When Adolf Hitler's half-niece was found dead in a pool of her own blood, the Nazi party rushed to cover up the scene.
But who killed Geli Raubal, why, and did she take some very dark secrets with her to the grave?
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a woman called Geli Raubal.
[00:00:28] It is a fascinating story that involves suicide, allegations of violence, infatuation, and the 20th century’s most famous dictator, and I’m excited to share it with you today.
[00:00:41] Ok then, let’s get right into it and tell the story of Geli Raubal.
[00:00:50] On September 19th, 1931, the police pushed open the door of an apartment in Munich, in Germany.
[00:00:59] There was an eerie silence in the air. Something seemed wrong.
[00:01:04] It didn’t take long for the police to notice.
[00:01:08] Lying on the floor, in a pool of blood, was a lifeless young girl.
[00:01:15] There was a bullet wound to her chest, and a pistol lay by her side.
[00:01:21] Her name was Geli Raubal, and she had turned 23 a few months beforehand.
[00:01:29] The name Geli Raubal might not mean much to you, and it might not have meant much to many people at the time.
[00:01:38] But Geli Raubal was the niece of Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party, the political party that had risen from relative obscurity to become the second largest party in Germany a year beforehand, and a man who would later be responsible for dragging Europe into a war that would claim more lives than any other in human history.
[00:02:03] And there was his niece, lying there, dead. Not only dead, but lying in Adolf Hitler’s apartment, the bullet that killed her came from his very own gun.
[00:02:19] So, what happened, who was Geli Raubal, why do some people think he was responsible for her death, perhaps that it was even Hitler himself who pulled the trigger?
[00:02:32] First, a bit of family history for you. Adolf Hitler was the fourth of six children.
[00:02:40] His father had been married before, and had two children. The second of which was called Angela, which, if you’re following, made her Adolf Hitler’s half-sister, his sister from another marriage.
[00:02:55] Although Angela and Adolf didn’t really know each other as children, in 1925 she moved in next to him, becoming his housekeeper.
[00:03:06] She brought with her her 17 year old daughter, who was also called Angela, or Geli for short.
[00:03:13] Technically Geli was Hitler’s half-niece, because her mother was his half-sister, but for the sake of ease in this episode I’ll refer to her as his “niece” and him as her “uncle”.
[00:03:27] After all, their blood relationship might have been slightly removed, but Hitler and his half-niece would become very close.
[00:03:37] Now, back to Geli. She was, reportedly, the sort of person that you would remember.
[00:03:44] One woman who knew her described her walking down the street one day, saying ‘I saw her and I just stopped dead. She was so tall and beautiful that I said nothing. And she saw me standing there and said, ‘Are you frightened of me?’ And I said, ‘No, I was just admiring you… ’
[00:04:05] Another, Hitler’s driver, a man called Emil Maurice, who will crop up again shortly, said Geli was “a princess, people on the street would turn around” just to stare at her.
[00:04:18] And another described her as a “naturally vivacious and flirtatious” young woman who wanted to go out, dance, and wear makeup.
[00:04:29] Clearly, she was a beautiful young lady with an independent character, someone who you would remember, and someone who most likely would have had no shortage of male admirers.
[00:04:42] One of those male admirers, it would seem, was her own uncle, Adolf.
[00:04:49] As a quick reminder of the age gap here, Geli was 17 when she went to live with her uncle. Adolf Hitler, 19 years her senior, would have been going on 40.
[00:05:02] He was over twice her age, he was literally old enough to be her father, but it was not such a large age gap that romance would have been completely out of the question.
[00:05:15] Whether or not the feelings were romantic, he was clearly very fond of his young niece.
[00:05:21] He paid for her singing lessons, he would walk around with this young girl on his arm, and he wanted her to go with him everywhere he went.
[00:05:32] As she grew into a young woman, Hitler also became insanely jealous.
[00:05:39] He didn’t like the way other people looked at Geli; he wanted to keep her for himself.
[00:05:46] You can imagine, therefore, how furious he was when he discovered that Geli had been having an affair with Hitler’s private driver, a man with Jewish heritage called Emil Maurice.
[00:06:00] When he discovered the pair in a compromising position, Hitler reportedly threatened to whip his chauffeur, and promptly fired him, reportedly declaring that he should be “shot like a mad dog”.
[00:06:14] Things were never the same between Geli and her uncle after this.
[00:06:19] She couldn’t be trusted, and was put under near constant surveillance.
[00:06:25] As you might imagine, this put serious pressure on the young lady. She was, essentially, a prisoner in Hitler’s household, and told her friends “My uncle is a monster, nobody understands what he demands of me”.
[00:06:42] So, what did he demand of her?
[00:06:45] She knew, he knew, perhaps her mother knew, but it is now a secret that has been forever consigned to the history books.
[00:06:55] Some speculate that the relationship between the two was romantic, or sexual, or both. Hitler was clearly infatuated with his young niece, and he was furious at the thought of her being in a relationship with any other man.
[00:07:13] And as for whether the feelings might have been mutual, he was an up-and-coming politician, a powerful man.
[00:07:21] Sure, his political opinions might have been vile, but is it completely beyond the realms of possibility that she might have found her uncle attractive and there have been some kind of romantic relationship between the pair?
