Angela (Geli) Raubal was born on 4 June 1908 in Linz, a few months after the 19-year-old Hitler had moved to Vienna.40 She was the second of three children from the marriage of Hitler’s half-sister Angela with the tax official Leo Raubal. Leo died in 1910, leaving the family, which at times included Hitler’s sister Paula, in difficult financial straits. The situation only improved when Angela Raubal took up the position of director at a home for female apprentices in Vienna in October 1915. Her ambition was to ensure that her children got a good education. After primary school, Geli became one of the first girls to get a degree from Linz’s prestigious, university-track Akademisches Gymnasium in June 1927. Three years previously, she and her older brother Leo had visited their now-famous uncle in Landsberg. There, prison guard Franz Hemmrich related, Hitler had greeted her with a hug and given her a “hearty kiss on the lips.”41 After she graduated, Hitler invited her entire class to Munich. Geli stayed at the Bruckmanns’ villa, and she and her class were treated to an appearance by the NSDAP chairman at afternoon tea. “We stood in rows before him,” recalled Geli’s classmate Alfred Maleta, who would go on to become the president of the Austrian National Council after the war. “He greeted every one of us with a firm handshake, an audible click of his heels and a penetrating stare with his watery blue eyes, which was obviously meant to be enthralling.”42
In August 1927, Geli Raubal took part in the Nuremberg rally, and afterwards Hitler went on tour through Germany with her, her mother Angela and Rudolf Hess. “The Tribune’s young niece is a tallish, attractive teenager, always cheerful and as clever with words as her uncle,” Hess wrote. “Even he can hardly compete with her quick-witted mouth.” Hitler wanted her to attend university in Germany, but was convinced that “she would barely get past the second semester before someone would marry her.”43 Henriette Hoffmann also described Geli as “tall, cheerful and self-confident,” adding: “Photos didn’t do justice to her charm. None of the pictures my father took captured her.”44 In the autumn of 1927, she moved to Munich, where she began studying medicine.
In no time, the attractive young woman was the much-admired centre of attention among the regulars at Café Heck. Her “tomboyish, easy-going manner” captivated the men, Heinrich Hoffmann recalled. “When Geli was at the table, everything revolved around her,” Hoffmann wrote, “and Hitler never tried to dominate the conversation. Geli was a magician. Thanks to her natural ways, entirely free of flirtatiousness, her mere presence put everyone present in the best of spirits. Everyone rhapsodised about her, most of all her uncle, Adolf Hitler.”45
The same was true of Emil Maurice. The chauffeur always hovered around Geli whenever he drove Hitler’s entourage to a picnic on Chiemsee Lake in the big black Mercedes. Maurice would get his mandolin out of the trunk and sing Irish folk songs. Hitler never went swimming. At most, he would remove his shoes and socks and carefully bathe his pale feet in the shallow water. Geli and Henriette Hoffmann, whom she befriended, would seek out a spot concealed behind bushes and go skinny-dipping. “We swam naked and let the sun dry us off,” Hoffmann recalled. “We wanted to get a complete tan.”46
Shortly before Christmas 1927, Maurice told his boss about his feelings for Geli, which she apparently reciprocated, effectively asking Hitler for her hand in marriage. Hitler reacted with a fit of rage. He had never seen his boss so angry, Maurice later recalled: “I seriously think he would have liked to shoot me dead at that moment.”47 Hitler threatened to send Geli back to her mother in Vienna, if a number of conditions were not met. Maurice and Geli, who had secretly got engaged, were to submit to a two-year trial phase. “Remember, Maurice,” Geli wrote in her Christmas letter to her fiancé, “we have two full years in which we can only kiss now and then under the watchful eye of U[ncle] A[dolf].” But they submitted to Hitler’s will, with Geli writing, “I’m so happy I can stay with you.”48 Hitler, however, had no intention of permitting her any further contact with his chauffeur. In January 1928, Maurice was fired without notice and quickly became a persona non grata.49
