Brigitte Hamann

Brigitte Hamann (née Deitert; 26 July 1940 – 4 October 2016) was a German-Austrian author and historian based in Vienna. Born in Essen, Germany, Hamann studied history in Münster and Vienna. She worked as a journalist in her native Essen for some time. In 1965, she married historian Günther Hamann (1924–1994), moved to Vienna and obtained Austrian citizenship in addition to her German. The couple had three children; one of them is journalist and feminist Sibylle Hamann. Brigitte Hamann worked with her husband at the University of Vienna and in 1978 obtained a doctor's degree on the basis of a thesis on the life of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. The thesis was published as a book the same year. She described her working method as follows: "(Coming from Germany) I had a different view of Austria, and I began to write with a certain detachment".The success of her first book led to further books, notably on Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Adolf Hitler, and Winifred Wagner.Hamann's 1996 book Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship examined how societal attitudes at the time shaped Hitler's anti-Semitic views during his time in Vienna between 1908 and 1913, and the effects of his inordinate fear of both infection and women. Following the publication of The Hidden Hitler by historian and University of Bremen professor Lothar Machtan, Hamann investigated claims about Hitler's homosexuality and appears in the 2004 HBO documentary film, Hidden Fuhrer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality, by American documentarians Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato.In 2005, Hamann released Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler's Bayreuth, a biography of Winifred Wagner, the British-born woman who became a founding member of the Nazi Party and a close friend of Hitler. The publication earned her "Book of the Year" honors by Opernwelt (Operaworld) magazine and "Historical Book of the Year" honors from Damals history magazine. That same year she received the Presseclub Concordia "Concordia-Preis" in recognition of her work.

Hamann died on 4 October 2016 at the age of 76.