[00:07:37] Another variant on this theory is that there was some kind of sexual relationship between the two, but romance and attraction didn’t play a part in it; in other words, it was abusive.
[00:07:52] Although Hitler didn’t show any signs of being a sexual abuser, clearly he had monstrous tendencies - is it such a step to think he might have abused a young woman he was obsessed with?
[00:08:06] And another theory is that there was no sexual element to the relationship at all, it was all about Hitler wanting to control his niece and not allow her to have any kind of relationship with anyone else, well, certainly not any other man.
[00:08:23] Whatever the truth, all of the evidence suggests that Adolf Hitler was completely obsessed with his niece, and that he did love her deeply, even if this love might have been warped and twisted.
[00:08:37] So, what happened?
[00:08:40] Well, Geli and her mother had moved in with Hitler in 1925.
[00:08:46] In 1927 her affair with Hitler’s chauffeur had been discovered, and she had been kept under what we could describe as house arrest, only allowed out with some sort of chaperone, a guard with her.
[00:08:59] In 1929 she had started studying at university in Munich, and had moved into a large apartment owned by Hitler, although the two did keep separate bedrooms.
[00:09:12] And a year and a half later, on the morning of September 18th, 1931 the pair would be heard having a huge argument, shouting and shrieking at each other.
[00:09:26] The following day, on September 19th, Geli Raubal would be found dead, in a pool of her own blood.
[00:09:35] The truth about what actually happened will most likely never be revealed, but here are the theories.
[00:09:43] The first category of theories, if we can call them that, revolve around the idea that she killed herself.
[00:09:51] Naturally, if someone is found in a pool of their blood with a gun by their side, this is the obvious answer.
[00:10:00] But, you are probably thinking, if she killed herself, why did she do it?
[00:10:06] One theory is that the argument with her uncle was over a potential husband, a young Jewish man. She wanted to go to Vienna, so the theory goes, to get engaged to this man. Hitler forbade it, he said it was absolutely not allowed, and, unable to bear the sorrow, the heartbreak, she killed herself.
[00:10:31] Another was that she had stage fright; she was about to have her musical debut and she got frightened. This would be the official verdict given by the police and the Nazi party.
[00:10:43] Another was that the pressure from Hitler was too great, that she couldn’t continue her life as a prisoner, and this was the only way out.
[00:10:53] Another is that she was jealous of Hitler, who was forming an increasingly close relationship with another woman, Eva Braun. Geli couldn’t bear the possibility of losing her uncle to another woman, so this was her only route out.
[00:11:12] Another might sound even more extreme, and it’s that she was pregnant with Hitler’s child. This would have been problematic for many reasons, but particularly the fact that the two were so closely related. Killing herself was the only route out, so the theory goes.
[00:11:32] And there’s another related theory that she was pregnant, not with Hitler’s child, but with the child of another man, the mysterious Jewish man from Vienna. If Hitler had been furious to find out that Geli was merely having an affair with his partially Jewish driver, imagine the fury that he would have unleashed when he found out that his adored niece was pregnant with the child of a Jewish man.
[00:12:00] Now, there are other theories that Geli did indeed kill herself, she pulled the trigger, she shot herself, but she didn’t actually mean to kill herself.
[00:12:12] The reason for doing this could have been any of the ones I just mentioned, from showing her uncle she was serious about getting married to the Jewish man in Vienna through to that he needed to stop being so possessive of her.
[00:12:26] This might sound like an extreme length to go to to get someone’s attention, but perhaps shooting herself was the only way she thought she could get her uncle’s attention.
[00:12:38] Although we don’t know anything about the kind of discussions and arguments that Hitler had with his niece, his later actions don’t give us much confidence that he would have been a rational person, open to sensible arguments.
[00:12:53] Perhaps Geli thought the only way she could show her uncle that she was serious about whatever she was proposing was by going to such an extreme length as attempting suicide.
[00:13:05] In fact, another of Hitler’s lovers did this, Eva Braun. She tried to kill herself on two separate occasions to get Hitler’s attention, once by shooting herself and once by taking sedatives.
[00:13:20] Clearly, in her case, it did work, or at least she didn’t die and Hitler started paying more attention.
[00:13:29] Now, as to our third category of theory, this revolves around the idea that it was Adolf Hitler himself who pulled the trigger, it was the future Fuhrer who killed his 23-year-old niece in cold blood.
[00:13:44] Although this would make for a gripping story, a plot twist even, the timeline for this makes it seem a little unlikely. Hitler and his niece had lunch on the Friday, he left Munich for Hamburg shortly after lunch, and Geli was found dead the following morning.
[00:14:04] He had an alibi, that he simply wasn’t there.
[00:14:08] But there are some clues that suggest this might not be as plausible as it seems.
[00:14:16] Geli was found with a fractured nose, a broken nose, as if someone had hit her very hard.
[00:14:25] On her desk was a letter she was writing to a friend in Vienna, which described how she was excited about her trip. But the letter ended abruptly, almost as if someone had interrupted her in the middle of writing it.
[00:14:40] Sure, it’s possible that she was writing an excited letter to her friend and then stopped in the middle of it to shoot herself but it seems…unlikely.