We can only speculate about the reason for Hitler’s furious reaction. Maurice believed it was jealousy. Hitler, he thought, had fallen in love with his niece, “but it was a strange, unacknowledged love.”50 By contrast, Hitler’s long-time housekeeper Anni Winter thought that Hitler was only trying to live up to his role as Geli’s guardian: “He only wanted the best for her. She was a foolish girl.”51 Whatever the case may have been, from the spring of 1928, Geli was an integral part of Hitler’s entourage. She accompanied her uncle to the cinema, the theatre and the opera, and even when she went shopping, he trotted behind her “like a patient lamb.”52 In July, the two spent several days on holiday with Goebbels and Angela Raubal, on the island of Heligoland.53 It went without saying that Geli was in attendance in November 1928, when Hitler made his first appearance in Berlin’s Sportpalast. “The boss is here,” noted Goebbels. “Energised as ever. With his pretty niece you’d almost want to fall in love with.”54 Geli spent Christmas 1928 with Hitler on the Obersalzberg at Haus Wachenfeld, which her mother now ran. There they also celebrated her twenty-first birthday in June 1929.55 In early August she was seen again at Hitler’s side at the Nuremberg rally. Goebbels was happy: “Geli Raubal. A beautiful child. Had dinner with her, her mother and the boss in his room. We laughed a lot.”56
Without doubt, Geli Raubal enjoyed being the centre of attention and having the men in Hitler’s circle compete for her favour. She would have been flattered that “Uncle Alf,” as she called Hitler, was so fond of her and allowed her to participate in his breathtaking rise in 1929–30 and the aura of power and success it brought. Hitler loved appearing in public at her side. As Maurice put it, Hitler was “proud of being seen with such an enchanting person.”57 But as much as Hitler enjoyed the company of this young woman, he avoided any displays of intimacy even in his innermost circle. “Never did Hitler reveal his feelings in society,” Heinrich Hoffmann observed. “He always behaved completely correctly towards Geli. It was only his gaze and his warm tone that betrayed his affection.”58
Nonetheless, Geli Raubal’s constant presence at Hitler’s side gave rise early on to rumours within the Nazi Party. In October 1928, Goebbels wrote in his diary that soon-to-be Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann had told him “crazy things” about Hitler: “He and his niece Geli and Maurice. The tragedy that is woman. It’s enough to make you desperate. Why do we all have to suffer so because of this woman? I have complete faith in Hitler. I understand everything. The true and the untrue.”59 But Goebbels himself repeatedly complained that Hitler got distracted from serious business by “too many stories with women.”60 There is no way of settling whether Hitler had intimate relations with his niece. Opinion was divided within his circle. Hanfstaengl was convinced of the “incestuous character” of the relationship, writing that Hitler’s “inhibited sex drive found willing fulfilment and completion” in Geli’s “directionless libidinousness.”61 By contrast, on the basis of conversations with Anni Winter, Christa Schroeder felt confident that Hitler had loved Geli without ever having had sex with her.62
In October 1929, Geli gave up her room in a boarding house and moved into Hitler’s Prinzregentenstrasse apartment—a sign of just how close their relationship had become. She was given a cheery corner room which she could decorate as she pleased. Hitler’s household personnel—Anni and Georg Winter, his former landlady Maria Reichert and his cleaning woman, Anna Kirmair—were not exactly thrilled about their new flatmate. They thought Geli was exploiting her uncle’s generosity, and that he was spoiling her. Geli had quit studying medicine to train, in accordance with her uncle’s wishes, as a singer. To that end, Hitler hired the bandleader Adolf Vogl, whom he had known since May 1919, and paid for private lessons at a singing school.63 In July 1930, Hitler and Geli travelled together with the Bechsteins to the Bayreuth Wagner Festival and then visited the Passion Play in Oberammergau.64 But Geli does not seem to have taken her singing career very serio
usly. She preferred to amuse herself in the company of others and read the serialised novels in the newspapers—something Hitler often complained about.65
As far as we can tell, Geli Raubal increasingly came to view life on Prinzregentenstrasse as a burden. Here she was entirely subjected to her uncle’s control. His solicitousness shaded over into rules and coercion. Hitler continued to buy her fashionable clothing and shoes without complaint,66 but when the amateur photographer wanted to buy herself an expensive Leica camera to replace her Rolleiflex, Hitler refused. “Geli sulked and they finished the walk without her saying a word,” reported Julius Schaub, who had served as Hitler’s “constant companion” since 1925 and who would be promoted to his personal assistant in 1933.67 Hitler jealously watched over his niece’s every step and increasingly sought to restrict her freedom. She enjoyed going out, but when she wanted to attend a carnival ball in 1931, Hitler only gave in after Heinrich Hoffmann and Max Amann agreed to serve as chaperones. When Hoffmann reproached him, Hitler answered: “What Geli sees as coercion is simply caution. I want to prevent her from falling into the hands of someone unworthy.”68 That was no doubt an excuse: Hitler did not want to share Geli with anyone else.
