Hitler and Women Research Paper:

More than half a century after his death, Hitler still remains a mystery for most historians and psychologists. No other man has caused as much destruction, horror, and death as he had. No other man has attracted attention in such a short period of time, terrorized and bullied the world, and then disappeared suddenly as Hitler did. Hitler was an aggressive man, and his aggressiveness knew no limits. He was known as a man without mercy, resorting to death, elimination and torture whenever he was faced by an enemy. He was not satisfied with the death of hundreds and thousands of his political opponents, but he also was responsible for the death of millions by initiating World War II and participating in it. Behind his aggressive mask, Hitler was an insecure person, troubled with his relations with women, and his sexual problems. This Hitler and Women Research Paper provides an insight on some parts of Hitler’s life.

Adolf Hitler was born in 1889. His father was a custom official and his mother a peasant girl. He suffered a lot during his early years, especially due to the troubled relationship between his mother and his father who was a womanizer. His father was married twice before, and his second and third wives were both maids in his house. Hitler’s mother, Clara, was the third. She was believed to be a seductive woman who wanted Hitler’s father and who stole him from his second wife while she was on an affair with him, even during his first two marriages (Watson, 24). It is under such circumstances that Hitler was raised, not to mention the fact that his family suffered from financial problems. Eventually, even his education was financed by a pension for orphans (Watson, 24).

Hitler’s academic performance

Hitler’s academic performance was very poor and he never even made it to high school. He was then terminated from school and so, he tried to study art in Vienna. However, he was rejected several times because he was believed to be without artistic talents. During World War I, Hitler served in the army, and although he was courageous and even got injured, he was never promoted because his superiors did not see in him the capabilities for leadership. Ironically, this was the man who after the war became the chairman of the Nazi party in 1921, and the dictator of Germany in 1933 (Rosenbaum, 39).

Although he was an unpleasant person, with nervous outbreaks and unpredictable behavior, as a leader, Hitler expressed powerful charismatic characteristics. He was always able to attract attention of his audiences, especially as he based his speeches on their feelings of hatred, fears, and economic needs. He was so successful in that to the extent that he seems to have understood the psychology of the people (Rosenbaum, 43).

However, the psychology which he seems to have missed is his own psychology. Hitler had a very weak point: his relations with women. In his childhood, Adolf Hitler discovered that his mother and father were actually very close relatives. In reality, his father was actually his mother’s second uncle, and even the Vatican had serious reservations about their marriage. As a matter of fact, his mother continued to call his father “uncle” even after they got married. Adolf was also aware of his father’s previous marriages and how his mother was on an affair with his father even when he was married before. All this made him develop confusion in understanding the nature of women and their behavior in love or sexuality (Rosenbaum, 80).

During his involvement in war, Hitler did not get engaged in affairs with women, and after returning from war, he spent some time in jail because of his radical political activities that aimed at changing the political system in Germany. During this period, Hitler remained aloof from women, especially that he was submerged in his political writings and thoughts, resulting in his book Mein Kampf (Watson, 61)

However, following his release and his strong return to the political scene, Hitler started a new affair. Ironically, it was an incest affair, with his half niece, Geli Raubal. Raubal was about ten years younger than Adolf, a vigorous woman with an attractive character. The relationship is believed to have started towards 1930, when Raubal was twenty one years old. By then, Hitler had become a very important political character as the leader of the Nazi party which was the second largest party in Germany. Hitler was also nominated to become the Chancellor in Germany, depending on the unstable political situation in the country (Rosenbaum, 112).

Hitler offered Raubal a bedroom in his own house, and he often shared it with her. It is strongly believed that they had a sexual relationship that lasted for two years. Hitler was reported by his servants to be madly in love with Raubal, the woman who filled his life with attention and love. Despite of his strength and prowess, his mercilessness and his toughness, even with his closest supporters, Hitler had an obvious weakness towards his niece. He always did what she wanted, and he offered everything she had. He treated her very well and was much more than a gentleman with her (Rosenbaum, 112).

Hitler and Women: Love

Raubal, however, was a very strong woman. Although she was madly in love with Hitler, and aware of her impact on him and his mood, she also wanted to live her life independently. She did not want Adolf to preside over her life like he presided over his political party. Accordingly, it seems that the relationship between them began to collapse at the time when Adolf was about to reach the peak of his career. It was 1932, when Adolf was finally nominated to become chancellor, when she seems to have decided to leave him to go to Vienna. Raubal’s intentions behind the trip to Vienna may never be known, but there are two possibilities. It is either that the two lovers have reached a dead end in their relationship, and that she was going to Vienna in order to get a respite from the tension, or that she had become acquainted with someone else and wanted to move to stay with him. Either way, Raubal seem to have angered Hitler very badly, and on September 14th, 1932, they had a quarrel after which Adolf left his house. A few hours later, she was found dead, with a hole in her forehead and Adolf’s pistol on her side (Rosenbaum, 145).