[00:14:52] What’s more, when she was found dead on the Saturday morning, it’s believed that she could have been dead for anywhere up to 24 hours, so she could have been shot the day before.
[00:15:05] So, why would Hitler have killed his niece, or have arranged for someone else to do it, or that a senior member of the Nazi party took matters into their own hands?
[00:15:16] The theories mainly revolve around the idea that Geli posed a threat to the rise of the Nazi party; she knew things that could prove dangerous to Hitler if they became public knowledge.
[00:15:30] There are rumours of explicit letters that Hitler wrote to Geli, and even some of pornographic sketches that Hitler made of his niece.
[00:15:41] Even if there was no physical evidence, Geli knew things, or at least people thought she knew intimate, embarrassing, details about Hitler. She was talking to her friends or a mysterious Jewish lover about Hitler’s infatuation for her, of the things that she said he made her do.
[00:16:02] Clearly, this was politically very dangerous for both Hitler and the Nazi party, so either he or someone else silenced her forever.
[00:16:14] Now, this is purely a theory, but the ruthlessness that the Nazi party would show in terms of killing anyone who got in its way suggests that they wouldn’t have thought twice about getting rid of Hitler’s niece if she was a perceived threat.
[00:16:30] Whatever really happened to Geli Raubal in that apartment, it had a profound effect on Hitler.
[00:16:37] Of course, it’s hard to have any sympathy for the man, not only because of his later atrocities, but also because he was directly or indirectly responsible for this young woman’s death. It did, however, undeniably cause him great sorrow.
[00:16:55] He missed her funeral, preferring to be on his own at a lake house. He declared that all of her clothes and belongings should be gathered in one room, which would be kept as a shine to her memory.
[00:17:10] Some within the Nazi party even feared that he would kill himself out of sadness.
[00:17:17] And the Nazi party acted fast to try to minimise the political damage caused, and to hide this from the German public.
[00:17:27] Remember, this was in September of 1931. He was the country’s hottest up-and-coming politician, and would become Chancellor on the 30th of January 1933, less than a year and a half after Geli’s death.
[00:17:44] The party had to act, and act fast. The fewer questions, the better.
[00:17:51] There was no proper post-mortem or investigation into her death. Her body was discovered on Saturday morning and immediately sent away before the newspapers came out on the Monday.
[00:18:04] Still, question marks were asked. One anti-Nazi paper started with the headline A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR: HITLER’S NIECE COMMITS SUICIDE, asking the questions that you heard about a few minutes ago. Other newspapers followed, Hitler was forced to issue a written statement denying any involvement in it, and for a brief period it looked like this might turn into a real national scandal, one that could even topple the upcoming politician’s rise to power.
[00:18:40] It wasn’t to be.
[00:18:42] The cover-up, or at least attempts to make sure no questions could be asked, worked.
[00:18:49] Geli’s body was hidden away from view, any evidence was destroyed or taken away by the Nazi party, so there was simply no way to get to the truth.
[00:18:59] And as you’ll know this did nothing to stop Hitler’s rise to power.
[00:19:07] Hitler became the Fuhrer, marching into Poland shortly before the eighth anniversary of Geli’s death.
[00:19:14] This was almost 100 years ago now, so as to the question of who pulled the trigger, and why, unless some radical new evidence emerges, this is going to be one of those mysteries forever consigned to history.
[00:19:32] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Geli Raubal, Hitler’s murdered lover, or at least dead half-niece, depending on which theory you like the most.
[00:19:43] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:19:47] What do you think is the most plausible of the explanations for Geli Raubal’s death?
[00:19:52] How do you think the world might have been different had this scandal toppled Adolf Hitler?
[00:19:58] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:02] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:20:10] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:20:15] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a woman called Geli Raubal.
[00:00:28] It is a fascinating story that involves suicide, allegations of violence, infatuation, and the 20th century’s most famous dictator, and I’m excited to share it with you today.
[00:00:41] Ok then, let’s get right into it and tell the story of Geli Raubal.
[00:00:50] On September 19th, 1931, the police pushed open the door of an apartment in Munich, in Germany.
[00:00:59] There was an eerie silence in the air. Something seemed wrong.
[00:01:04] It didn’t take long for the police to notice.
[00:01:08] Lying on the floor, in a pool of blood, was a lifeless young girl.
[00:01:15] There was a bullet wound to her chest, and a pistol lay by her side.
[00:01:21] Her name was Geli Raubal, and she had turned 23 a few months beforehand.
[00:01:29] The name Geli Raubal might not mean much to you, and it might not have meant much to many people at the time.
[00:01:38] But Geli Raubal was the niece of Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party, the political party that had risen from relative obscurity to become the second largest party in Germany a year beforehand, and a man who would later be responsible for dragging Europe into a war that would claim more lives than any other in human history.
[00:02:03] And there was his niece, lying there, dead. Not only dead, but lying in Adolf Hitler’s apartment, the bullet that killed her came from his very own gun.
[00:02:19] So, what happened, who was Geli Raubal, why do some people think he was responsible for her death, perhaps that it was even Hitler himself who pulled the trigger?
[00:02:32] First, a bit of family history for you. Adolf Hitler was the fourth of six children.
[00:02:40] His father had been married before, and had two children. The second of which was called Angela, which, if you’re following, made her Adolf Hitler’s half-sister, his sister from another marriage.
