EVA WHO LOVED LOVE

 

3 EVA WHO LOVED LOVE

When the middle aged man wearing a black coat and having a thick toothbrush moustache entered the studio where she was working, seventeen year old Eva had no doubt who he was: Charlie Chaplin.

Studio owner Heinrich Hoffman, official photographer of the Nazi party, smiled. When the visitor left he told Eva:That was Adolf Hitler.

Eva, pretty, blond, blue-eyed, was a dumb girl who did not know anything about politics or who Hitler was. Hitler, who was an ‘old man’ in her eyes, was forty at that time. He was only rising in German politics and his Nazi party was yet to come to power. Though he was far from becoming Chancellor, he was already able to influence the thinking of a large section of the German people.

When she went home Eva excitedly told her father about her meeting with Hitler. Her father burst out. Hitler is a cheat and fraud. It is unthinkable even of walking along with him on the same path.

True, Hitler and his Nazi party had been considered as a thorn in the eye by many people. But that was the time when the feeling of German nationalism was spreading like wildfire. While for many it was a passion, for Hitler it was sheer craze.

From the moment he saw Eva in Hoffman’s studio Hitler was charmed by her. Some days later he came to the studio and said something to Hoffman. After he left, Hoffman told Eva that Hitler was coming to his home for dinner that evening. Hoffman wanted Eva also there.

At the dinner, Hitler’s attention was always on Eva. In the course of the conversation he said he had a wife: ‘I am married to Germany. ’ From the glitter in his eyes Hoffman realised that Hitler had already installed Eva in his mind. Eva also knew that she was destined to be Hitler’s life partner.

But Hitler’s first ‘wife,’ Germany, had occasionally created obstacles before her. In his drive to keep German politics under his thumb, Hitler used to forget everything else, sometimes including Eva.

Hitler’s Nazi party got majority in the 1932 elections. He was preparing for his elevation as German Chancellor. He had no time for Eva. When such neglect extended for over six months, Eva was crestfallen. She was lonely, she did not even get the support of her family.

One day when there was no one else in her house, Eva took her father’s pistol and shot herself.  She missed the target slightly, but was injured in the neck. It was then that she had a desire to live, live for the sake of Hitler. She telephoned Hoffman’s brother-in-law, Dr Wilhem Platen, who came rushing and put her in a hospital. The bullet was removed. When he heard about it from Hoffman, Hitler rushed to the hospital and met Eva.

Hitler’s political ambitions did not come to fruition as expected. President Hindenburg was not prepared to hand over power to Hitler. One day in a hotel room at Munich he told Eva that it was the darkest moment in his life. She consoled him, saying it was a good thing, because after darkness there would be light.

Her words deeply touched him. His despondency had gone and he was in his spirited best.

From then on march of events was hectic. On January 30, 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

As in the past when his obsession with Germany was too much Hitler neglected Eva, forcing her to atempt suicide for a second time. She took an overdose of pills and fell down unconscious. Her sister saw her and called a doctor under whose medication Eva survived.

But there was a problem. Since the doctor was a jew, Eva’s sister was reluctant to convey the news to Hitler.

But the head of Hitler’s secret police Gestapo knew the whole story and informed Hitler. He came to her hospital bed and told her he needed her and that he would not let her go. From then onwards Hitler took care of Eva in every way. He provided her with a house and the Nazi party treasurer was asked to meet all her expenditure.

It was the raging Second World War that really brought out the love that the two had for each other. At the height of the war, Hitler had sent Eva to a safe haven, but she could not remain there for long because of her concern for Hitler. As the war was grinding to its inevitable end, Eva left for Berlin one day, eager to be by the side of Hitler in his darkest hour. Things did not go as she had expected. Her car was damaged in Allied bombing and Eva had to take refuge in a roadside bunker. She spent the night in the bunker and then went on to the Fuhrer’s Bunker, an elaborate air raid shelter beneath the Chancellory. After great hardship she reached him.

It was while in the bunker, where he knew that the end was nearing, that Hitler remembered a question put to him once by his secretary: Why not marry Eva?

Two guards who were with Hitler told Eva that they would be with him till their death. But before that they would like to marry the girls they loved, who too were in the bunker. The weddings were conducted there itself, with the blessings of Eva and Hitler.

In the night of April 29, 1945, when Allied bombers showered bombs overhead, Eva came in all her bridal finery, in the circumstances, for the wedding. After formally marrying his companion of several years, Hitler told his associates: In the end, after retiring from Chancellorship, I wanted to settle down in my home town in Austria and spend the rest of my life with Eva as an ordinary man. But there is no time for that. Let God decide.

Preparing for the last journey, he took out the cyanide capsules kept ready. The first one was for his dog, which fell down dead instantly. Then bidding farewell to all, Hitler held Eva’s hand and resolutely walked to his private room and closed the door. After some time gunshots were heard.

When his assistants opened the door, Hitler and Eva were seen lying on a sofa, dead. He had a bullet hole on his forehead from which blood was oozing out. Eva appeared to be smiling. Her pistol was lying on the ground.

It was love whose intensity went beyond death.

Hitler was generally considered as a brutish villain, a maniac killer, but through Eva perhaps the world realized that he too had a tender side to him.