being able to kiss each other now and then and always having Uncle Adolf in charge. I can only give you my love and be unconditionally faithful to you. I love you so infinitely much. Uncle Adolf insists that I should go on with my studies.”

That said, two years later, Maurice was still out of the picture, and Geli had seemingly found other love interests on the side from her ever more famous Uncle, as he apparently also had others on the side from her.

This brings us to September of 1931. From here in the story, accounts vary wildly as to the sequence of events that led to Geli’s death. But what all agree on is that the now 23 year old Geli wished to travel to Vienna. Why? Reasons abound- everything from that she was pregnant with Hitler’s child, to pregnant with a Jewish musician’s child, to she wanted to go be with her Jewish lover, to simply that she wanted out and to have her freedom to do as she pleased, and that could never happen under her uncle’s thumb. For whatever it’s worth, Geli’s mother, Angela, noted that she thought Geli wanted to leave because she was set on marrying a violinist from Linz, but that both herself and Hitler had forbidden that relationship.

Whatever the case there, allegedly Hitler at first agreed to let her go, but later changed his mind. As to why? The stories once again abound- some contemporary accounts claimed Nazi party officials were nervous about Geli being more or less set free to do and say what she willed given she was so intimately aware of so much of Hitler’s private life and thoughts, as well as some of their lives and goings on, so advised Hitler to not let her go. Others claimed that the rather mercurial Hitler became convinced the reason she wanted to go was to spend time with another man, so changed his mind.

Whatever the case there, Household staff reported the two quarreled over the matter before Hitler finally left for a meeting in Nuremberg. With one account being she shouted out the window that she should be allowed to go, and the departing Hitler shouting back “Nein!”

Hitler then departed the home in a car with his photographer Hoffman. Or, at least, Hoffman claims he was with Hitler in the car when they left, confirming that Hitler did, in fact, leave. Allegedly Hitler then spent the night at the Deutscher Hof hotel in Nuremberg.

On that night of September 18, 1931, Geli was seemingly writing a letter to a friend in Vienna. As to who that friend was, the police report states it was to one of her girlfriends, though some news reports claim it was to her music teacher lover. The police report stated the note said “When I come to Vienna – I hope very soon – we’ll drive together to Semmering an…” and then suddenly stopped midword.

There are a variety of accounts of who discovered her body the next day. For example, in one, one Georg Winter, husband of one of Hitler’s household staff found her, stating when Geli wasn’t answering their knocks, “As the thing seemed to me rather suspicious, at ten o’clock I forced the double-door open with a screwdriver… As I’d opened the door I stepped into the room and found Raubal lying on the floor as a corpse. She’d shot herself. I can’t give any reason why she should have shot herself.”

All this said, it would seem odd that no household staff heard the shot of the Walther 6.35 pistol. It should be further noted that the Nazi Party leaders convened to discuss the issue before calling the authorities. Thus, whether the scene remained as it was, if there was previously a suicide note, whether even that letter was really written by Geli, or any manner of such things is a matter for debate.

Noteworthy on the letter is that the Nazi leaders initially seemingly wanted to frame it as a suicide, but quickly changed their minds to push that it was an accident. For example, Hanfstaengle claims Baldur von Schirach called the press office “to issue a communiqué about Hitler having gone into deep mourning after the suicide of his niece. Then the group at the flat must have got into a panic, because twenty-five minutes later von Schirach was on the phone again asking if the communiqué had gone out and saying that the wording was wrong. They should announce that there had been a lamentable accident. But by then it was too late. The word was out…” Thus, having the note finish mid-word and discussing a future event would lend credence to the accident angle.

But as for how she got Hitler’s gun, household staff would later report her taking the gun from Hitler’s room about a half hour after he left earlier that day. As to why they didn’t think this particularly odd, Hitler required that both Geli and Henriette be trained with various guns, including regularly practicing with them at a firing range so they could better protect themselves if needs be. So her carrying such a gun to her room wasn’t apparently totally odd.

