Angela Maria " Geli"

Angelika Maria "Geli" Raubal, born 04-06-1908 in Linz, Austria, was Adolf Hitler’s (see Hitler parents) half niece. She was the second child and eldest daughter of Leo Raubal Sr. and Hitler's half-sister, Angela Raubal, she died age 66, on 30-10-1949, in Hannover. Geli was rumoured to be Adolf Hitler's (see Adolf Hitler) (did you know) lover. Hermann Goering (see Hermann Goering) (did you know) (see Goering Peter) would later tell attorneys at the Nuremberg trials that Raubal's death had devastated Hitler to such an extent that it changed his views and relationships with all other people. Raubal had two brothers, Peter, Leo and a sister, Elfriede. Her father died in 1910, at the age of 31 when Geli was two. Geli went to the Gymnasium in Linz where Alfred Maleta   became a good friend . .. . , which her motehr didn't liked which her aunt didn't liked. Alfred Maleta, who after the war became President of the Nationalrat, was first of all imprisoned in a concentration camp and later witnessed forced recruitment drives in Ukraine while serving as a Wehrmacht driver. He died old age 84 on 16-01-1990, in Mödling.  Geli wasn't a very enthousiastic student, she preferred Music, singing and playing tennis and in 1921 her aunt Maria Raubal, a teacher, retired from her school, moved to Linz, Dinghoferstrasse where Geli lived and became her personal teacher. She and Elfriede accompanied their mother when she became Hitler's housekeeper; Raubal was 17 at the time, Hitler 36 and would spend the next six years in close contact with her half-uncle. After World War I, her first cousin, William Patrick Hitler,  he died of a car accident age 76, on 14-07-1987, described his impression of Geli when he met her in Obersalzberg: Geli looks more like a child than a girl.

        You couldn't call her pretty exactly, but she had great natural charm. She usually went without a hat and wore very plain clothes, pleated skirts and white blouses. No jewellery except a gold swastika given to her by Uncle Adolf, whom she called Uncle Alf. As he rose to power as leader of the Nazi Party, Hitler kept a tight rein over Geli, who lived at either his Munich apartment or his Berghof villa near Berchtesgaden, where her mother served as housekeeper, after 1929. He did not allow her to associate with friends freely and attempted to have himself or someone he trusted near her at all times, accompanying her on window shopping excursions, to the movies, and to the opera. Despite Hitler's efforts to control her, Geli did not seem to return his feelings and became linked to Emil Maurice (see Maurice), dismissed him as a founding member of the SS and hitler's driver at that time, but Hitler later rehired and promoted him.

     Maurice later claimed that he "...loved her, but it was a strange affection that did not dare show itself." If any hard feelings arose on Hitler's part, they did not last, and he and Maurice were reconciled: during the last two days of Hitler's life, according to reports, he displayed two photographs on his dresser: one of his mother and one of Maurice. Before Geli Raubal's death, however, Hitler was also seeing other women, including 19-year-old Eva Braun (see Eva Braun)(see Braun parents), whom he had known for two years, and Erna Hanfstaengl.  However, many historians believe Hitler was deeply in love with Raubal and that after she died he changed for the worse. Even his close associates were puzzled by his relationship with Geli and did not know its exact nature. During the two years she lived in Hitler's flat, Geli entered medical school, dropped out and then took up singing lessons, which she also abandoned. She was religious and attended Mass regularly. Most contemporary accounts by those who knew her are favorable, with the exception of that of propagandist Ernst Hanfstaengl, Erna's younger brother, (see Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstaengl) he died age 88, on 06-11-1975 in Munich, Bogenhausen, who called her an "empty-headed little slut, with the coarse sort of bloom of a servant girl with no brains or character. She was perfectly content to preen herself in her fine clothes, and certainly never gave any impression of reciprocating Hitler's twisted tenderness." On the morning of 19-09-1931, members of Hitler's staff found Geli Raubal dead from a gunshot wound to the lung in her room in Hitler's Munich apartment, Prinzregentenplatz 16 second floor. She was 23 and the official cause of death was listed as suicide. The finding of suicide was based on the fact that her door had been locked from the inside. No autopsy was conducted, although a doctor estimated that her death had occurred the previous day, September 18. There were many rumours, since she was killed by a bullet fired from his pistol, a Walther, it was rumoured that Hitler had shot her, or had ordered her to be shot, for infidelity or other reasons. As these rumours circulated, Hitler (see Hitler Paula) himself released a statement to the Münchener Post: It is untrue that I and my niece had a quarrel on Friday 18 September; it is untrue that I was violently opposed to my niece going to Vienna; it is untrue that my niece was engaged to someone in Vienna and I forbade it. Geli's death occurred on a night when the entire Hitler household staff, the couple Georg and Anna Winter, Anna Kirmair and Maria Reichert were off duty except for a deaf worker, Frau Dachs, and it is said that it was a rare occurrence for Hitler to leave behind his pistol. The police Chief Constables Sauer and Forster came to the appartment and later also Constable Dr. Müller and they were received by the NSDAP official Franz Xaver Schwarz who was already informed and instructed by Hitler.

