There is still much mystery that surrounds the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler.
The Dictator of Nazi Germany’s life was kept secret at times from the German population,
and during the Second World War many people would not even know that he had a relationship
with Eva Braun.
As with many of those who became close to Hitler, their lives would be cut short with
execution and killing.
But there is a relationship that Hitler had before the Second World War that is shrouded
in mystery, as is the killing or death of the woman involved.
Geli Raubal was the half-niece of Adolf Hitler who it’s believed had a close relationship
with the future dictator.
However in 1931 at the age of 23, Geli Raubal who would be described as very beautiful died
in very bizarre circumstances inside of Hitler’s Munich apartment, dying by gunshot.
But the gunshot came from Hitler’s own Walther pistol.
Join us today as we look at ‘The BRUTAL Execution Of Hitler’s Niece,’ remember
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Geli Raubal was the daughter of Leo Raubal and Angela Raubal, and she was born in Linz
on the 4th June 1908.
Her father died when she was just two years old, and she and her sister went with her
mother when she became Hitler’s house keeper in 1925.
Angela Raubal was Hitler’s half sister, and they shared a father, Alois Hitler.
Whilst at the age of 17, Geli began to spend more time with Adolf Hitler at his house and
apartment, and in August 1928 she stayed with Hitler.
Despite there being an age gap of 19 years, she remained in close contact with her half
uncle Adolf, and her mother became a position as a housekeeper at the Berghof later, Hitler’s
mountain retreat.
However it was said that Hitler became infatuated and fell in love with his niece and because
of this he was a constant companion of her.
The pair would go to meetings together, and also go to restaurants and stroll arm in arm
in the mountains.
In 1929, Hitler then took possession of an apartment in Munich and the Raubal family
went with him.
Geli moved into Hitler’s apartment and she enrolled in medicine at University in Munich.
She became friends with Henriette Hoffman, the daughter of Hitler’s photographer, but
Hitler would state of the two, ‘I can sit next to young women who leave me completely
cold.
I feel nothing or they really irritate me.
But a girl like Hoffmann or Geli Raubal, 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, and I can go back to work refreshed.’
It was written with regards to Hitler’s attitude to Raubal that, ‘The affection
Hitler felt for this pretty superficial niece soon developed into a passionate relationship,
hopelessly burdened by his intolerance, his romantic ideal of womanhood.
It was also said of Geli that, ‘she 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 plain clothes, pleated skirts and white blouses.
No jewellery except a gold swastika was given to her by Uncle Adolf, whom she called Uncle
Alf.
Rumours began to emerge about Hitler’s relationship with his niece, and he said to his photographer,
‘I’m so concerned about Geli’s future that I feel I have to watch over her, I love
Geli and could marry her.
I want to remain single.
I retain the right to exert an influence on her circle of friends until such a time when
she finds the right man.
I want to stop her falling in the hands of someone unsuitable.
She would accompany Hitler to many meetings, and some of these were high profile meetings
too.
Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach wrote of Geli that, ‘The girl at Hitler’s side
was of medium size, well developed, had dark rather wavy hair.
A flush of embarrassment reddened the round face as she entered the room with him.
It was simply astonishing to see a young girl at Hitler’s side.
He chatted animatedly to her, patted her hand and scarcely paused long enough for her to
say anything.
I had the impression Geli would have liked to stay longer.’
But as Hitler was continuing his stranglehold and control over the Nazi Party, he was becoming
more dominating and controlling in his relationship with his niece.
It’s clear he had a romantic relationship with her, and whilst she was living inside
of his apartment, he controlled what she did and where she could go, and also who she could
see.
This made her ultimately Hitler’s first victim of his control, and her mother became
concerned about Hitler.
She stated after the war that Hitler had banned her from seeing a man from Linz, who she was
hoping to marry and it’s believed this was done from pure jealousy on Hitler’s behalf.
But Geli Raubal did have a relationship with one of the men closest to Hitler.
Emil Maurice was his chauffeur, and it was found out in December 1927 that Geli and Maurice
were having a relationship and Hitler outraged sacked Maurice from his position and then
banned Geli Raubal from seeing him.
Following this Hitler refused to allow her to mix with any of her friends and his friends,
and allowed only those he trusted to chaperone her to shopping trips and excursions to the
opera and cinema.
With this he was controlling all of her life.
The couple lived together in this manner for years, but then Hitler’s eye was stolen
by another young girl, the 17 year old Eva Braun who Hitler took for rides in his Mercedes.
