Finding Aid - Private Motion Pictures of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun (re-mastered 2019

Finding Aid - Private Motion Pictures of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun (re-mastered 2019) Description & Finding Aid

BACM Research – PaperlessArchives.com has assembled a 28-page finding aid for the Private Motion Pictures of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun (re-mastered 2019). The finding aid will assist in identifying activities, locations and individuals in the films. This finding aid is useful because the films are four hours long, silent and not in chronological order.

The finding aid describes each reel of the films and also shot lists with citations of  the contents of each shot in the films, including where in the film, at how many minutes and seconds into the film each shot starts.

A user of the finding aid searching for the appearance of Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels would without having to watch all four hours of the film will find that he can be seen in:

The first scene of Reel 2 as he arrives in a Mercedes-Cabriolet, is greeted by Braun and comes upstairs to Berghof.

And at

At 03:17:43 of Reel 3A - Goebbels presiding at a wedding. All sign registry. Bormann and Himmler all smiles, also sign. Himmler hands them ring and silver cups. Wedding reception briefly, in Kehlsteinhaus, Kehlstein, Germany.

The finding aid can be download by anyone for free here.

BACM Research – PaperlessArchives.com’s distribution of the films can currently only be found in World War II Historical Documents Archive - 746,464 pages of World War II related documents - USB Pen Drive.


About the Films

Personal films of Eva Braun, 1935-41 (8 reels). These are the private motion pictures of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. These films depict Eva Braun and her relatives, Adolf Hitler and numerous high officials of the German Government. The private black and white and color 16 mm footage of Eva Braun with a total running time approximately 4 hours long. These silent films show Eva Braun and relatives at recreation and at various family events. Considerable footage shows Hitler relaxed and informal, with high dignitaries of state often present. Much of the footage was shot at summer resorts.

Political theorist Hannah Arendt, who covered the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem for New Yorker magazine, titled her 1963 book about that affair, "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil ." That sentiment can well be attributed to these films. Seen is not the artificially crafted propaganda of Goebbels or Riefenstahl. But everyday life captured by Eva Braun's 16 mm Siemens cine-camera, of commonplace activities, engaged by some of the perpetrators of some of history's most evil deeds.

United States military intelligence captured the films in October 1945. During interrogation Nazi officer Franz Konrad revealed that he had custody of the films and that were in his mother's home in Austria. Army intelligence found 28 reels of film that it sliced into 9 reels. Later Konrad was hanged for his role in atrocities committed during the 1943 Warsaw Jewish Ghetto Uprising.

The films were transferred to the National Archives in 1947. They went unnoticed until 1972 when discovered by German filmmaker Lutz Becker the director of the documentary "Double Headed Eagle: Hitler's Rise to Power 1918-1933" (1973).  In the 1960's Becker saw a photo of Eva Braun with a 16 mm Siemens cine-camera. Becker was convinced that there must be film somewhere taken by Braun. After years of searching he spoke to a former U.S. Army intelligence official who recalled in 1945 film being sent back to the U.S. that may be what Becker was looking for.  The search ended with the discovery by Becker in a former airplane hangar in Maryland owned by the National Archives. Segments of Braun's film was first widely seen in 1973, in the 26-part British documentary “The World at War” (1973-1976).

The original film is missing. The National Archives last record that confirms it is was in their custody is from June 1974.

The films are not in chronological order. Earlier scenes show travel and a lighter attitude at Berghof. Later films show Berghof covered in camouflage. Much of the films are believed to have been shot in the Summer of 1941.  Hitler was last in Berghof in July 1944.  A British air raid in April 1945 heavily damaged the structure.

In June 2019, National Archives technicians at the Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Records Section, National Archives at College Park, Maryland,  completed work on a restoration reprint of the films from negatives made of the original prints of the films.

The film features Hitler and top Nazis Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann, Albert Speer and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Shown is Theodor Morell, Hitler's best-known doctor who treated Hitler with narcotics, amphetamines, leeches, hormones, vitamins and various unethical supplements. It is believed that it was Morell who supplied the cyanide used by Hitler and Braun to commit suicide. Hitler is believed to have shot himself before the cyanide took effect. Footage includes another one of Hitler’s doctors, Karl Brandt, who after the war was executed as a war criminal.

Individuals seen in the films include:

Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), the architect of the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews.

Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) a high-ranking German SS and police official known as “the hangman,” who was key in drafting the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question," at the Wannsee Conference, he is shown not long before his assassination outside Prague arranged by the London-based Czechoslovak government-in-exile and the British Special Operations Executive.

Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957) Hitler’s personal photographer, who later wrote a book called “Hitler Was My Friend,” he introduced Hitler to his 17-year-old assistant Eva Braun, soon after Hitler's mistress, Geli Raubal, committed suicide on 18 September 1931.

Hermann Fegelein (1907-1945) Braun's brother-in-law, married to her sister Gretl, is seen during his wedding at Hitler’s mountain top retreat. The weeding is overseen by Himmler and Hitler. About 100 miles away is the  Dachau sprawling concentration camp complex, created by Himmler. Fegelein was later charged with desertion and shot after a court martial order by Hitler.

Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974), a Nazi German politician who is best known for his role as the Nazi Party national youth leader and head of the Hitler Youth from 1931 to 1940. He was convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Richard Schulze-Kossens (1914-1988), born "Richard Schulze," was an SS commander during the Nazi era. During World War II, he served as a Waffen-SS adjutant to the foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and later commanded the SS Division Nibelungen, SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz.

Fritz Wiedemann (1891-1970) was a German soldier and Nazi Party activist. He was for a time the personal adjutant to Adolf Hitler, having served with him in World War I. Wiedemann and Hitler first came into contact during the First World War when Hauptmann Wiedemann, as regimental adjutant, was Corporal Hitler's superior.

Khalid al Hud, counselor and emissary of Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia.

Josef "Sepp" Dietrich (1892-1966) was a German politician and SS member. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928 and was elected to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic in 1930. Prior to 1929, Dietrich was Adolf Hitler's chauffeur and bodyguard. He received rapid promotions in the SS after his participation in the extrajudicial executions of political opponents during the 1934 purge known as the Night of the Long Knives.

Others include Karl Jesko von Puttkamer, Walter Hewel,  Wilhelm Brueckner, Nicolaus von Below, Dr. Otto Dietrich, Hans Karl von Hasselbach, Arno Breker and Demetra Breker.

Also seen in the films are pets, Braun’s Scottish terrier "Burli" and  Hitler’s German shepherd, "Blondi." who Hitler fed cyanide to shorter before his suicide.