Christa Schroeder - He Was My Chief - The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Secretary

I can confirm that Hitler was very attached to his architectural sketches and would not have disposed of them. When at the end in 1945 Schaub emptied the contents of Hitler’s strong box at the Berghof and burned the material on the terrace, many of Hitler’s architectural sketches were amongst them, and I saved a bundle from Schaub’s bonfire. I did not keep them, however: Albert Zoller failed to return half and the rest I rather stupidly sold to Dr Picker.

In the summer of 1942, Hitler advanced his command post to FHQ Wehrwolf at Vinnitsa in the Ukraine.

Letter. FHQ Wehrwolf, 14 August 1942:

I am only glad that you are sympathetic to my mental inertia. In the four weeks since we have been at the new HQ I have not found the energy for writing private letters, yet I feel really good physically and mentally. I just lack somebody to plug the drain on my spiritual resources and revive me spiritually. Unfortunately so many here have fallen victim to languor that no help can be expected from this quarter. Since the two thick Benrath tomes I have not really read anything. I lack inner calm and the will for it.

The films served up are ancient, stupid, spiritless. The last two evenings Johanna and I have reverted to watching the old silent movies, but only because there is nothing better. The worst is when you get hot under the collar at the stupid films and start to itch everywhere but stay seated because the only alternative is bed. Right, now I shall give you a short report on our new HQ and about the removal to here, etc.

On 17 July, sixteen or seventeen aircraft got ready to fly to the east. It was a very impressive scene on the airfield, all the great machines clustered together, all ready to take off, motors running, the air filled with the deep humming of vibrating wings and wires until one machine after the other rolled down the airstrip and lifted off into the air. The pilot invited me to sit in the cockpit which naturally I accepted gratefully, for from there you get a quite different picture. The fuselage windows give a view to one side only, and a small section at that, but the panorama from the cockpit is greater and freer. And here you really feel that you are flying.

I found it interesting to follow the flight on a map. This is a science I would never be able to master. People who understand it impress me very much, for to say that the landscape below looks like a map is a platitude. Naturally there is a certain similarity, but the reality has a confusing mass of detail which makes it difficult to match the two. Highways coloured red on the map prove to be grey and inconspicuous below (the easiest to spot were railway lines). Here and there the landscape is darkened when clouds hide the sun, or ground mist obscures the ground for a while until a piece of terrain reappears: but where we were on the map I could never determine.

I have wandered completely off the subject. After many hours we reached the destination airfield. Here we had to search for our car, and eventually set off in a heavy Krupp which is not at all suitable for Russian ‘highways’. For Johanna Wolf, who had not felt well during the flight, this was the last straw. She was totally exhausted and unable to lend a hand for the first few hours.

Her depression got worse, and mine began, when we saw our office. To the left and right a door opened to reveal a small aperture containing a narrow bed with nightstand and a rack for the cases. This was our world. The office was so narrow and small that we could hardly move in it. Our luggage, giant office cases, crates and five typewriters filled it up completely. Since we have lived long enough in dark, airless bunkers, our hopes were for bright rooms with large windows. Instead, the bedroom had a single square window twenty-five centimetres along each side and covered with a green gauze. This ‘window’ was our greatest disappointment. Thank God we could have a look round, and after I moved into another room temporarily for eight days finally I ferreted out a decent office with an alcove behind a curtain. By virtue of my organisational skill and experience I have been able to convert it◦– say it quietly◦– into the most snug room in the whole HQ.

Only I could have done it: a couch (sofa with coverlet and dark-green/blue padded back rest, above it some wall drapes which would probably be better put to use as bed mats, in front of the couch a little table I made myself from a suitcase rack and a wardrobe shelf, covered with a red-fringed and spotted blanket; two chairs, one upholstered, the other with a rattan seat; a carpet; colourful engravings and prints on the walls; many flowers but mainly zinnias, and then for contrast thistles in a black earthenware jar. We had a housewarming which lasted until 0600… I will tell you orally.

The living accommodation is similar to Wolfsschanze except we have fortified houses instead of concrete bunkers. They look really attractive but are awfully damp inside. It is always the same whenever you start at a new HQ: the beds are always damp, you shiver terribly and it is quite certain that later one will be disabled with rheumatism. Daytime temperatures are really high (it is not unusual to have 45◦– 50°C) but at night it is disproportionately cool, and often the weather changes as quick as a flash.

The mosquito plague is worse here than last year, and here we have the dangerous Anopheles strain whose bites can give you malaria. There is a prophylactic called Atibrin which tastes ghastly and bitter, one revolts against taking it each evening but you have to force yourself; if you get malaria, that counts as a self-inflicted injury, a serious disciplinary offence. On the evening of hot days we have a mad purge on the insects which enter despite the gauzed windows: they get in through every crack and hum around you in bed, and keep on and on until your nerves can stand no more and you get up cursing. Recently at night I have taken to opening the curtain to the living room and lighting all lamps, this attracts the mosquitoes out of the alcove and into the light, and once the whole army of them has gathered I draw the curtain again and creep back to bed leaving the light burning.

The other night scarcely had I laid my head down than I heard a rustling and a nibbling near my bed: I had left some milk to curdle and the mice had found it. With a loud cry I ran out to the couch and lit the lamps in the bedroom to attract the mosquitoes there. That was a damned restless night! Frank Thiess wrote in one of his books that all women are stupid, they shriek equally loudly for an innocent mouse as a tiger. He is probably right.

We have a wonderful innovation◦– a fifteen by ten metre swimming pool. Unfortunately the water drains away frequently and is in any case barbarously cold. The food has improved enormously. As we live from the local products of the land we have plenty of butter in the morning and often an egg. A large market garden provides us with fresh vegetables.

In the city there is a slaughterhouse on 100,000 hectares, the largest of its kind in Europe. I had a chance to visit and watched the whole process from stunning the animal to the final sausage or meat paste. The factory is designed on American lines, a continuous production line. They skin a cow in the ridiculously short time of thirty seconds, a process that takes two hours in Germany. Some 250–300 cattle are slaughtered there daily and cooked to make 12,000–15,000 tins of meat. A few sample tins are taken from each run for airtightness testing, which is done in a culture cabinet, where they are kept for twenty-four hours in tropical heat. Provided no defective tins are discovered, the batch is then consigned to the Front.

This factory uses every last piece of the animal, which ends up as soap, in buttons, combs and cigarette butts. The skins are salted and stored for four to six weeks, turned every day and freshly salted. It is really an enormous business. Most of the employees are women, chosen because they are more industrious…