As for Hitler, when he was informed of Geli’s death, the aforementioned Ernst Hanfstaengl who, once again, defected and worked with U.S. officials profiling Nazi leaders, claims Hitler “was in a state of hysteria” and immediately left town, ultimately going into a depressive spiral, even forgoing going to Geli’s funeral, though he would allegedly visit her grave a couple days later. Hitler would also reportedly keep her room exactly as she left it as well and on her birthday and day of her death for some time after having it decorated with flowers, as well as hanging several pictures of her at the Riech Chancellery in Berlin, including a portrait of her in his room.

Rosa Mitterer, who worked for Hitler shortly after Geli’s death, also reported, “My sister and I shared a room that was directly over Hitler’s. We could hear him crying.”

Rudolf Hess even claims Hitler became suicidal himself for a period after, although interestingly from the reports, it’s not completely clear whether it was over Geli’s death, or the potential death of his career as a politician. Hess states, “He was so fearfully vilified by this new campaign of lies that he wanted to make an end of everything. He could no longer look at a newspaper because this frightful filth was killing him. He wanted to give up politics and never again appear in public.” Hess also claims at one point he had to take a gun away from Hitler, who was intimating he was going to shoot himself with it.

That said, Hitler’s distress may not have just been over his reputation and political ambitions, as Hitler’s secretary, Christa Schroeder, also stated, “After the death of his niece Geli, Christmas was really a torture for him, and not pleasant for us either. It’s true that he allowed a Christmas tree to be put in the corner of the hall, but Christmas carols were not sung.”

As a brief aside, Schroeder also claims Eva Braun used to frequently tell Hitler she would kill herself if he didn’t spend more time with her, and that “When he no longer had much time for her because of the electioneering, she pursued him cunningly with suicide attempts. And of course she succeeded, because as a politician Hitler couldn’t have survived a second suicide from someone close to him. I say it again: the only woman he loved and would certainly have married later was his step-niece Geli Raubal.”

And note, not just threaten suicide, Cate Haste, author of Nazi Women, would state, “In November 1932, Eva Braun attempted suicide by shooting herself with her father’s pistol, but she then rang Hitler’s doctor, who came in time to save her, and the whole thing was hushed up. Hitler came to visit her with flowers at the clinic where she was recovering. Eva, the shadowy, loyal figure at the periphery of Hitler’s life, continued to be frustrated by his neglect. Hitler would turn up at unpredictable times, and his moods shifted between gushing charm and indifference.”

In another case, Eva allegedly swallowed a bottle of sedative pills to attempt to kill herself, but nothing much came of this one other than Hitler apparently begged for her forgiveness for the neglect and promised to do better in the future. With her writing in her journal on February 18, 1935, “Dear God, please let them come true and let it happen in the near future… I am infinitely happy that he loves me so much and I pray that it may always remain so. I never want it to be my fault if one day he should cease to love me.” But then pretty much right after he went back to neglecting her completely, with her writing on May 28, “Is this the mad love he promised me, when he doesn’t send me a single comforting line in three months?”

His housekeeper Anni Winter, sister of the aforementioned Rosa, would also state, “Eva Braun was there often when Hitler was in Munich. She was always running after him, insisting on being alone with him. She was a most demanding woman.”

In any event, going back to Geli and Hitler’s distress, it is often claimed that her death is part of the reason Hitler became a vegetarian, allegedly with meat reminding him of Geli’s corpse. However, along with so many of the varied stories here, the veracity of this claim seems questionable given the majority of accounts, and including what is relatively known about Hitler’s location during all of this and in the aftermath, never would have given him a chance to see the body.

Further, it really just seems like Hitler abhorred animal cruelty. And the Nazi regime bizarrely were among world leaders at the time in animal rights laws, right down to banning boiling lobsters and crabs alive, limiting hunting, and banning vivisection. They even held an international conference on animal welfare in 1934. Going back to the vivisection, Hermann Göring would state in a speech in 1933, “An absolute and permanent ban on vivisection is not only a necessary law to protect animals and to show sympathy with their pain, but it is also a law for humanity itself…. I have therefore announced the immediate prohibition of vivisection and have made the practice a punishable offense… Until such time as punishment is pronounced the culprit shall be lodged in a concentration camp.”

Apparently they were not only leading the world in animal rights, but also in irony.

But in any event, given the pattern of behaviors here from Hitler with regards to animal welfare, it seems unlikely Geli’s death had anything to do with his alleged choice of vegetarianism. He also had severe gastrointestinal issues that may have contributed to his dietary choices, see our video How Hitler’s Flatulence Defeated Nazi Germany. And while that might seem like a clickbait title, we assure you, it’s really not. Fully accurate.