[00:02:55] Although Angela and Adolf didn’t really know each other as children, in 1925 she moved in next to him, becoming his housekeeper.
[00:03:06] She brought with her her 17 year old daughter, who was also called Angela, or Geli for short.
[00:03:13] Technically Geli was Hitler’s half-niece, because her mother was his half-sister, but for the sake of ease in this episode I’ll refer to her as his “niece” and him as her “uncle”.
[00:03:27] After all, their blood relationship might have been slightly removed, but Hitler and his half-niece would become very close.
[00:03:37] Now, back to Geli. She was, reportedly, the sort of person that you would remember.
[00:03:44] One woman who knew her described her walking down the street one day, saying ‘I saw her and I just stopped dead. She was so tall and beautiful that I said nothing. And she saw me standing there and said, ‘Are you frightened of me?’ And I said, ‘No, I was just admiring you… ’
[00:04:05] Another, Hitler’s driver, a man called Emil Maurice, who will crop up again shortly, said Geli was “a princess, people on the street would turn around” just to stare at her.
[00:04:18] And another described her as a “naturally vivacious and flirtatious” young woman who wanted to go out, dance, and wear makeup.
[00:04:29] Clearly, she was a beautiful young lady with an independent character, someone who you would remember, and someone who most likely would have had no shortage of male admirers.
[00:04:42] One of those male admirers, it would seem, was her own uncle, Adolf.
[00:04:49] As a quick reminder of the age gap here, Geli was 17 when she went to live with her uncle. Adolf Hitler, 19 years her senior, would have been going on 40.
[00:05:02] He was over twice her age, he was literally old enough to be her father, but it was not such a large age gap that romance would have been completely out of the question.
[00:05:15] Whether or not the feelings were romantic, he was clearly very fond of his young niece.
[00:05:21] He paid for her singing lessons, he would walk around with this young girl on his arm, and he wanted her to go with him everywhere he went.
[00:05:32] As she grew into a young woman, Hitler also became insanely jealous.
[00:05:39] He didn’t like the way other people looked at Geli; he wanted to keep her for himself.
[00:05:46] You can imagine, therefore, how furious he was when he discovered that Geli had been having an affair with Hitler’s private driver, a man with Jewish heritage called Emil Maurice.
[00:06:00] When he discovered the pair in a compromising position, Hitler reportedly threatened to whip his chauffeur, and promptly fired him, reportedly declaring that he should be “shot like a mad dog”.
[00:06:14] Things were never the same between Geli and her uncle after this.
[00:06:19] She couldn’t be trusted, and was put under near constant surveillance.
[00:06:25] As you might imagine, this put serious pressure on the young lady. She was, essentially, a prisoner in Hitler’s household, and told her friends “My uncle is a monster, nobody understands what he demands of me”.
[00:06:42] So, what did he demand of her?
[00:06:45] She knew, he knew, perhaps her mother knew, but it is now a secret that has been forever consigned to the history books.
[00:06:55] Some speculate that the relationship between the two was romantic, or sexual, or both. Hitler was clearly infatuated with his young niece, and he was furious at the thought of her being in a relationship with any other man.
[00:07:13] And as for whether the feelings might have been mutual, he was an up-and-coming politician, a powerful man.
[00:07:21] Sure, his political opinions might have been vile, but is it completely beyond the realms of possibility that she might have found her uncle attractive and there have been some kind of romantic relationship between the pair?
[00:07:37] Another variant on this theory is that there was some kind of sexual relationship between the two, but romance and attraction didn’t play a part in it; in other words, it was abusive.
[00:07:52] Although Hitler didn’t show any signs of being a sexual abuser, clearly he had monstrous tendencies - is it such a step to think he might have abused a young woman he was obsessed with?
[00:08:06] And another theory is that there was no sexual element to the relationship at all, it was all about Hitler wanting to control his niece and not allow her to have any kind of relationship with anyone else, well, certainly not any other man.
[00:08:23] Whatever the truth, all of the evidence suggests that Adolf Hitler was completely obsessed with his niece, and that he did love her deeply, even if this love might have been warped and twisted.
[00:08:37] So, what happened?
[00:08:40] Well, Geli and her mother had moved in with Hitler in 1925.
[00:08:46] In 1927 her affair with Hitler’s chauffeur had been discovered, and she had been kept under what we could describe as house arrest, only allowed out with some sort of chaperone, a guard with her.
[00:08:59] In 1929 she had started studying at university in Munich, and had moved into a large apartment owned by Hitler, although the two did keep separate bedrooms.
[00:09:12] And a year and a half later, on the morning of September 18th, 1931 the pair would be heard having a huge argument, shouting and shrieking at each other.
[00:09:26] The following day, on September 19th, Geli Raubal would be found dead, in a pool of her own blood.
[00:09:35] The truth about what actually happened will most likely never be revealed, but here are the theories.
[00:09:43] The first category of theories, if we can call them that, revolve around the idea that she killed herself.
[00:09:51] Naturally, if someone is found in a pool of their blood with a gun by their side, this is the obvious answer.
[00:10:00] But, you are probably thinking, if she killed herself, why did she do it?
