Anti-Semitism chief slams university talk on Hitler's lover
March 1, 2020
The German government's anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, has dubbed a planned lecture on Adolf Hitler's lover Eva Braun as "completely incomprehensible and ahistorical," according to the Sunday edition of Bild newspaper.
The lecture was expected to be given at the Technical University of Braunschweig (TU) as part of a series about women in world history. TU, however, rejected the accusation that the university was advancing Nazi ideas. "In conclusion, this is a contribution against right-wing extremist legends," it said in a statement.
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The university also said it was "sincerely sorry" for the "ineptly worded" event, titled "'... I, the mistress of the greatest man in Germany and on Earth ... Comments on Eva Braun.'"
The lecture was ultimately canceled due to illness on the part of the lecturer.
The university is also considering how the researcher behind the lecture could manage to explain his role in the event, "namely to critically reflect on why a historically insignificant woman like Eva Braun still receives a lot of media attention to this day."
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Braun, who ate a cyanide pill, and Hitler, who shot himself, died by suicide just 40 hours after they were officially married. The relationship was largely unknown to the public until after their deaths.
During Hitler's rise to power, Braunschweig — then a regional state in the-then Weimar Republic — was where Adolf Hitler received German citizenship on February 25, 1932, two weeks before running for the role of German president.