But going back to Geli, after the matter was thoroughly discussed by Nazi Party officials, the authorities were called and came to investigate the scene and, as alluded to, you better believe the media were all over it with the rising politician in Hitler’s love life now thoroughly under the scrutiny of the press. The problem for getting to the bottom of it all is, when politics are involved, the news media is generally fairly worthless at getting details right, or even caring at all about that- generally pushing their agenda, rather than any semblance of accuracy. And things were no different back then.

As for a small sampling of the news accounts though, we have The Münchener Neueste Nachrichten stating, “According to a police communique, a twenty-three-year-old student fired a pistol aimed at the heart in a room of her flat in the Bogenhausen district. The unfortunate young woman, Angela Raubal, was the daughter of Adolf Hitler’s half-sister, and she and her uncle lived on the same floor of a block of flats on Prinzregentenplatz. On Friday afternoon the owners of the flat heard a cry but it did not occur to them that it came from their tenant’s room. When there was no sign of life from this room in the course of the evening, the door was forced. Angela Raubal was found lying face down on the floor, dead. Near her on the sofa was a small-calibre Walther pistol.”

The Münchener Post, an anti-Nazi newspaper, reported, “A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR: HITLER’S NIECE COMMITS SUICIDE Regarding this mysterious affair, informed sources tell us that on Friday 18 September there was once again a violent quarrel between Herr Hitler and his niece. What was the reason? The vivacious 23-year-old music student, Geli, wanted to go to Vienna, she wanted to become engaged. Hitler was strongly opposed to this. The two of them had recurrent disagreements about it. After a violent scene, Hitler left his flat on the second floor of 16 Prinzregentenplatz… The dead woman’s nose was broken, and there were other serious injuries on the body. From a letter to a female friend living in Vienna, it is clear that Fraulein Geli had the firm intention of going to Vienna. The letter was never posted.”

Other papers picked up the story with other accusations, including one from the Die Fanfare titled: HITLER’S LOVER COMMITS SUICIDE: BACHELORS AND HOMOSEXUALS AS LEADERS OF THE PARTY and alleging that Hitler’s relationship with her “took on forms which obviously the young woman was unable to bear.”

Hitler denied all such accounts of events, writing in response, “It is untrue that I had either ‘recurrent disagreements’ or ‘a violent quarrel’ with my niece Angela Raubal on Friday 18 September or previously. It is untrue that I was ‘strongly opposed’ to my niece’s travelling to Vienna. The truth is that I was never against the trip my niece had planned to Vienna. It is untrue that my niece wanted to become engaged in Vienna or that I had some objection to my niece’s engagement. The truth is that my niece, tortured by anxiety about whether she really had the talent necessary for a public appearance, wanted to go to Vienna in order to have a new assessment of her voice by a qualified voice specialist. It is untrue that I left my flat on 18 September 1931 ‘after a violent scene’. The truth is that there was no kind of scene and no agitation of any kind when I left my flat on that day.”

One of the key journalists involved here was Konrad Heiden, who’d been on an almost decade long campaign at this point to do everything in his power to vilify or discredit Hitler in the news, which one would have thought would be about the easiest job in the world because, Hitler. But whatever the case there, Heiden was the first to publicly claim Hitler and Raubal were having a sexual relationship, stating “One day parental relations to his niece Geli ceased to be parental. Geli was a beauty on the majestic side … simple in her thoughts and emotions, fascinating to many men, well aware of her electric effect and delighting in it…. Her uncle’s affection, which in the end assumed the most serious form, seems like an echo of the many marriages among relatives in Hitler’s ancestry in its borderline incestuousness.”

Noteworthy Heiden was a member of the German Social Democrat Party which was in stark opposition to the Nazi party. Naturally these and countless other accusations Heiden wrote about Hitler made Heiden’s continued safety as Hitler gained more and more power questionable, and, being not stupid, Heiden soon after his reports on Geli and Hitler fled to Switzerland.

The point being of Heiden’s accounts that historians are unsure of what is accurate in his, and other’s, version of events and what was just Heiden and others seizing an opportunity to go after Hitler.