[00:10:06] One theory is that the argument with her uncle was over a potential husband, a young Jewish man. She wanted to go to Vienna, so the theory goes, to get engaged to this man. Hitler forbade it, he said it was absolutely not allowed, and, unable to bear the sorrow, the heartbreak, she killed herself.
[00:10:31] Another was that she had stage fright; she was about to have her musical debut and she got frightened. This would be the official verdict given by the police and the Nazi party.
[00:10:43] Another was that the pressure from Hitler was too great, that she couldn’t continue her life as a prisoner, and this was the only way out.
[00:10:53] Another is that she was jealous of Hitler, who was forming an increasingly close relationship with another woman, Eva Braun. Geli couldn’t bear the possibility of losing her uncle to another woman, so this was her only route out.
[00:11:12] Another might sound even more extreme, and it’s that she was pregnant with Hitler’s child. This would have been problematic for many reasons, but particularly the fact that the two were so closely related. Killing herself was the only route out, so the theory goes.
[00:11:32] And there’s another related theory that she was pregnant, not with Hitler’s child, but with the child of another man, the mysterious Jewish man from Vienna. If Hitler had been furious to find out that Geli was merely having an affair with his partially Jewish driver, imagine the fury that he would have unleashed when he found out that his adored niece was pregnant with the child of a Jewish man.
[00:12:00] Now, there are other theories that Geli did indeed kill herself, she pulled the trigger, she shot herself, but she didn’t actually mean to kill herself.
[00:12:12] The reason for doing this could have been any of the ones I just mentioned, from showing her uncle she was serious about getting married to the Jewish man in Vienna through to that he needed to stop being so possessive of her.
[00:12:26] This might sound like an extreme length to go to to get someone’s attention, but perhaps shooting herself was the only way she thought she could get her uncle’s attention.
[00:12:38] Although we don’t know anything about the kind of discussions and arguments that Hitler had with his niece, his later actions don’t give us much confidence that he would have been a rational person, open to sensible arguments.
[00:12:53] Perhaps Geli thought the only way she could show her uncle that she was serious about whatever she was proposing was by going to such an extreme length as attempting suicide.
[00:13:05] In fact, another of Hitler’s lovers did this, Eva Braun. She tried to kill herself on two separate occasions to get Hitler’s attention, once by shooting herself and once by taking sedatives.
[00:13:20] Clearly, in her case, it did work, or at least she didn’t die and Hitler started paying more attention.
[00:13:29] Now, as to our third category of theory, this revolves around the idea that it was Adolf Hitler himself who pulled the trigger, it was the future Fuhrer who killed his 23-year-old niece in cold blood.
[00:13:44] Although this would make for a gripping story, a plot twist even, the timeline for this makes it seem a little unlikely. Hitler and his niece had lunch on the Friday, he left Munich for Hamburg shortly after lunch, and Geli was found dead the following morning.
[00:14:04] He had an alibi, that he simply wasn’t there.
[00:14:08] But there are some clues that suggest this might not be as plausible as it seems.
[00:14:16] Geli was found with a fractured nose, a broken nose, as if someone had hit her very hard.
[00:14:25] On her desk was a letter she was writing to a friend in Vienna, which described how she was excited about her trip. But the letter ended abruptly, almost as if someone had interrupted her in the middle of writing it.
[00:14:40] Sure, it’s possible that she was writing an excited letter to her friend and then stopped in the middle of it to shoot herself but it seems…unlikely.
[00:14:52] What’s more, when she was found dead on the Saturday morning, it’s believed that she could have been dead for anywhere up to 24 hours, so she could have been shot the day before.
[00:15:05] So, why would Hitler have killed his niece, or have arranged for someone else to do it, or that a senior member of the Nazi party took matters into their own hands?
[00:15:16] The theories mainly revolve around the idea that Geli posed a threat to the rise of the Nazi party; she knew things that could prove dangerous to Hitler if they became public knowledge.
[00:15:30] There are rumours of explicit letters that Hitler wrote to Geli, and even some of pornographic sketches that Hitler made of his niece.
[00:15:41] Even if there was no physical evidence, Geli knew things, or at least people thought she knew intimate, embarrassing, details about Hitler. She was talking to her friends or a mysterious Jewish lover about Hitler’s infatuation for her, of the things that she said he made her do.
[00:16:02] Clearly, this was politically very dangerous for both Hitler and the Nazi party, so either he or someone else silenced her forever.
[00:16:14] Now, this is purely a theory, but the ruthlessness that the Nazi party would show in terms of killing anyone who got in its way suggests that they wouldn’t have thought twice about getting rid of Hitler’s niece if she was a perceived threat.
[00:16:30] Whatever really happened to Geli Raubal in that apartment, it had a profound effect on Hitler.
[00:16:37] Of course, it’s hard to have any sympathy for the man, not only because of his later atrocities, but also because he was directly or indirectly responsible for this young woman’s death. It did, however, undeniably cause him great sorrow.
[00:16:55] He missed her funeral, preferring to be on his own at a lake house. He declared that all of her clothes and belongings should be gathered in one room, which would be kept as a shine to her memory.
[00:17:10] Some within the Nazi party even feared that he would kill himself out of sadness.
[00:17:17] And the Nazi party acted fast to try to minimise the political damage caused, and to hide this from the German public.
