Nazi Wives by James Wyllie

Author:James Wyllie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press

With everything that had been going on, the Christmas break offered a momentary respite for the Nazi elite. At the Berghof, the New Year’s Eve party – attended by Gerda, her husband, Eva and the rest of the Berghof in-crowd – was a livelier gathering than usual and there was a buzz about the place as the guests prepared for the evening’s entertainment. Eva’s sister, Gretl – who was slowly edging her way into the Berghof world – noted that ‘the hairdressers are under siege by the women, and the gentleman are fondly looking forward to their tuxedos’.11 After dinner, there was a firework display, then everybody moved into the great hall for traditional toasts and the countdown to 1939. Normally teetotal, Hitler forced himself to have a drink of champagne before retiring just after midnight, signalling that it was time to start winding things down.

The kind of parties with drinking and dancing until dawn were never a feature of life at the Berghof, at least when Hitler was there. Most evenings culminated in either a screening of a movie, or one of Hitler’s endless fireside chats where he spun out his thoughts into the early hours while his audience struggled to stay awake. Gerda was usually there – a Berghof regular observed that she would sit ‘by the fireplace among the wives of Hitler’s closest staff, not saying a word all evening’12 – but she was spared the late nights. Bormann had imposed a 10 p.m. curfew on her, because it was inappropriate for a mother like her (she had another new infant to contend with, a five-month year old girl she’d named Eva) to be out too late; Gerda needed her rest if she was going to keep their household in order.

So once the evening movie had finished or the clock struck the appointed hour in the room where Hitler held court, Gerda was sent home. Hitler’s valet remembered that even when Bormann ‘threw his own seasonal parties’, where the guests were ‘principally film actresses who interested him personally’, Gerda was ‘not permitted to circulate’ despite the fact she had to ‘do all the arranging and the chores’.13

Five days after the New Year’s Eve bash, Goebbels arrived in Obersalzburg. He’d had a miserable couple of months, contracted an ulcer and was taking heavy-duty sleeping pills to fend off bouts of insomnia. But after twelve days rest and less fraught discussions with Hitler, his batteries were recharged and he was ready to face Magda in Berlin. Her health had also been poor and though she was not yet prepared to forgive her husband, she consented to an official statement of intent regarding their marriage.

A lawyer was brought in to draw up a contract – which the couple signed on 22 January 1939 – that postponed a final decision for a year, enough time for Goebbels to demonstrate that he was truly a reformed character. In the wake of this, Baarova – who’d been waiting patiently in the wings –

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