LIFE recently released photographs of Eva Braun, the longtime mistress and brief wife of Adolph Hitler.
The photographs come from images confiscated by the U.S. Army in 1945 and were given to LIFE by collector and curator Reinhard Schulz.
Braun met Hitler when she was 17 years old. She was a model for Heinrich Hoffman, the official photographer of the Reich.
Although her diaries showed that Hitler’s indifference to her was devastating and she is rumored to have made two suicide attempts, the photos show Braun relaxing in a swimsuit, with friends and of course, with Hitler.
Hitler and Braun married quickly when the Allies reached Berlin, and historians say that she took a cyanide pill while Hitler shot himself days later.
