Hitler's Women

Guido Knopp turns the spotlight on the principal women in Hitler's life. Here are six vivid pen-portraits of women whose lives, different as they were, were all fatally bound up with that of Hitler himself. Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, whom he always kept in the background until the final bizarre marriage ceremony in the bunker before they died together; Magda Goebbels, a devotee of Hitler, wife of the Reich Propaganda Minister, and Nazi `super-mum', who ended by killing herself and her six young children; Winifred Wagner, the English-born daughter-in-law of composer Richard Wagner, who introduced Hitler into influential circles and later put Wagner's music to the service of the Reich; Leni Riefenstahl, the brilliant film-maker who flirted with Hitler and lent her talent to the Nazis, but claimed to be a non-political artist; Zarah Leander, the hugely popular Swedish singer and film star, who gave Hitler advice on his hair-style and boosted the morale of the Wehrmacht; and finally the legendary screen goddess Marlene Dietrich, who, unlike the other five, resisted all the temptations of power and wealth in Hitler's Germany. She emigrated to the USA and became a committed and high-profile opponent of the Nazi regime.
Supported by photographs, many of which are previously unpublished, and the words of close friends and colleagues of those portrayed, Guido Knopp's account brings back to life a generation who, with a few courageous exceptions, succumbed to enticement and connived in atrocity.