Thus, as Henriette Hoffmann observed, the carefree young thing gradually became melancholic and introverted,69 and quarrels erupted with increasing frequency on Prinzregentenstrasse. In mid-September 1931, Hitler forbade his niece from making a trip to Vienna, which she probably intended as a way of escaping her uncle’s watchful eye for a time. On the evening of 17 September, Julius Schaub’s wife, who went with her to a theatre production, described her as “absent, disconsolate, almost tear-stained.”70
The following day, before Hitler left for a campaign trip to northern Germany, the two butted heads again, and after Hitler’s departure, Geli locked herself in her room. When she failed to appear for breakfast on 19 September and did not respond to knocks at her door, Anni Winter summoned her husband. Together they broke down the door and were greeted by a terrible sight. Geli lay sprawled on the floor, her nightgown covered in blood. Her head rested on one arm; the other was outstretched towards the sofa, where they found a 6.35-millimetre Walther pistol.71 The Winters immediately notified Hess, who hurried to the apartment with Nazi Party treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz. Hess then returned to the Brown House, where he tried to telephone Hitler.
As was his wont, Hitler had spent the previous night at the Deutscher Hof hotel in Nuremberg and continued his journey north that morning. Shortly after he had set off, his car was overtaken by a taxi. A bellboy told Hitler that a Mr. Hess from Munich urgently needed to speak with him. Hitler’s entourage turned around, and Hitler rushed to a phone booth. Heinrich Hoffmann, who had followed him, listened in. “Hitler exclaimed hoarsely, ‘That’s terrible,’ ” Hoffmann recalled after the war. “He then screamed down the phone line: ‘Hess, give me a clear answer yes or no—is she still alive? Hess, on your honour as an officer, don’t lie to me. Hess! Hess!’ Hitler stumbled out of the telephone booth. His hair hung down, dishevelled, in his face. His gaze was unsteady. I only saw him like that on one other occasion: in the Reich Chancellery bunker in April 1945.”72
Even if we assume that Hoffmann wanted to make his account as dramatic as possible, the news of Geli Raubal’s death no doubt shook Hitler to the core. He raced back to Munich. His car was pulled over by the police in the town of Ebenhausen—the speeding ticket was preserved.73 Hitler arrived back on Prinzregentenstrasse at 2:30 p.m. and was able to see the body before it was taken to the viewing hall at Munich’s Eastern Cemetery. By that time the police investigation had already been concluded.74
Only after Hess and Schwarz had left the apartment at around 10:15 a.m. did Georg Winter call the police. Two detective superintendents and a police doctor were sent to investigate. Their report concluded that “death was caused by a gunshot wound to the lung and rigor mortis indicated that it had occurred many hours (17–18) previously.” All the evidence, as the officers saw it, pointed to suicide, even though there was no note or anything expressing suicidal intentions in Raubal’s room. “There was only a partially completed letter to a female friend in Vienna on the table, which contained no indication of extreme world-weariness,” the report noted.75 When questioned, Hitler’s servants could think of no reasons why Raubal might have killed herself, although Maria Reichert did say that she had been “very emotional of late.”76
That afternoon, after arriving at his apartment, Hitler had already overcome the initial shock, making a composed impression on the police officers who interviewed him. While he admitted quarrelling with his niece about her future, he played down the significance of the fight. Geli, he said, had wanted to continue her education in Vienna since she did not feel up to being a singer. “I agreed on the condition that her mother, who lives in Berchtesgaden, accompanied her,” Hitler said. “When she said she didn’t want that, I came out against the plan. She must have been very angry about it, but she did not get particularly upset and said goodbye to me quite calmly when I left on Friday afternoon.” His niece had been “the only relative he was close to,” Hitler told the police, and her death had shaken him badly. The police report then recorded a remark which suggested that he was already thinking about the political fallout of Raubal’s death: “And now this had to happen to him.”77
