Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich, Baumann and Hess – names are all too familiar in the history of Nazi Germany. But the women around them are rarely understood. In fact, some of them were as fanatical as their notorious husbands of high-ranking Nazi officials.
Three days before the end of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Amy Goering and her husband Hermann Goering hosted a spectacular event for hundreds of guests, including ballet under the moonlight, playgrounds, cafes and beer tents, as well as a parade of actors. It wasn't the first or last grand event held by Amy and her husband as the Empire's most famous couple, who paraded around Berlin like emperors and empresses of antiquity. Amy fits into the spotlight, having been a professional actor for more than a decade when she met Goering in 1932.
After Hitler seized power, Goering took control of the prestigious Berlin State Theatre, and Amy Goering became the heroine, starring in several long-running comedies. Amy and Goering eventually retired from the stage after marrying at a grand wedding in 1935. According to a meeting of British ambassadors at the time, "the streets of Berlin were newly decorated and all traffic was suspended." And 200 military planes hovered in the air."
After marriage, Amy's lavish lifestyle was funded by her husband. Because goering was the richest Nazi besides Hitler, he used his role as commander of the Air Force to squander most of the money for the rearmament program and accepted bribes from weapons manufacturers eager to win contracts. Amy wasn't interested in her husband's day-to-day work, and she never asked where all the money came from. She simply reveled in her role as one of the female leaders of the Empire.
Three days after the Goerings' lavish Olympic gala, Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda hosted their own event, which culminated in the commemoration of the Olympics. The location is Peacock Island, a magical wooded nature reserve dotted with lanterns on tree-lined paths. There are barbecues, fireworks and dance bands. Although the Goebbels could never be compared to the Goerings, the former had a distinct advantage: they had a close relationship with Hitler himself. Goering may have been one of the Führer's most loyal deputies, but Amy wasn't a fanatical Nazi, nor was she particularly obsessed with Hitler. Magda, on the other hand, was madly obsessed with Hitler.
This intimacy means that the three of them spend a lot of rest time together, whether it's sharing summer vacations or seasonal vacations. But Eva Braun's slow emergence as Hitler's stable and secretive girlfriend creates tension as she and Magda are very jealous of each other. Then, when Magda's marriage to her husband was rocked by his affair with a Czech actress, Hitler did not hesitate to intervene personally and ordered them to be together anyway.
Another rivalry between Magda and Amy was also staged during the Olympics. In 1936, Himmler and Heydrich came into charge of the SS, the Gestapo and the police. Together, they form an awesome team. However, their wives, Margaret Himmler and Lena Heydrich, were caught in a fierce struggle for the SS "First Lady".
Thanks to her husband, Margaret was the more senior wife, and she was determined to make sure everyone in the SS family respected this. At the Olympics, however, Lena was the first to enter; throughout the race, she and Heydrich were given better seats and better treatment than Margaret and her husband. They became VIPs because Heydrich was a member of the German Olympic Committee and an accomplished fencer and athlete. For two weeks, Lena enjoyed carrying her private jet and team, and enjoyed the amazing banquet hosted by the IOC to celebrate the opening of the Olympic Games.
When the athletics competition at the Olympic Stadium began, Ilzer Hess and her husband, Rudolf Hess, deputy head of the Nazi Party, sat in the front row to watch a series of events. They didn't bother with any social events or fancy parties during the competition, which wasn't their style. Ills and Hess were obsessed with defending the moral and spiritual values they believed were at the heart of Nazism and remaining untainted by corruption. They adhered to a moderate middle-class lifestyle, with Irsha saying the couple "would never sell themselves for something external."
Ironically, Gerda Baumann, the wife of the nazi ideal woman most like her, did not even compete in the 1936 Olympics. Gerda had ten children, cared only for family affairs, and was completely subordinate to her husband, Martin Bowman. Gerda was only 12 years old when he first met Hitler. Her father was a professional soldier, a staunch Nazi, and Hitler was a regular visitor to their family. At the age of 19, after a brief courtship, she married Bauman Gerda. It is precisely because she is such a model housewife and mother that she is far away from the Olympic Games.
The 1936 Olympics were a major success for the Nazis. Four years later, Europe was at war. But as the conflict unfolded and the Allies began to draw near victory, the wives probably kept wondering what price they would pay for the extermination of the Jews. On May 27, 1942, Heydrich was killed by an attack by Czech agents on the outskirts of Prague. Lena denied that Heydrich was responsible for the massacre. She insisted that her husband did not fully know what he was planning and declared him a perfectly honored soldier at the time of his death.
Margaret Himmler put all the blame on Hitler's shoulders. She said that whatever her husband might or may not have done, he was simply following the Fuehrer's orders. When asked what she knew, she also claimed to be completely unaware. However, Margaret was the only major wife to enter the concentration camp system; she made several visits to the Dachau concentration camp, inspected its huge herb garden, and also visited the women's camp Ravensbrück. Margaret did not comment on her experience, choosing instead to remain silent.
Despite overwhelming evidence against Goering, Amy refuses to believe that her husband had anything to do with Nazi war crimes. From an early age, Amy spared no effort to use Goering's power to protect Jewish friends and colleagues in the entertainment industry. But with Goering pulling aside, Amy was no longer capable of helping anyone. Of all the top Nazi wives, she was the only one who expressed guilt or regret for the Nazi genocide and admitted that when she and her husband "saw injustice," they should "put up a stronger resistance," especially on the issue of Jews.
Magda Goebbels had no illusions about the scale of the genocide being committed because her husband could not keep secrets. By the spring of 1945, Magda had succumbed to doomsday fatalism, which overwhelmed many Germans, not just the Nazi elite, as Soviet troops advanced toward them. On May 1, 1945, Magda and her husband committed suicide and arranged for the murder of their six children a few hours earlier - they were poisoned in their sleep. In her last surviving letter, Magda wrote that for them, rather than living in a world without Hitler, it was better to die.