Hitler and Geli Hardback

Few people knew about the affair Adolf Hitler had with his niece, Geli Raubal, when he was 38 and she was only 17.

Geli came to live with Hitler in his house in Berchtesgaden with her mother, Angelika Raubal - his widowed half-sister and the only one of his relatives he was on good terms with.

The couple shared a strangely intense passionate relationship in the early years they spent together, but it was always dogged by Hitler's hopeless intolerance, chauvinistic attitude to womanhood and his perpetual possessive jealousy.

Later, the significant weakening of the bond between Hitler and Geli coincided with the phenomenal rise in the popularity of the Nazis.

On 14 September 1930, nearly six-and-a-half million people voted for the party that was, by then, virtually Hitler's personal possession.

He had achieved unchallenged supremacy as leader, and this idolization by his public lessened his need to idolize Geli.

His tenderness became twisted and his behaviour even more oppressive.

In 1931, aged 21, Geli Raubal was found dead in the Munich flat she shared with Hitler; his revolver on the floor and an unfinished letter on the table.

Hitler was absolutely shattered by his niece's death.