Yet another similar journalist was anti-Nazi editor of the Der Gerade Weg, Fritz Gerlich. Gerlich was working on the story and allegedly even had some proof that Hitler either had Gelli killed or did it himself. However, Gerlich’s known account includes claiming Hitler had been drinking before he killed Geli, which calls into question its accuracy, as Hitler had a pretty long and very adamant and public track record of being vehemently anti-alcohol. For example, Hitler wrote, “I know what a devil alcohol is! It really was — via my father — the worst enemy of my youth.” He would also write in Mein Kampf seemingly referencing his father, “It ends badly if the man goes his own way … and the woman, for the children’s sake, opposes him. Then there is fighting and quarreling, and as the man grows estranged from his wife, he becomes more intimate with alcohol. He is drunk every Saturday … When at length he comes home on Sunday … night, drunk and brutal, … God have mercy … I have seen this in hundreds of instances.”

Whatever the case, unfortunately for Gerlich, on March 9, 1933 when he was allegedly working on the story that was going to prove Hitler murdered her, Emil Maurice, Max Amann and a group of stormtroopers entered his office, ransacked it and destroyed all files there. Gerlich was then taken to Dachau and ultimately was killed there. However, given this occurred about a year and a half later, this also calls into question the often cited claim that Gerlich had such evidence Hitler had murdered Geli and was working on the story at the time. It seems more likely that he just had simply pissed Hitler and other Nazi Party members off on a number of occasions, and they finally decided to do something about it.

But as for the authorities’ investigation, well, we can’t really trust that at face value either as the Nazi party definitely was exerting their influence on it.

That said, there is evidence that Detective Sauer in charge of the case was unhappy with the state of it when it was more or less closed by Minister of Justice in Bavaria and close friend to Hitler’s, Franz Gurtner, sometimes called “Hitler’s Protector”, and ruled a suicide. However, what Saur found out during this second investigation has disappeared from history because the records from it were either lost or destroyed.

That said, the first report from Sauer is still available, with Saur writing on September 28, 1931:

“His niece was a student of medicine, then she didn’t like that anymore and she turned toward singing lessons. She should have been on the stage in a short time, but she didn’t feel able enough, that’s why she wanted further studies with a professor in Vienna. Hitler says that was okay with him but only under the condition that her mother from Berchtesgaden accompany her to Vienna. When she didn’t want this. he said he told her, ‘Then I’m against your Vienna plans.’ She was angry about this, but she wasn’t very nervous or excited and she very calmly said good-bye to him when he went off on Friday afternoon…. She had previously belonged to a society that had séances where tables moved, and she had said to Hitler that she had learned that one day she would die an unnatural death. Hitler went on to add that she could have taken the pistol very easily because she knew where it was, where he kept his things. Her dying touches his emotions very deeply because she was the only one of his relatives who was close to him. And now this must happen to him.”

Of course, this account was seemingly mostly derived from Hitler’s explanation of events to Sauer, calling even further question into the accuracy of it.

As for any physician’s account. The body was examined by a doctor, one Dr. Muller, then ultimately released to be buried in Vienna. With some suggesting taking the body to Austria was a move in order to make it more difficult to have it later exhumed for additional examination. Although, for whatever it’s worth, it was claimed by Henriette that it was Geli’s mother, Angela, who was the one who requested her daughter be buried in Vienna.

As to what the doctor had to say about her body and the alleged broken nose frequently reported in the papers, “On the face and especially on the nose were to be found no wounds connected with the bleeding of any kind. Nothing was to be found on the face except dark greyish death-marks which had proceeded from the fact that Raubal expired with her face to the floor and remained in that position for about 17-18 hours. That the tip of the nose was pressed slightly flat is due entirely to her lying with her face on the floor for several hours. The extreme discoloration of the death-marks in the face is probably to be explained by the fact that death was primarily consequent on suffocation following the shot in the lung.”

Speaking of suffocation, the bullet missed her heart and hit her lung. Her choice to try to shoot her heart also seemed odd to some, with one Ronald Hayman, author of Hitler and Geli, arguing of this and the exact position she was found in, “This means that if she was standing or sitting when the shot was fired, the barrel of the pistol was pointing downwards, and the hand holding it was higher than her heart. Even if she was lying on the couch or the floor, it would not have been easy for her to shoot herself in this way. And why should she want to? Having been taught how to use a Walther, she could, if she wanted to kill herself, easily have avoided such a slow and painful death.”