   Schwarz died 02-12-1947, age 72, in an Allied internment camp near Regensburg, due to recurring gastric troubles.  By all accounts, they had argued intensely in the days leading to her death. Her brother Leo said that she had been happy at Berchtesgaden in the days preceding the beginning of her visit to Munich, on September 17. She left a note behind, addressed to a friend in Vienna that read: "When I come to Vienna, hopefully very soon, we'll drive to Semmering, an..." The note was left unfinished. Hanfstaengl maintained that Raubal killed herself following a "flaming row" with Hitler, who had discovered that she was pregnant by a Jewish art teacher in Linz. Other reports claim that Raubal had requested permission to continue her voice studies in Vienna and that Hitler, (see Alois) had refused to allow her to go, causing their fight of September 18. Hitler had left town the previous afternoon for a speaking tour and returned from Nuremberg on hearing the news of Raubal's death. Hitler would later threaten to commit suicide while in seclusion at Tegern Lake. He had made similar threats during past moments of personal crisis or defeat, most notably after the failed Beer Hall Putsch. The pathologist Maria Fischbaur then arrived and the body was transferred to the East Cemetery of Munich, the cemetery where later the bodies of the Nuremberg condemned were cremated. Geli's mother Angela wanted her to be buried on the Zentral Cemetery in Vienna and only she, Geli's brother Leo, sister Elfriede and Hitler's sister Paula were present on 23-09-1931. Hitler who didn't ask permission to cross the border visited the grave three days later on 26-09-1931 and Emil Maurice drove him in the Meredes IIA 19357 and he stayed for 25 minutes on the cemetery. The Austrian customs officers looked the other way as he passed the border.  Hitler then drove to the hotel "Goldenes Lamm" were he met the family. Back in Munich he personaly ordered his adjutant Julius Schaub (see Staub) to destroy all letters, documents and files about Geli, but the secretary Christa Schroeder (see Schroeder) succeeded to grab some Geli souvenirs, a few letters. Hitler would keep a bust or portrait of Raubal, and ordered Ferdinand Liebermann, a sculptor, to complete two busts, one in each of his bedrooms,

        and a painting of Geli made by Adolf Ziegler. His entourage was instructed not to say her name. Official Nazi photographer Heinrich Hoffmann (see Hoffmann) said of Raubal's death "That was when the seeds of inhumanity began to grow inside Hitler." Eight women, all the same types, that are thought, possibly, to have been intimate with Hitler, attempted suicide: Mimi Reiter (see Reiter) tried to hang herself 1928, Geli Raubal died of a gun-shot with Hitler's Walter pistol, 1931, Eva Braun (see Braun) tried suicide in 1932 with a gun too and in 1935 with medicin, before succeeding in 1945, Frau Inge Ley,   Renate Müller (see Müller), and Suzi Liptauer were all successful suicides, and Unity Mitford (see Mitford) attempted suicide in 1939.   The body of Geli Raubal, was still temporary buried in a vault on the Zentral Cemetery of Vienna, but as her mother Angela Raubal-Hammitzsch did not react on the cemetery letters. The cemetery management removed her remains after the entry of the German Army on 12-03-1938, reburied her in plot 23 E, row 2, grave 73, to see on her marker, but the gravestone was soon destroyed and the area around is meanwhile equalized now and not recognizable without a map. Hitler visited her grave three times. On this cemetery is also buried the flyer ace Walter Nowotny (see Nowotny).