The investigations were politically dominated. In fact, they were not more than interviews by the police with Hitler to find out what happened. He claimed that he was away from home, but suspicions that he had killed her before he left were very strong. His servants reported that she was very tense when Hitler left, whereas Hitler reported that she was calm. Their sexual relationship was totally concealed. In the end, the police covered the case which was considered to be a suicide case. The point is that Raubal, at the age of 23 was quite a very active, happy, and self-assured. There was not one reason that she would commit suicide or even an indication that this would have ever happened to her. Those surrounding Hitler did not suspect a glimpse that he was responsible for her death (Watson, 76-77).

With Raubal out of his life, Hitler continued to ascend, and in less than a year, he was the most powerful man in Germany, and on his way to become a dictator. Adolf’s next woman was to be Eva Braun, a girl who he met when she was at the age of seventeen (Dorpalen, 2). Eva was a very strong woman, but unlike Geli Raubal, she did not have the sufficient vividness to bring Adolf under control. She was never able to ease his tense, and to make him comfortable in her presence, especially when they were in public. It is difficult to compare the two women, especially that Hitler did not present Geli Raubal as his lover to the public. Rather, she was his beloved niece, and hence, he always felt comfortable about her in public (Wistrich, 1-2).

Eva Braun’s relationship with Hitler remained in the shadows for the entire period which they spent together. How things were between them, it was never known, for Hitler remained very confidential about his privacy with Eva. It is very possible that Hitler never loved Eva the way he loved Geli, but he certainly had a lot of respect for her. After all, she was very faithful to him, in contrast to Geli who was rebellious and perhaps even decided to leave him for another man (Wistrich, 1-2).

Eva’s faithful behavior with Hitler continued to the end, and she even insisted on dying with him. One hour before his death, Hitler ordered Eva to escape, but she refused to leave him alone. So, instead, he got married to her, and they both committed suicide.

Theories on the death

Theories on the death of Hitler flourished after the end of the war. The Russians tried to humiliate his past when they claimed that he killed himself with poison while others claimed that he shot himself with a gun. Others said that he was still alive with Eva Braun somewhere in South America or in Switzerland. Whatever the case was, all those theories agreed on the fact that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had remained together, proving that this woman was actually so faithful to him than she cared for her own life (Wistrich, 1-3).

I have a problem in giving my opinion on Hitler and his relations with women. On the one hand, I like him a lot and consider him to be one of the great leaders of the world. At the same time, I strongly believe that he was responsible for the death of Geli Raubal, a creative and emotional woman who wanted to be free. Hitler must have suffered a lot because of his affair with his niece, especially that incest is a moral and legal crime. At the same time, he must have been very possessive to the extent that he could not tolerate losing a woman he considered most important in his life, so he preferred to kill her rather than let her go free or with another man. His affair with Eva Braun is not very clear. Eva was not known to most Germans, and besides, she disliked politics and avoided Hitler’s close assistants and military men. What we know about her is that she refused to escape when he ordered her to do so, and instead, preferred to die with him. She was young then, hardly 29 when she killed herself. Hence, while she was supposed to be in love with life, her love for Adolf Hitler was much more meaningful to her. She was very loyal to him, but we do not know whether he was loyal to her. We also know that the majority of the Nazi leaders were surrounded by large number of prostitutes. There is no mentioning, however, whether Hitler had such relations. Therefore, we may assume that the relationship between Hitler and Braun was a sincere one, although Hitler did not feel very comfortable when they appeared in public. I believe that Hitler was a shy man, and that he was dramatically influenced by the fact that his mother was his father’s niece, thus implying a clear case of incest. However, whether these aspects of Hitler’s emotional, social and sexual character are responsible for his violence and aggression is something that we can never know because he is dead and it is impossible to use unreliable accounts and biographies in this respect. I think that the only thing we can do with respect to the personal history of Hitler is to end the debate because no matter what we try to find out, this page of history is over now, and any attempts to interpret his military or political behaviors and decisions based on his relations with women is only a suspicious attempt to demoralize his image in history. There have been many men in history who enjoyed very good social and emotional relations, but who were nonetheless violent and destructive too. However, I feel very sympathetic with Geli Raubal who I believe was a victim of Hitler’s possessiveness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Dorpalen, Andreas. “Adolf Hitler.” Encyclopedia Encarta, Microsoft

Corporation Inc., 1998:1-3.

Rosenbaum, Ron. Explaining Hitler. New York: McMillan Press, 1998.

Watson, Ada. The Death of Hitler. New York: West Publishing Company, 1995.

Wistrich, Robert S. “Who is Who in Nazi Germany” Online, April 30, 1999:1-3.