The aforementioned Otto Wagener would give his opinion, thinking it wasn’t suicide at all, but that “The bullet’s trajectory showed that she had the pistol in her left hand with the barrel towards her body. Since she was sitting at her desk and writing a totally innocent letter which was unfinished, we must assume that it came into her head to fetch the pistol and check whether it was loaded, at which point it went off and hit her in the heart – an unfortunate accident.”

As for Geli’s mother’s thoughts, she more or less concurred, stating, “I can’t understand why she did it. Perhaps it was an accident, and Geli killed herself while she was playing with the pistol which she got from him (Hitler).”

Hitler’s sister, Paula, had a different view, “The only thing that keeps me from publicly accusing him is the memory of our mother. I would accuse him of the deliberate murder of Geli. And don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying he drove her to her death, caused her to commit suicide, or anything like that. I mean to accuse him of shooting and killing her…I have enough proof to convince a fair jury that Adolf should be convicted of murder.”

As for Geli’s best friend, Henriette, she states, Hitler “fenced her life so tightly, confined her in such a narrow space that she saw no other way out. Finally she hated her uncle, she really wanted to kill him. She couldn’t do that. So she killed herself, to hurt him deeply enough, to disturb him. She knew that nothing else would wound him so badly. And because he knew too, he was so desperate, he had to blame himself.”

For what it’s worth, Paula and Henriette also claim Geli was not pregnant at the time, contrary to many of the rumors swirling.

Another interesting thread in all this was Father Johann Pant, who conducted Geli’s funeral. Father Pant stated he could not have performed the Catholic funeral if Geli had committed suicide, and that, “They pretended that she committed suicide; I should never have allowed a suicide to be buried in consecrated ground. From the fact that I gave her Christian burial you can draw conclusions which I cannot communicate to you.”

So did Hitler kill her?

Given the number of extreme atrocities Hitler committed in his lifetime making killing of a lover in a quarrel seem like child’s play, many since have just gone ahead and assumed he did, in fact, murder Geli.

That said, Hitler by all accounts quite adored his niece, and as in his family tree and slightly more common in general at the time, this wasn’t quite as odd as it seems to us today, outside of those from Alabama who may currently be wondering what all the fuss is about. Nor, in some respects, was his controlling behavior towards his female partner quite as abnormal, if slightly excessive, but still slightly more par for the course for many relationships back then where the woman was completely subservient to the men in her life because the past was the worst.

In the end, given the evidence we had today, which, granted, relies mostly on the testimonies of the household staff, it’s generally thought Hitler could not have killed her primarily because he really doesn’t seem to have been around at the time. At least, again, according to the household staff, as well as Heinrich Hoffman, his photographer, who claims he was with Hitler in the car when they left as noted previously. Also as noted previously, he claims Hitler was at the Deutscher Hof hotel in Nuremberg that night, a little over 100 miles away. And the next morning they were allegedly en route to Hamburg when a courier was dispatched to tell him the news of his niece’s death.

All of this, however, relies on the testimony of those either in the employ of Hitler or part of the Nazi party, with one exception. There is a ticket Hitler and co received from the town of Ebenhausen, about 40 miles away, for speeding through it back to Munich after Hitler found out. And seemingly Hitler was in the car at the time. Although this ticket could have been fabricated by party members or supporters as well to give him a better alibi. And, of course, this was all the next day, and the distance not so great that Hitler couldn’t have left when Hoffman said, but gone back to Munich that night. Although, why he should return randomly to re-take up the argument with Geli, or perhaps randomly intentionally go to kill her, doesn’t really make any sense.

Thus, most historians are willing to take on faith that Hitler really wasn’t there at the time of Geli’s death. Especially as, while household staff may have been lying about specific events at the time, certainly if Hitler had murdered her before leaving, his staff may have had more to say about it after Hitler’s death, but none did, nor did those peripherally related make any such claims.

