Hermann Fegelein

Hermann Fegelein was born in Ansbach, Germany, in 1906. In his youth he worked as a stable boy for Christian Weber, one of the original members of the German Nazi party.

He enlisted in the German army in 1925, staying for three years, and when his service was up he joined the Bavarian State Police and was posted to Munich.

In his capacity as a policeman he came into contact with many members of the Nazi party, found the party's philosophy to his liking, and quit the state police to join the party in 1930.

In 1931 he transferred to the SS.

His rise through the ranks of the SS was impressive, and in 1937 he was appointed by Heinrich Himmler as head of the SS Riding School, a prestigious institution restricted only to members of German royalty and wealthy industrialists (who, not coincidentally, were major financial backers of the Nazi party).

In 1943 he was briefly posted to the Russian front--where his unit was accused of massacring thousands of civilians--but, after being wounded, he was transferred back to Germany and went to work as Himmler's personal assistant.

In 1944 Fegelein married Gretl Braun, the sister of Adolf Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun. It was apparently a marriage of political and career expediency for Fegelein, as Hitler had been trying to marry off Gretl for some time so as to have a legitimate reason to present Eva to visitors and have her accompany him to official functions; Gretl had a reputation for being extremely promiscuous, and it was getting more and more difficult for Hitler to find a man who would want anything to do with her (she was, in fact, pregnant with another man's child when she married Fegelein). Now that Fegelein had performed such a valuable favor for "Der Fuhrer", though, his personal stock went up with Hitler and his professional stock went up with Himmler. However, as the war began to turn against the Nazis, Fegelein's duties as commandant of the SS horse farm, headquartered in Fischhorn Castle near Zell am See, began to include the distribution to various high Nazi officials of large amounts of gold, works of art, jewelry and other valuables looted from most of occupied Europe, along with new ID papers that would allow them to escape capture after Germany's defeat and make their way to countries outside Europe.

Brother-in-law of Eva Braun, and Ilse Braun. Two hours after Adolf Hitler ordered Fegelein shot, he married Eva. They committed suicide less than 40 hours later. Gretl gave birth to her and Fegelein's daughter, whom she named Eva, on May 5, 1945. Eva committed suicide on April 25, 1971 after her boyfriend was killed in an auto accident.