Geli Raubal, 1908 - 1931

Angela Maria „Geli“ Raubal was born the 4th January 1908 in Linz, Austria to Angela and Leo Raubal. Her mother was the half-sister of our Führer. She also had a brother named Leo and a sister named Elfriede. Geli went to the Gymnasium in Linz but wasn’t a very enthusiastic student, she preferred Music, singing and playing tennis. In 1921 her aunt Maria Raubal, a teacher, retired from her school, moved to Linz, Dinghoferstrasse where Geli lived and became her personal teacher.

Our Führer was appointed as a legal guardian to his niece in 1923 but they only met for the first time in 1924 in Landsberg am Lech where he was imprisoned.

In 1927 she started to study medicine in Munich and lived in a guesthouse not far from where the Führer lived. She quit her studies soon after to pursue a career in singing. Our Führer financed her singing lessons at first with the bandleader Adolf Vogl and later with Hans Streck who was the former adjudant to General Erich Ludendorff.

In december 1927, Emil Maurice who was a co-founder of the SS and driver to the Führer, asked for the Führer's blessing to marry his niece. Since she was still under the legal age to marry, she needed approval from her legal guardian to get married. Our Führer denied this request and from then on they could only see eachother under strict supervision.

In 1929 Geli moved in with the Führer in a 9-room appartment in Prinzregentenplatz 16 in Munich.

On the morning of the 19th September 1931, members of the Führer's staff found Geli Raubal dead from a gunshot wound to the lung in her room in the Munich apartment. She was 23 and the official cause of death was listed as suicide. The finding of suicide was based on the fact that her door had been locked from the inside. No autopsy was conducted, although a doctor estimated that her death had occurred the previous day, September 18.

There were many rumors, since she was killed by a bullet fired from his pistol, a Walther, it was rumored that the Führer had shot her, or had ordered her to be shot, for infidelity or other reasons. 

As these rumours circulated, the Führer released a statement to the Münchener Post: "It is untrue that I and my niece had a quarrel on Friday 18 September; it is untrue that I was violently opposed to my niece going to Vienna; it is untrue that my niece was engaged to someone in Vienna and I forbade it." 

Geli’s death occurred on a night when the entire household staff, the couple Georg and Anna Winter, Anna Kirmair and Maria Reichert were off duty except for a deaf worker, Frau Dachs, and it is said that it was a rare occurrence for the Führer to leave behind his pistol.

Her brother Leo said that she had been happy at Berchtesgaden in the days preceding the beginning of her visit to Munich, on September 17.

The pathologist Maria Fischbaur then arrived and the body was transferred to the East Cemetery of Munich. Geli’s mother Angela wanted her to be buried on the Zentral Cemetery in Vienna and only she, Geli’s brother Leo, sister Elfriede and aunt Paula were present on the 23rd September 1931. The Führer crossed the border to visit the grave three days later on the 26th September 1931 and Emil Maurice drove him. He stayed for 25 minutes on the cemetery. The Austrian customs officers looked the other way as he passed the border. They then drove to the hotel “Goldenes Lamm” were they met the family.

The body of Geli Raubal, was still temporary buried in a vault on the Zentral Cemetery of Vienna. The Zentral cemetery management removed her remains after the entry of the German Army on the 12th March 1938 and reburied her in plot 23 E, row 2, grave 73. The Führer visited her grave three times.

The Führer ordered Ferdinand Liebermann, a sculptor, to complete two busts, one in each of his bedrooms, and a painting of Geli made by Adolf Ziegler.

The gravestone was destroyed soon after the war. Since recently there is a new gravestone on her grave with no inscriptions except for a lone cross.