The ship’s manifest lists her real name, next to her mother’s and her older sister’s, Gretl. Eva Braun, Adolf Hilter’s girlfriend and partner in suicide a woman who stayed with him for a decade, through the entire Holocaust the only woman who could call der Führer by his first name: Adolf, dear.īraun was in Iceland in the summer of 1939, the year the Second World War began, traveling on board the Milwaukee, a cruise liner from the Nazi state-operated leisure organization Kraft durch Freude. The clip suggests an eye drawn toward the innocent, the gentle and pure. The camera then cuts to a blond boy, probably around eight years old, and stays on him long enough to capture a shy smile toward the camera. One girl stands with her fist gripping the neck of a dead puffin, a local delicacy. The idyllic motifs continue as the filmmaker’s eye is drawn to children. Green gardens suggest the peak of summer. The sequence moves quickly, reflecting the price of color film, but the cameraperson lingers for a few seconds on the sight of clean laundry luffing on a clothesline in the ocean breeze. Next cut: the camera is on solid ground, pointed at some of the quaint houses that once dotted Heimaey (in 1973, the town would have to be rebuilt after a volcanic eruption). All it reveals, so far, is a voyage in an astounding landscape. The ship sails through a narrow inlet, passing sheer black-green cliffs that plunge into the sea, crossed by the flight of fulmars and skuas. The journey as the ship enters Heimaey’s harbor is stunning. The largest island, Heimaey, is inhabited by a community referred to as the Eyjamenn-the island people-by “continental” Icelanders. The archipelago of 15 dome-shaped islands sits on a volcanic hotspot just 16 kilometers off the southern coast. Some of the oldest color film footage ever taken of Iceland was shot aboard a cruise ship sailing around the Westmann Islands. A sheep farmer in northern Iceland lecturing his workers during a coffee break, according to Nú er hlátur nývakinn, a collection of anecdotes from the region
Had people just taken my advice, this mess would never have happened. Iceland, it turns out has shown up unexpectedly-and has had an outsized role-in many world-changing events. The following excerpt, “That Time Hitler’s Girlfriend Visited Iceland and the British Invaded,” is from Bjarnason’s first book, How Iceland Changed the World. Bjarnason, an Icelander, has introduced readers to the small island nation’s fixation on swimming lessons for all, its connection to the first moon landing, and its role in seasickness research. Egill Bjarnason has been Hakai Magazine ’s go-to writer on all things Iceland since 2017.