[00:17:27] Remember, this was in September of 1931. He was the country’s hottest up-and-coming politician, and would become Chancellor on the 30th of January 1933, less than a year and a half after Geli’s death.
[00:17:44] The party had to act, and act fast. The fewer questions, the better.
[00:17:51] There was no proper post-mortem or investigation into her death. Her body was discovered on Saturday morning and immediately sent away before the newspapers came out on the Monday.
[00:18:04] Still, question marks were asked. One anti-Nazi paper started with the headline A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR: HITLER’S NIECE COMMITS SUICIDE, asking the questions that you heard about a few minutes ago. Other newspapers followed, Hitler was forced to issue a written statement denying any involvement in it, and for a brief period it looked like this might turn into a real national scandal, one that could even topple the upcoming politician’s rise to power.
[00:18:40] It wasn’t to be.
[00:18:42] The cover-up, or at least attempts to make sure no questions could be asked, worked.
[00:18:49] Geli’s body was hidden away from view, any evidence was destroyed or taken away by the Nazi party, so there was simply no way to get to the truth.
[00:18:59] And as you’ll know this did nothing to stop Hitler’s rise to power.
[00:19:07] Hitler became the Fuhrer, marching into Poland shortly before the eighth anniversary of Geli’s death.
[00:19:14] This was almost 100 years ago now, so as to the question of who pulled the trigger, and why, unless some radical new evidence emerges, this is going to be one of those mysteries forever consigned to history.
[00:19:32] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Geli Raubal, Hitler’s murdered lover, or at least dead half-niece, depending on which theory you like the most.
[00:19:43] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:19:47] What do you think is the most plausible of the explanations for Geli Raubal’s death?
[00:19:52] How do you think the world might have been different had this scandal toppled Adolf Hitler?
[00:19:58] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:02] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:20:10] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:20:15] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a woman called Geli Raubal.
[00:00:28] It is a fascinating story that involves suicide, allegations of violence, infatuation, and the 20th century’s most famous dictator, and I’m excited to share it with you today.
[00:00:41] Ok then, let’s get right into it and tell the story of Geli Raubal.
[00:00:50] On September 19th, 1931, the police pushed open the door of an apartment in Munich, in Germany.
[00:00:59] There was an eerie silence in the air. Something seemed wrong.
[00:01:04] It didn’t take long for the police to notice.
[00:01:08] Lying on the floor, in a pool of blood, was a lifeless young girl.
[00:01:15] There was a bullet wound to her chest, and a pistol lay by her side.
[00:01:21] Her name was Geli Raubal, and she had turned 23 a few months beforehand.
[00:01:29] The name Geli Raubal might not mean much to you, and it might not have meant much to many people at the time.
[00:01:38] But Geli Raubal was the niece of Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party, the political party that had risen from relative obscurity to become the second largest party in Germany a year beforehand, and a man who would later be responsible for dragging Europe into a war that would claim more lives than any other in human history.
[00:02:03] And there was his niece, lying there, dead. Not only dead, but lying in Adolf Hitler’s apartment, the bullet that killed her came from his very own gun.
[00:02:19] So, what happened, who was Geli Raubal, why do some people think he was responsible for her death, perhaps that it was even Hitler himself who pulled the trigger?
[00:02:32] First, a bit of family history for you. Adolf Hitler was the fourth of six children.
[00:02:40] His father had been married before, and had two children. The second of which was called Angela, which, if you’re following, made her Adolf Hitler’s half-sister, his sister from another marriage.
[00:02:55] Although Angela and Adolf didn’t really know each other as children, in 1925 she moved in next to him, becoming his housekeeper.
[00:03:06] She brought with her her 17 year old daughter, who was also called Angela, or Geli for short.
[00:03:13] Technically Geli was Hitler’s half-niece, because her mother was his half-sister, but for the sake of ease in this episode I’ll refer to her as his “niece” and him as her “uncle”.
[00:03:27] After all, their blood relationship might have been slightly removed, but Hitler and his half-niece would become very close.
[00:03:37] Now, back to Geli. She was, reportedly, the sort of person that you would remember.
[00:03:44] One woman who knew her described her walking down the street one day, saying ‘I saw her and I just stopped dead. She was so tall and beautiful that I said nothing. And she saw me standing there and said, ‘Are you frightened of me?’ And I said, ‘No, I was just admiring you… ’
[00:04:05] Another, Hitler’s driver, a man called Emil Maurice, who will crop up again shortly, said Geli was “a princess, people on the street would turn around” just to stare at her.
[00:04:18] And another described her as a “naturally vivacious and flirtatious” young woman who wanted to go out, dance, and wear makeup.
[00:04:29] Clearly, she was a beautiful young lady with an independent character, someone who you would remember, and someone who most likely would have had no shortage of male admirers.
[00:04:42] One of those male admirers, it would seem, was her own uncle, Adolf.
[00:04:49] As a quick reminder of the age gap here, Geli was 17 when she went to live with her uncle. Adolf Hitler, 19 years her senior, would have been going on 40.
[00:05:02] He was over twice her age, he was literally old enough to be her father, but it was not such a large age gap that romance would have been completely out of the question.
[00:05:15] Whether or not the feelings were romantic, he was clearly very fond of his young niece.