For example, Hitler’s staff apparently liked him and at least one, the aforementioned Rosa, who granted came to work for him directly after Geli’s death, claims there were no rumors among the staff of any impropriety there with Hitler regarding Geli’s death. She also states that, “He was a charming man, someone who was only ever nice to me, a great boss to work for. You can say what you like, but he was a good man to us.” She also stated about the only thing strict he required of her outside of work duties was to have her and her sister attend church every sunday as he felt it was good for them. Ultimately, in 1935, Rosa fell in love with one Josef Amorts and wished to leave Hitler’s employ, and he happily granted her request and congratulated her on her relationship. She concludes, “I only met Hitler once more, on December 10, 1936, when Anni married Herbert Doehring, manager of the Berghof. He came to the wedding and was nice to me, saying he missed me.”

In any event, Rosa was 15 when she first started working for Hitler, but critically for the story at hand today is that her sister, the aforementioned Anni, had worked for Hitler for several years before that and lived in the house. But her sister seemingly made no mention of anything odd with regards to Geli’s death. Rosa simply states of the whole thing, “She shot herself in September 1931 and I was told as soon as I went to work for him that he was not to be approached on the anniversary of that day.”

Of course, just because he seemingly couldn’t have done the deed himself owing to not being there, doesn’t mean someone connected to him couldn’t have done it, perhaps at Hitler’s orders or maybe even without his knowledge. Especially given that if Geli really was going to leave, as mentioned, she knew an awful lot of very intimate things about the future Fuhrer and those around him which could have compromised his rise and the rise of the Nazi Party. And, as alluded to, there were rumors that many among the Party were uncomfortable with Geli and Hitler’s relationship for that reason. So it’s always possible someone else killed her to ensure her silence, which may explain why she stopped writing the letter in question mid-sentence if interrupted, assuming she really was writing that letter at the time and it wasn’t planted after the fact.

Given Hitler’s apparent love of Geli, however, most historians land on the side of that if it was someone within the party who had her killed, it probably wasn’t on Hitler’s orders, but perhaps done behind his back for the good of the party.

Then, of course, we have that she may well have simply committed suicide as was the official ruling over the matter. And it may well have been that any suicide note was removed before the authorities were called so as not to reveal any intimate details about Hitler and her relationship publicly, which no doubt would have been referenced in such a letter. Or it’s always possible she simply didn’t bother to write such a suicide note. Whatever the case, as alluded to, if it really was a suicide, it’s also been conjectured that the letter she was allegedly writing may have been planted there to attempt to make it look like an accident instead, as the Party seemed to have wanted that to be the story pushed.

On that note, another possibility is that she was indeed just playing with the gun at the time, with her handling such weapons allegedly not being uncommon, and having it on her when Hitler was gone for extra protection may have simply been her norm. This would, perhaps, explain why she was shot in the chest instead of the much more quick and painless way in the head if it had been suicide. Thus, again, some have conjectured that while writing the note with her right hand she was idling playing with the gun in her left hand (which allegedly is the one she shot herself with) and it inadvertently went off. This could explain the pleasant and future tense nature of the letter and lack of a suicide note. And it’s even possible in this case that Hitler was telling the truth that he was not totally against her trip, just her going alone, which would explain why in the letter she seemed to think the trip to Vienna was happening.

In the end, what is very clear about the entire matter is the official story had some plot holes, and those directly involved some contradictions in accounts. Further, by all accounts, Hitler does seem to have been devastated by the whole thing after, both because of Geli’s death and because of how it was being portrayed in the media and threatening his career. With many of the papers who were politically opposed to Hitler doing as all political reporters seemingly since the dawn of time have done- exaggerating or making crap up about their opposition, further muddying the waters on what exactly happened here for any investigation today.

And that’s where things stand today.

So, what do you think, dear viewer, now with the entire tale as it is known revealed- Did he do it? Or have it done? Was it someone in the Nazi party who had it done instead with or without Hitler’s knowledge? Or did she actually kill herself? Or was it just a tragic accident and another of a long line of such showing why you should never treat a gun as a toy?

Whatever your opinion there, I think we can all agree that as seemingly every woman Hitler hooked up with after this seems to have genuinely killed herself owing to the way Hitler treated them in alternating extreme affection with extreme neglect, Hitler was not just the worst human in general, but also apparently the worst boyfriend ever. And seriously really did need to rethink the mustache. Just ridiculous.

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