At twenty-five minutes past two on the morning of February 7, 1912, Eva Anna Paula Braun was born in Munich. Later in life she was to become the mystery woman of Hitler's Third Reich. Wife of Hitler for one day and his mistress for twelve years, she first met Hitler in 1929 while she was assistant to the beer-loving Heinrich Hoffmann, the Third Reich's official photographer who had his shop at No.50 Schellingstrasse. He had already joined the Nazi party with party card number 427. Eva Braun committed suicide with Hitler on April 30, 1945 in his underground bunker in the Reich Chancellery gardens in Berlin. It was her third attempt, the first having been in November 1932 when she was found, with a bullet in her neck. On May 28, 1935, Eva, who often complained of Hitler's neglect, decided to take thirty-five sleeping pills just to 'make certain'. Late that night she was found unconscious by her sister Ilse who called a doctor just in time to save her life. It is interesting to note that Eva never became a Nazi Party member. Outside of Hitler's close circle of cronies she was completely unknown to the general public until after the war. Eva's mother, Franziska Braun, lived to the ripe old age of 96 and died in Ruhpolding, Bavaria in January,1976. Her father, Fritz Braun, died on January 22, 1964.
