Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was a 17-year-old assistant and model for his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann.

By 1936, Braun was a part of Hitler's household at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany, and lived a sheltered life throughout World War II.

She became a significant figure within Hitler's inner social circle, but did not attend public events with him until mid-1944, when her sister Gretl married Hermann Fegelein, the SS liaison officer on his staff.

As Nazi Germany was collapsing towards the end of the war, Braun swore loyalty to Hitler and went to Berlin to be by his side in the heavily reinforced Führerbunker beneath the Reich Chancellery garden.

As Red Army troops fought their way into the centre government district, on 29 April 1945, Braun married Hitler during a brief civil ceremony; she was 33 and he was 56.

Less than 40 hours later, they died by suicide in a sitting room of the bunker: Braun by biting and swallowing a capsule of cyanide, and Hitler by a gunshot to the head.

[4] Braun's parents divorced in April 1921 but remarried in November 1922, probably for financial reasons; hyperinflation was plaguing the German economy at the time.

[5] Braun was educated at a Catholic lyceum in Munich, and then for one year at a business school in the Convent of the English Sisters in Simbach am Inn, where she had average grades and a talent for athletics.

[13][14] On 18 September 1931, Raubal was found dead in the apartment with a gunshot wound to the chest, an apparent suicide with Hitler's pistol.

Hitler's half-sister, Angela Raubal (Geli's mother), took exception to her presence there and was later dismissed from her position as housekeeper at the Berghof.

[29] Hitler wished to present himself in the image of a chaste hero; in the Nazi ideology, men were the political leaders and warriors, and women were homemakers.

[30] Hitler believed that he was sexually attractive to women and wished to exploit this for political gain by remaining single, as he felt marriage would decrease his appeal.

[17] Braun had her own room adjoining Hitler's at both the Berghof and the Führerbunker complex beneath the Reich Chancellery garden in Berlin.

[33][34] Biographer Heike Görtemaker wrote that women did not play a big role in the politics of Nazi Germany.

[37][38] In his post-war memoirs, Hoffmann characterised Braun's outlook as "inconsequential and feather-brained";[39] her main interests were sports, clothes, and the cinema.

[40] One instance when she took an interest was in 1943, shortly after Germany had fully transitioned to a total war economy; among other things, this meant a potential ban on women's cosmetics and luxuries.

"[35] On 3 June 1944, Braun's sister Gretl married SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, who served as Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's liaison officer on Hitler's staff.

Hitler used the marriage as an excuse to allow Braun to appear at official functions, as she could then be introduced as Fegelein's sister-in-law.

[40] When Fegelein was caught in the closing days of the war trying to escape to Sweden or Switzerland, Hitler ordered his execution.

[59] After midnight on the night of 28–29 April, Hitler and Braun were married in a small civil ceremony in the bunker.

[65][66] The corpses were carried up the stairs and through the bunker's emergency exit to the garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were burned during the Red Army shelling in and around the area.

[72] Hitler and Braun's remains were also allegedly examined, moved and cremated, but this is most likely Soviet disinformation (as is the narrative that the couple may have escaped).

[76] In 1981, Heusermann told forensic odontologist Reidar F. Sognnaes that the bridge made for Braun was never actually fitted and that the Soviets likely found it in the Chancellery dental office.