Chapter 47

November 1, 1932

The grimmer the predictions of our losses in the upcoming November elections, the harder we labored to overcome them.

On the evening of November 1, five days before the election, Wolf and I were poring over our lists of candidates in our Munich headquarters when the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann called. I answered the phone.

Hoffman bellowed, “Friedrich, it’s going to fall down on us. Hard.”

“What are you talking about, Heinrich?”

“It’s Eva Braun. She shot herself.”

I blurted. “What? Like Geli? Is she dead?”

“No.”

Hearing this, Wolf jumped to his feet and spun me around. “What’s happened?”

He reached for the Bakelite receiver. I turned my back on him and covered the mouthpiece. “Let me hear what Heinrich has to say.” To Hoffman, “Tell me what you know.”

“The details are sketchy. Thank God she called my brother-in-law before she passed out. He’s a physician. He got the emergency team to her parents’ house within minutes. She was alone. Eva used her father’s gun. She lost blood, but the wound is not serious. She will survive.”

“Where is Eva now?”

“I arranged for a private clinic, so the press won’t get wind of this. If they connect the Boss to two women who tried to commit suicide thirteen months apart, the papers will eviscerate him. Keep him away until we’re sure we have this under wraps.”

Hoffmann clicked off.

Wolf grabbed my shirt with both fists and shook me. “Friedrich, tell me what happened. Don’t keep anything from me.”

“Eva was alone in her parents’ house. She tried to kill herself.”

“How?”

“With Fritz’s gun. They got to her in time. She will be fine.”

I wasn’t sure that he heard me. Wolf rocked from foot to foot, staring at nothing. He patted his pant leg with a nervous tic, and then pulled a piece of blue stationary from his pocket. It had four-leaf clovers across the top.

He stared at it before explaining. “I received this farewell letter this morning. It made no sense that Eva told me goodbye. Now I understand. Why would she do such a thing?”

“Wolf. We must talk. Sit down.”

He stood fast, one hand clutching the chair and the other holding the letter with trembling fingers. He turned toward the door. “There is no time to talk, Friedrich. We must go at once.”

“You cannot go. Not now. There is time enough tomorrow morning.”

“No one can tell the Führer what he can and cannot do. Not even you, Friedrich.”

He tried to push past me, but I blocked his path. “Adolf,” I raised my voice. “You need to listen to what I have to say. After that, I will respect your decision to go now or, as I suggest, wait until tomorrow morning.”

Wolf edged onto the chair. He planted his feet and folded his hands in his lap.

Wolf never forgave himself for not seeing Geli before she passed. “I know how difficult this is for you, but Hoffmann assured me that Eva will survive. This is not about getting there for her last minutes.”

“Eva needs me now.”

“Of course she does. But at this moment, the party needs you more. The election is in five days. That’s why you must remain here tonight. We’ll see her in the morning.”

“I don’t understand. How can seeing my Eva matter to the party?”

“Consider what the doctors and nurses in the clinic will think if Adolf Hitler, the leader of the NSDAP, marches into the hospital minutes after a young clerk from a photography studio tried to kill herself? What possible explanation could there be for this rush to visit a no-name shop girl unless you are involved in a way you shouldn’t be? Our enemies will conjure up what happened to Geli. Then no matter what we say, no matter how much we try to explain you being there, the world would know that two women involved with Adolf Hitler tried to kill themselves months apart. That would end your career.” I plumbed his face to see if there was a flicker of understanding. “What if a curious reporter got lucky and found out about Maria Reiter? That she tried to hang herself? Think about that.”

“That was years ago.” Wolf squirmed off his chair and headed for the door. “Friedrich. If I went to the clinic tonight, the press would think that I care about all people, even a young shop girl like Eva. It would be natural for me to be there. That’s what politicians do.”

He turned to leave.

“Show that you care by seeing her in the morning. That’s what politicians do. Lovers show up in the middle of the night. If Eva were in a public hospital, I wouldn’t let you go in the morning either. Wolf. Please. You have no choice but to protect your reputation.”

He paused at the door. “Friedrich, if everything plays out according to my plan, no one will ever question what I do. Never again.”