Hitler’s political adversaries were not above making use of the scandal. In an article entitled “A Mysterious Affair,” the Social Democratic Münchener Post tried to sow doubt that Raubal’s death had been a suicide. The newspaper reported that a massive row had broken out in Hitler’s apartment because his niece had announced her engagement. The Post also claimed that Raubal had been found with a broken nose and other serious injuries.78 The article prompted the state prosecutor to order the police doctor to re-examine the body. His conclusions were unambiguous: aside from the gunshot wound to Raubal’s chest, the body revealed no signs of violence—to the nose or anywhere else. The two women employed by the city to take care of bodies in the morgue confirmed these findings.79 In a denial written on the evening of 21 September and published by the Post the following day, Hitler rejected such speculations as falsehoods. His niece had wanted to travel to Vienna “to have a vocal coach reassess her voice.” There had been “no scene” and “no excitement,” Hitler attested, when he left the apartment on 18 September.80
Still, rumours about the causes of Raubal’s death persisted. According to one, Hitler had his niece murdered by the SS because she had got pregnant by a Jewish university student. Another held that Hitler had killed Raubal himself in a fit of rage—an equally absurd idea since he was in Nuremberg at the time.81 The idea that Raubal’s death had been an accident—that she had been playing around with Hitler’s pistol and unintentionally pulled the trigger—also enjoyed currency. Winifred Wagner believed in this story, and Hitler himself appears to have found some consolation in it. When she was interviewed by American investigators in Berchtesgaden in May 1945, Angela Raubal told them that an accident was the most likely explanation for her daughter’s death because Geli had had no reason to commit suicide.82 The accident thesis is hardly plausible, however, since we know from Henriette Hoffmann that Geli Raubal was well acquainted with Hitler’s pistol. The two women had even done target practice with it near Munich.83
If all the signs point towards a suicide, why did Raubal kill herself? Contemporaries and historians have racked their brains over this question. Some have tried to establish a connection between Raubal’s death and Hitler’s allegedly abnormal sexual proclivities. One key witness for this theory is Otto Strasser, who told representatives of the American Office of Strategic Studies in 1943 that Hitler had compelled Raubal to engage in perverse sexual practices and spiced up his tale with a series of disgusting details.84 In his memoirs, Hanfstaengl also contended that Raubal had told him: “My uncle is a monster. No one can imagine the things he expects of me.” Hanfstaengl illuminated this somewhat cryptic s
tatement with an anecdote. On the way home after an evening the three of them had spent together, Hanfstaengl wrote, Hitler had issued wild threats against his enemies and underscored his words with a resounding crack of his riding crop. Hanfstaengl happened to be watching Raubal’s face and was shocked to see an “expression of fear and disgust…that distorted her face at this whistling sound.”85 This was Hanfstaengl’s none-too-subtle way of insinuating that Geli Raubal was the victim of Hitler’s sado-masochistic lust. But Hanfstaengl also invented pornographic drawings by Hitler that allegedly showed Raubal in poses “that every professional model would have refused [to adopt].”86
Other observers have speculated that Raubal might have been jealous because Hitler had been courting other women and she feared that she was “beginning to lose her power over ‘Uncle Alf.’ ”87 But that would only be plausible if we assume that Geli Raubal had developed a deeper, romantic affection for Hitler—of which there is no evidence. It seems that the question of Raubal’s motives will never be definitively answered. Most likely, Raubal felt unable to live up to the expectation of becoming a singer and was worn down by Hitler’s need to control her, which restricted her freedom and hemmed in her own initiative. She may have felt that Prinzregentenstrasse was her “golden cage.”88 Perhaps, in an increasingly intolerable situation, she saw no other way out than to take her own life. At her mother’s request, her body was taken to Vienna and buried on 23 September in the city’s central cemetery.
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Hitler did not attend the funeral, retreating instead for several days to the house of the Völkischer Beobachter publisher, Adolf Müller, on Tegernsee Lake. In his memoirs, his companion Heinrich Hoffmann remembered Hitler as seeming like a “totally broken man.” There were even fears that Hitler might harm himself, and his chauffeur Julius Schreck confiscated his pistol. For a time Hitler was said to have even considered giving up his political career.89
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