Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler (Image: Pen News Limited)
Thomas Lundmark, who has completed an authoritative biography of Braun’s life, said she likely suffered from Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome. It’s a rare condition that occurs when an unborn baby fails to fully develop a reproductive system, leaving a woman with little or no uterus, and a vaginal canal that can be short, narrow or totally missing. Adults with untreated MRKH say it makes sex agonising, and many seek surgical intervention – including, Professor Lundmark believes, Eva Braun.
“There’s really no question about it,” he said.
One key piece of evidence is a calendar kept by the wife of Dr Gustav Scholten – a prominent Nazi gynaecologist working at Munich’s Klinik Rechts der Isar.
On the calendar, Mrs Scholten describes a call from Hitler’s residence, the Berghof, writing: “Telephone call Berghof. Trip to Italy from Fuehrer. Thanks for operation Eva Braun.”
Dr Scholten was killed in a car accident in August 1944, but Professor Lundmark was able to track down the surgeon’s son, Gerhard, who has since died too.
Gerhard recalled being on Eva Braun’s ward at the hospital and also confirmed that his mother had enjoyed an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy, courtesy of Hitler.
“I talked to the son and he told me that he was in the hospital and Eva’s room was filled with flowers like a flower shop,” said Professor Lundmark.
“He was actually there visiting his aunt and his aunt was saying ‘all she [Eva] does is complain the whole day and say how much pain she’s in..'”
The reason for the operation is confirmed in an interview with Eva’s mother, Fanny, conducted by the Turkish-American journalist Nerin Gun, who published a biography of Braun in 1968.
Eva likely suffered from Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome (Image: Pen News Limited)
“She was operated on for a narrow vagina,” said Professor Lundmark.
“So I started asking around what the heck could this be? And I ended up talking to a surgeon at the Münster University Hospital, one of the most prestigious hospitals in Germany.
“He said: ‘What you’re describing is MRKH’. One in 5,000 girls have this condition.”
That Eva Braun knew Dr Scholten well is undeniable.
Professor Lundmark has photographed a note written by Braun on her personalised stationery, promising the surgeon an invite to her house.
Gerhard Scholten also recalled how Eva consolled him shortly after the death of his father and took him swimming in the Königssee – a mountain lake close to the Berghof.
The testimony of others who knew Braun personally sheds further light on the nature of her relationship with the Nazi kingpin.
Professor Lundmark has photographed a note written by Braun on her personalised stationery (Image: Pen News Limited)
During a trip to Rome, Eva confessed to her translator, the Nazi diplomat Eugen Dollmann, that she had no physical intimacy with Hitler.
According to Dollmann’s memoir, she said: “Mission, mission, mission is all he knows… the very idea of physical contact would mean contamination of
his mission.
“Many times watching the sun rise together he has confessed to me that he can only love Germany.
“The youth of Germany, who look up to him as an example, shouldn’t have to be disappointed by sordid love stories, for then they would lose trust in the cause.”
In Professor Lundmark’s view, there’s no cause to doubt Dollmann’s testimony – especially since it makes for a less salacious story.
“Dollmann had no reason to make this stuff up,” he said.
He also cites Hitler’s personal physician, Dr Karl Brandt, and two of his secretaries, Gertraud Junge and Christa Schroeder, who dismissed any notion that there was a sexual relationship with Braun.
During a trip to Rome, Eva confessed to her translator that she had no physical intimacy with Hitler (Image: Pen News Limited)
The Berghof’s caretaker, Herbert Döhring, said the same on camera.
“There is no evidence,” Döhring said. “We – my wife – could not find anything at all, nor could the chambermaids, no one, not even the servants could ever find anything.
“My wife was always so curious – she would inspect the laundry when Hitler had left. Nothing, nothing, nothing.”
Even Hitler himself, in his last will and testament, suggests a platonic relationship when he credits Braun for “many years of faithful friendship”.
The only mention he makes of love is of love for his people.
Professor Lundmark said: “There’s no person close to Eva who contended that they had a romantic relationship, not even her parents.
“She never told anybody that, that there’s any record of. So the likelihood of them having any intimacy is basically nil.”
Professor Lundmark’s book *Eva Braun: Her Life and Times: 1912-1945* is available on Amazon (Image: Pen News Limited)
Nor could the professor find any suggestion of Braun having any former lovers.
“What you would expect is that maybe she had a boyfriend or a teenage heart-throb or something like this,” he said.
“You’d expect that someone would come out of the woodwork at some point and say ‘oh yeah, well, I had a thing with Eva Braun‘.
“But there’s nobody out there.”
He added: “She never went out with a man, even Hitler, unescorted.”
The reality of Hitler’s relationship with Eva Braun, Professor Lundmark thinks, is that she offered him shield against speculation about his personal life.
“She literally lived for Hitler,” he said, “and he used her.”
Professor Lundmark’s book *Eva Braun: Her Life and Times: 1912-1945* is available on Amazon.