[00:05:21] He paid for her singing lessons, he would walk around with this young girl on his arm, and he wanted her to go with him everywhere he went.
[00:05:32] As she grew into a young woman, Hitler also became insanely jealous.
[00:05:39] He didn’t like the way other people looked at Geli; he wanted to keep her for himself.
[00:05:46] You can imagine, therefore, how furious he was when he discovered that Geli had been having an affair with Hitler’s private driver, a man with Jewish heritage called Emil Maurice.
[00:06:00] When he discovered the pair in a compromising position, Hitler reportedly threatened to whip his chauffeur, and promptly fired him, reportedly declaring that he should be “shot like a mad dog”.
[00:06:14] Things were never the same between Geli and her uncle after this.
[00:06:19] She couldn’t be trusted, and was put under near constant surveillance.
[00:06:25] As you might imagine, this put serious pressure on the young lady. She was, essentially, a prisoner in Hitler’s household, and told her friends “My uncle is a monster, nobody understands what he demands of me”.
[00:06:42] So, what did he demand of her?
[00:06:45] She knew, he knew, perhaps her mother knew, but it is now a secret that has been forever consigned to the history books.
[00:06:55] Some speculate that the relationship between the two was romantic, or sexual, or both. Hitler was clearly infatuated with his young niece, and he was furious at the thought of her being in a relationship with any other man.
[00:07:13] And as for whether the feelings might have been mutual, he was an up-and-coming politician, a powerful man.
[00:07:21] Sure, his political opinions might have been vile, but is it completely beyond the realms of possibility that she might have found her uncle attractive and there have been some kind of romantic relationship between the pair?
[00:07:37] Another variant on this theory is that there was some kind of sexual relationship between the two, but romance and attraction didn’t play a part in it; in other words, it was abusive.
[00:07:52] Although Hitler didn’t show any signs of being a sexual abuser, clearly he had monstrous tendencies - is it such a step to think he might have abused a young woman he was obsessed with?
[00:08:06] And another theory is that there was no sexual element to the relationship at all, it was all about Hitler wanting to control his niece and not allow her to have any kind of relationship with anyone else, well, certainly not any other man.
[00:08:23] Whatever the truth, all of the evidence suggests that Adolf Hitler was completely obsessed with his niece, and that he did love her deeply, even if this love might have been warped and twisted.
[00:08:37] So, what happened?
[00:08:40] Well, Geli and her mother had moved in with Hitler in 1925.
[00:08:46] In 1927 her affair with Hitler’s chauffeur had been discovered, and she had been kept under what we could describe as house arrest, only allowed out with some sort of chaperone, a guard with her.
[00:08:59] In 1929 she had started studying at university in Munich, and had moved into a large apartment owned by Hitler, although the two did keep separate bedrooms.
[00:09:12] And a year and a half later, on the morning of September 18th, 1931 the pair would be heard having a huge argument, shouting and shrieking at each other.
[00:09:26] The following day, on September 19th, Geli Raubal would be found dead, in a pool of her own blood.
[00:09:35] The truth about what actually happened will most likely never be revealed, but here are the theories.
[00:09:43] The first category of theories, if we can call them that, revolve around the idea that she killed herself.
[00:09:51] Naturally, if someone is found in a pool of their blood with a gun by their side, this is the obvious answer.
[00:10:00] But, you are probably thinking, if she killed herself, why did she do it?
[00:10:06] One theory is that the argument with her uncle was over a potential husband, a young Jewish man. She wanted to go to Vienna, so the theory goes, to get engaged to this man. Hitler forbade it, he said it was absolutely not allowed, and, unable to bear the sorrow, the heartbreak, she killed herself.
[00:10:31] Another was that she had stage fright; she was about to have her musical debut and she got frightened. This would be the official verdict given by the police and the Nazi party.
[00:10:43] Another was that the pressure from Hitler was too great, that she couldn’t continue her life as a prisoner, and this was the only way out.
[00:10:53] Another is that she was jealous of Hitler, who was forming an increasingly close relationship with another woman, Eva Braun. Geli couldn’t bear the possibility of losing her uncle to another woman, so this was her only route out.
[00:11:12] Another might sound even more extreme, and it’s that she was pregnant with Hitler’s child. This would have been problematic for many reasons, but particularly the fact that the two were so closely related. Killing herself was the only route out, so the theory goes.
[00:11:32] And there’s another related theory that she was pregnant, not with Hitler’s child, but with the child of another man, the mysterious Jewish man from Vienna. If Hitler had been furious to find out that Geli was merely having an affair with his partially Jewish driver, imagine the fury that he would have unleashed when he found out that his adored niece was pregnant with the child of a Jewish man.
[00:12:00] Now, there are other theories that Geli did indeed kill herself, she pulled the trigger, she shot herself, but she didn’t actually mean to kill herself.
[00:12:12] The reason for doing this could have been any of the ones I just mentioned, from showing her uncle she was serious about getting married to the Jewish man in Vienna through to that he needed to stop being so possessive of her.
[00:12:26] This might sound like an extreme length to go to to get someone’s attention, but perhaps shooting herself was the only way she thought she could get her uncle’s attention.
[00:12:38] Although we don’t know anything about the kind of discussions and arguments that Hitler had with his niece, his later actions don’t give us much confidence that he would have been a rational person, open to sensible arguments.