Eva worked in the studio of his personal photographer and would eventually marry Hitler in the final
days of his life.
Geli Raubal also disliked much of Hitler’s behaviour including his violent side.
Following the emergence of Emil Maurice and Raubals relationship it was said, ‘When
hitler found out, there was such a scene that Maurice feared Hitler was going to shoot him.’
There was a claim that Geli also fell in love with another man who’s identity is not known,
and that this man wrote to her in 1931.
It was said that the power Hitler held over Geli and her mother was total and because
of this, Hitler’s egotistical behaviour would not allow a match.
It was said that she did not like his controlling nature, and as time went on that she got bored
with him at times.
But whilst living as a prisoner in his home, she wished to escape to Vienna to continue
singing lessons.
Hitler insisted that she and her friend had weapons training to protect themselves and
they were told to carry loaded pistols and she was regularly taken outside of Munich.
But Geli would continue to complain about her uncle’s behaviour, and he slandered
her Jewish singing teacher who it’s believed Geli wanted to have a relationship with.
She wished greatly to run away to Vienna, possibly with this teacher to start a life
and have a baby, and Hitler was furious at this.
Hitler and his close inner circle believed however that Geli Raubal knew too much about
the future dictator of Germany, and because of this letting her run free in the world
was considered too dangerous.
It’s believed she could have told the world about Hitler’s sexual habits, and his close
personal life and Hitler feared this information being leaked to the press that would destroy
him.
However on the morning of the 19th September 1931, Geli Raubal’s lifeless body was found
inside of Hitler’s Munich flat on the floor of her room by Htiler’s housekeeper Georg
Winter.
He gave a statement to the police that said, ‘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.’
However evidence would later emerge that would cast Raubal’s death in rather suspicious
light.
She had shot herself in the lung with Hitler’s own pistol and at the age of 23 was dead,
a victim of Hitler’s controlling behaviour and nature.
Hitler had departed his apartment for a meeting in Nuremberg and was summoned back when the
news broke that she was dead.
A number of high ranking Nazis debated what should happen before the police were taken
to Hitler’s apartment.
A high ranking Nazi conference was held in his flat following her death, and following
this Baldur von Schirach informed the press to tell that Hitler had gone into deep mourning
for the death of his niece.
But the Nazis with the body still in the room debated what the best course of action was
to take.
A report was made that said, ‘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.’
However as soon as the news emerged, there was great speculation regarding the death
of Geli Raubal and whether she was executed, murdered or whether her death was the result
of foul play.
The Munchener Post would carry a story that said, ‘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."
Raubal’s body it’\s claimed was found with a fractured nose which would its assumed
have been the result of a violent argument that broke out between Hitler and Raubal.
In the evening before her death, it was heard that a huge argument broke out between the
two, and in the aftermath of it lay Geli Raubal a young 23 year old woman dead on the floor.
Hitler went against this saying, ‘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."
But the speculation persisted.
It was even brought into question whether Hitler had ordered her execution and death
because of the fact that she may have been pregnant with the baby of the Jewish signing
teacher.
The police doctor who signed the death sentence would confirm that she died from a gunshot
to the lung, and that she did have disolouration on her face, but it was said that this came
from the fact she had laid face down on the floor for around 18 hours.
The bullet which pierced her lung had missed her heart and it was said, ‘ 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.’
There was no inquest into Geli Raubal’s death, and many of her close friends and family
could not work out why she allegedly took her own life, and some even claimed she may
have done this accidentally whilst playing with Hitler’s pistol.
The pretext to her death could not be ignored, and many enemies of the Nazis alleged that
Hitler had organised her death and execution.
For example a French newspaper stated, ‘"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.”
Many believed that Geli Raubal did not die by her own hand, and Rudolf Hess even believed
that she had been shot by a jealous woman who broke into Htiler’s flat that night.
There were rumours even that Heinrich Himmler visited and screamed at Raubal before her
death.
However what cannot be disputed is the control and horrific measures that Hitler went to
to restrict Geli Raubal’s life.
He was the jealous lover of his niece which is in itself bizarre, and it’s clear that
without this relationship with her Uncle Adolf, that she would never have ended up dead at
the young age of 23 inside of a Munich flat.
Whether she was executed or murdered for knowing too much about Hitler, or whether she was
shot after a devastating row, or even that she took her own life, the story of Geli Raubal
is an incredibly sad one, and many parts of it remain untold.
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