“That is all the more reason to be prudent now.”

Wolf slid back into the room.

“Then you agree not to go there tonight?”

He nodded.

I wrung my hands together. “There’s something else. This is not the first time I have seen this stationary. Geli discovered Eva’s note to you after she went through your pockets. Anni Winter found it ripped in pieces after Geli killed herself.”

The blood drained from Wolf’s face. “If that’s true, then I killed Geli.”

“Geli killed herself,” I said. “Now Eva has tried. I suspect for the same reason. She must have found out about the others.”

He looked up at me. “What are you talking about?”

“Maria Reiter. Marlene Weinrich. The dancer, Lola Epp. For all I know, you are doing her sister, Inge, too. Maybe there are others I don’t know about. Wolf, you have to stop seeing women on the side.”

He did not deny any of this. “I have no formal arrangement with Eva.”

“According to Trude, Eva believed she was your one and only. So did Geli. If you care about Eva, make it so. Otherwise, there may be a catastrophe.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“That’s irrelevant. What matters is that the election is five days from now and you are vulnerable. You need to be careful.”

The following morning, I accompanied Wolf to the clinic. With flowers in hand, he tiptoed into Eva’s room; I watched from the doorway. She was asleep. Other than a lone bandage on her neck, there were no other visible wounds. A nurse took the flowers and put them in a vase. We left without waking her.

In the hallway, we met Eva’s doctor—Dr. Plate—coming to check his patient. Wolf asked about her status.

“Good thing she called for help before passing out. That saved her life.” The doctor reassured us that Eva would mend quickly. “She aimed for her heart but missed. The bullet lodged in her neck without damaging a major vessel. I was able to extract it before moving her here.”

Wolf took the doctor by the arm. “Did she stage this to gain my attention? Or are you saying this was a real attempt at suicide?”

He met Wolf’s piercing gaze with his own. “Herr Hitler, this was real. Make no mistake about it. Eva Braun tried to kill herself.”

Outside the clinic, Wolf said, “Friedrich, she did this for the love of me. Now I must look after her.”

November 6, 1932

The turnout for Sunday’s election was dismal. More than fifty parties offered candidates. When the results were tabulated, we lost two million votes and thirty-four seats in the Reichstag. The Communists gained eleven seats. While we remained the Reichstag’s largest party, it was a blow.

Two days after our election, on November 8, 1932, the United States elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president. Nine days after that, after repeated failures to entice Adolf Hitler to join his government, Papen resigned the chancellorship.

Even without a controlling majority, Wolf was in line to become chancellor of Germany. Or so we thought. But two weeks later, Hindenburg selected Schleicher to replace Papen.

Wolf and I were having tea in the Kaiserhof Hotel when we heard the news. Hitler was crushed.

But there was another issue that couldn’t wait. “We need to talk about Gregor Strasser,” I said.

“Is there something I should know?” responded Wolf.

“Schleicher is considering Strasser for vice chancellor. Given that half our deputies support Strasser and would vote for him, and that the Catholic Centre is behind Schleicher, it would end the impasse in the Reichstag. Schleicher would be the first chancellor to have a majority. He would not need a presidential decree to govern. Worst of all, Strasser would replace you as head of the NSDAP.”

Wolf slammed the table. “Strasser will never have a chance to get rid of me.”

Wolf summoned Strasser to a private meeting. He obviously threatened him behind closed doors, because Strasser immediately resigned as head of the Central Political Commission to leave for an “extended vacation.” Hess took his place. Hitler spent the next few days mending fences with the party leaders around the country. But his mood was grim.

Try as we did, we were no closer to our goal. Indeed, it was slipping further away. Shortly before the Christmas holiday, I sat with Hitler in his office in the Braunes Haus.

“Friedrich, what if nothing becomes of my dreams? Many industrialists have come to accept us, but not the aristocrats. It appears they never will. As for Schleicher and Strasser . . . God, how I hate them!”

Then his mood turned darker. “The day I am certain that everything is lost, I will face my defeat and end my life with a bullet.”

He said the same thing six weeks earlier when we lost delegates in the last election. He didn’t mean it then. He did now.