Officially described as a suicide, it was theorised that she took her own life when her relationship with Nazi leaders deteriorated after she showed unwillingness to appear in propaganda films. She was also known to have been pressured to end a relationship with her Jewish lover, but had refused. Near the end of her life, she became addicted to morphine and abused alcohol. Witnesses also recalled seeing several Gestapo officers entering her building shortly before she died. It has been asserted that she was either murdered by Gestapo officers who threw her from a window, or that she panicked when she saw them arrive and jumped. The true circumstances surrounding her death remain unclear.