⚠️ VERY SENSITIVE CONTENT – 18+ ONLY ⚠️
This post discusses the final days of the Third Reich, internal executions and mass suicide in the Führerbunker. For readers 18+ only and shared strictly for historical education.
The Fegelein Wedding – Last Symbol of a Regime in Collapse
On 3 June 1944 – three days before D-Day – one of the most weddings ever organised for the highest Nazi leadership took place:
Groom: SS-Obergruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, Himmler’s personal representative at Hitler’s headquarters
Bride: Margarete “Gretl” Braun, Eva Braun’s younger sister
Best man: Adolf Hitler
Guests: Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Karl Wolff…
Venues: civil ceremony at Mirabell Palace (Salzburg), main reception at the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle’s Nest), private tea at the Berghof
The wedding was filmed in colour (footage preserved) and celebrated within the regime as the perfect “National Socialist family union”.
Eleven months later – the tragic end
27 April 1945: Fegelein, drunk and in civilian clothes, was arrested while trying to desert Berlin.
28 April 1945: Hitler ordered his immediate execution for desertion; he was shot in the Reich Chancellery courtyard by an SS squad.
29–30 April 1945: Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide.
Gretl Braun, seven months pregnant, was evacuated from Berlin just before the final encirclement. She gave birth to daughter Eva Barbara Fegelein on 5 May 1945.
Post-war:
Gretl was arrested and interrogated for several months by U.S. forces (1945–1946) due to her family ties.
Released in 1946, she lived in complete seclusion in Bavaria under a different name until her death in 1987.
The wedding of 3 June 1944 is now regarded by historians as the last recorded moment of the Nazi ruling elite before total collapse less than two years later.
Reliable sources:
Heike B. Görtemaker, “Eva Braun: Life with Hitler” (2011)
Volker Koop, “Hermann Fegelein” (2018)
Eva Braun’s colour films (Bundesarchiv)Testimonies of Rochus Misch and Traudl Junge