[1] After dropping out of secondary school at the age of 16,[2] she worked as a clerk for the photography company of Heinrich Hoffmann, the official photographer for the Nazi Party, who also employed her sister Eva.

[3] Gretl spent much time with Eva at Hitler's Berghof retreat in the Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps, where she enlivened the formal atmosphere by having fun, smoking, and flirting with the orderlies.

[9] On 3 June 1944, she married SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, who served as Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's liaison officer on Hitler's staff.

The social scene at the Berghof effectively ended on 14 July 1944 when Hitler left for his military headquarters, never to return.

On 23 April she wrote her last letter to Gretl and included a request for her to destroy all her business papers, but to retain the personal correspondence or bury it.

[15] Gretl was pregnant and still at the Berghof when her husband was arrested for desertion on 28 April 1945 in an apartment in Berlin, having gone missing from the Führerbunker.

[19] On 5 May 1945 at Obersalzberg, Gretl gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Eva Barbara in memory of her sister.