[00:12:53] Perhaps Geli thought the only way she could show her uncle that she was serious about whatever she was proposing was by going to such an extreme length as attempting suicide.
[00:13:05] In fact, another of Hitler’s lovers did this, Eva Braun. She tried to kill herself on two separate occasions to get Hitler’s attention, once by shooting herself and once by taking sedatives.
[00:13:20] Clearly, in her case, it did work, or at least she didn’t die and Hitler started paying more attention.
[00:13:29] Now, as to our third category of theory, this revolves around the idea that it was Adolf Hitler himself who pulled the trigger, it was the future Fuhrer who killed his 23-year-old niece in cold blood.
[00:13:44] Although this would make for a gripping story, a plot twist even, the timeline for this makes it seem a little unlikely. Hitler and his niece had lunch on the Friday, he left Munich for Hamburg shortly after lunch, and Geli was found dead the following morning.
[00:14:04] He had an alibi, that he simply wasn’t there.
[00:14:08] But there are some clues that suggest this might not be as plausible as it seems.
[00:14:16] Geli was found with a fractured nose, a broken nose, as if someone had hit her very hard.
[00:14:25] On her desk was a letter she was writing to a friend in Vienna, which described how she was excited about her trip. But the letter ended abruptly, almost as if someone had interrupted her in the middle of writing it.
[00:14:40] Sure, it’s possible that she was writing an excited letter to her friend and then stopped in the middle of it to shoot herself but it seems…unlikely.
[00:14:52] What’s more, when she was found dead on the Saturday morning, it’s believed that she could have been dead for anywhere up to 24 hours, so she could have been shot the day before.
[00:15:05] So, why would Hitler have killed his niece, or have arranged for someone else to do it, or that a senior member of the Nazi party took matters into their own hands?
[00:15:16] The theories mainly revolve around the idea that Geli posed a threat to the rise of the Nazi party; she knew things that could prove dangerous to Hitler if they became public knowledge.
[00:15:30] There are rumours of explicit letters that Hitler wrote to Geli, and even some of pornographic sketches that Hitler made of his niece.
[00:15:41] Even if there was no physical evidence, Geli knew things, or at least people thought she knew intimate, embarrassing, details about Hitler. She was talking to her friends or a mysterious Jewish lover about Hitler’s infatuation for her, of the things that she said he made her do.
[00:16:02] Clearly, this was politically very dangerous for both Hitler and the Nazi party, so either he or someone else silenced her forever.
[00:16:14] Now, this is purely a theory, but the ruthlessness that the Nazi party would show in terms of killing anyone who got in its way suggests that they wouldn’t have thought twice about getting rid of Hitler’s niece if she was a perceived threat.
[00:16:30] Whatever really happened to Geli Raubal in that apartment, it had a profound effect on Hitler.
[00:16:37] Of course, it’s hard to have any sympathy for the man, not only because of his later atrocities, but also because he was directly or indirectly responsible for this young woman’s death. It did, however, undeniably cause him great sorrow.
[00:16:55] He missed her funeral, preferring to be on his own at a lake house. He declared that all of her clothes and belongings should be gathered in one room, which would be kept as a shine to her memory.
[00:17:10] Some within the Nazi party even feared that he would kill himself out of sadness.
[00:17:17] And the Nazi party acted fast to try to minimise the political damage caused, and to hide this from the German public.
[00:17:27] Remember, this was in September of 1931. He was the country’s hottest up-and-coming politician, and would become Chancellor on the 30th of January 1933, less than a year and a half after Geli’s death.
[00:17:44] The party had to act, and act fast. The fewer questions, the better.
[00:17:51] There was no proper post-mortem or investigation into her death. Her body was discovered on Saturday morning and immediately sent away before the newspapers came out on the Monday.
[00:18:04] Still, question marks were asked. One anti-Nazi paper started with the headline A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR: HITLER’S NIECE COMMITS SUICIDE, asking the questions that you heard about a few minutes ago. Other newspapers followed, Hitler was forced to issue a written statement denying any involvement in it, and for a brief period it looked like this might turn into a real national scandal, one that could even topple the upcoming politician’s rise to power.
[00:18:40] It wasn’t to be.
[00:18:42] The cover-up, or at least attempts to make sure no questions could be asked, worked.
[00:18:49] Geli’s body was hidden away from view, any evidence was destroyed or taken away by the Nazi party, so there was simply no way to get to the truth.
[00:18:59] And as you’ll know this did nothing to stop Hitler’s rise to power.
[00:19:07] Hitler became the Fuhrer, marching into Poland shortly before the eighth anniversary of Geli’s death.
[00:19:14] This was almost 100 years ago now, so as to the question of who pulled the trigger, and why, unless some radical new evidence emerges, this is going to be one of those mysteries forever consigned to history.
[00:19:32] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Geli Raubal, Hitler’s murdered lover, or at least dead half-niece, depending on which theory you like the most.
[00:19:43] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:19:47] What do you think is the most plausible of the explanations for Geli Raubal’s death?
[00:19:52] How do you think the world might have been different had this scandal toppled Adolf Hitler?
[00:19:58] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:02] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:20:10] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:20:15] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
