Traudl Junge - Hitler's Last Secretary - A Firsthand Account of Life with Hitler [aka Until the Final Hour]

On the evening of 19 April we were sitting by the hearth. For once everyone was there. It was all the same as usual. Hitler talked at length about his beloved Blondi. She was allowed to join the company, and as a dog-lover myself I was really delighted to see how clever she was. Hitler played all kinds of little games with her. He got her to beg, and ‘be a schoolgirl’, which meant getting up on her hind legs and putting both front paws on the arm of Hitler’s chair, like a good little school pupil. Her best turn was singing. Hitler would tell her, in his kindest, most coaxing voice, ‘Sing, Blondi!’ and then he struck up a long-drawn-out howl himself. She joined in the high notes, and the more Hitler praised her the louder she sang. Sometimes her voice rose too high, and then Hitler said, ‘Sing lower, Blondi, sing like Zara Leander!’ Then she gave a long, low howl like the wolf who was certainly among her ancestors. She was given three little pieces of cake every evening, and when Hitler raised three fingers of his hand she knew at once that she was about to get her evening treat.

We talked about the dog almost all that evening, as if it were going to be her birthday. ‘She really is the cleverest dog I know. I sometimes play ball with her over there in my study,’ Hitler told us. ‘Now and then she knocks her toy under the cupboard, and then I have to go to the hearth for the poker and fish the ball out with it. The other day she was with me while I was sitting at my desk. She was very restless, walking up and down. Finally she stopped by the hearth and whined until I got up. Then she went to the cupboard and back to the hearth until I picked up the poker and fetched her ball out from under the cupboard. I’d forgotten about this game, but she still remembered just how I had helped her. But I’m afraid she might break her leg on the smooth parquet floor, so I’ve stopped playing with her in there.’

At last the big hand of the clock came round to twelve. At twelve precisely the doors opened and a row of servants and orderlies marched in with trays full of glasses and champagne. Everyone had a glass of bubbly except Hitler, who had some very sweet white wine poured into his glass. On the last stroke of twelve we clinked glasses. Everyone said, ‘All the best, my Führer,’ or, ‘Happy birthday, my Führer.’ Some made a rather longer speech, hoping that the Führer would remain in good health so that his powers would long remain at their height to help the German people, and so on.

That brought the official part of the birthday to a close as far as I was concerned. The company sat down again, the conversation continued, and later many other people came in with birthday wishes: all the servants, the guards, chauffeurs, the entire kitchen and domestic staff, all the children of the Führer’s set of friends and acquaintances. Hitler’s birthday was celebrated everywhere, in the kitchen, the garages, the guardrooms, the press office, the orderlies’ room. Today as much alcohol as anyone wanted flowed at the Berghof. I took advantage of the general celebrations to go to bed earlier than usual for once. There were plenty of people around to entertain Hitler, and I wasn’t needed any more for work.

On the morning of 20 April Hitler came down earlier than usual. Smiling, half shaking his head, he looked at the presents on the table and piled up in the office. He kept a few small things: a very pretty sculpture of a young girl, a handsome wooden bowl that a fourteen-year-old boy had made himself, and some children’s drawings that he wanted to show Eva. Everything else would go to hospitals, children’s homes, old folk’s homes and welfare organizations. Presents of food were really supposed to be disposed of because of the risk that they might be poisoned. But I did my bit in helping to dispose of these delicacies by using them for their proper purpose.

At lunch Himmler and Sepp Dietrich, [49] Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, b Hawangen 25 May 1892, d Ludwigsburg 21 April 1966; 1910 completes training in the hotel trade; 1911 begins a military career, serves in the First World War, acting sergeant; 1919 sergeant with Wehrregiment 1 in Munich; 1920–1927 serves with Bavarian police and is a member of the Freikorps Oberland, takes part in Hitler’s putsch in Munich; 1928 joins the newly formed SS as Sturmbannführer and joins the NSDAP; 1929 promoted to SS Standartenführer and leader of SS Brigade Bayern; 1930 SS Oberführer, leader of SS Group Süd, member of the Reichstag; 1931 SS Gruppenführer, leader of SS Group Nord; 1933 leader of SS Special Commando in Berlin, builds up the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler; 1934 SS Obergruppenführer; 1935 Berlin city councillor; 1939 takes part in the Polish campaign; 1940–1943 takes part in the Western, Eastern and Balkan campaigns, commander of 1 st SS Panzer division LSSAH, general in the Waffen SS; 1944–1945 SS OberstGruppenführer and colonel general of the Waffen SS, commanding general of 1 st SS Panzer corps and supreme commander of the 5 th Panzer army, finally supreme commander of the 6 th Panzer army, sees action at the Eastern Front, the Western Front and then the Eastern Front again; 8 May 1945 captured in Austria by the US Army; 1946 condemned to life imprisonment; 1955 released; 1957–1959 imprisoned for complicity in the killings during the Röhm putsch of 1934. Holder of the 16 brilliants to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with oakleaves and swords. Goebbels and Esser, Ribbentrop and Chief of Staff Werlin [50] Jakob Werlin, b Andritz near Graz 10 May 1886, d Salzburg 23 September 1945; profession: businessman; 1921 director of the Benz & Co branch in Munich, in this capacity meets Hitler, to whom he sells several cars, a personal friend of Hitler; 1932 joins the NSDAP and the SS; 1943 SS-Obergruppenführer, ‘Inspector General of Motor Vehicles’; 1945–1949 interned by the US Army. were the guests of honour. There were so many people that there wasn’t an empty seat left even at the round table in the bay window. I sat next to Himmler. It was the first time I had seen this powerful, much feared man at close quarters. I didn’t like him at all, not for any sense of brutality about him but because he seemed so ordinary and insincere, rather like a civil servant. That was the surprising thing about his character: he would greet you by kissing your hand, he spoke in a quiet voice with a slight Bavarian accent, always had a smile around the corners of his eyes and mouth, and seemed friendly and polite, almost cordial! When you heard him telling innocuous stories, chatting away pleasantly, who would associate him with mass shootings, concentration camps and so on? I think he was very subtle. He told us how splendidly the concentration camps were organized. ‘I give people their work to do individually, and by using that method I’ve achieved not only total security but also efficiency, peace and quiet, and good order in the camps. For instance, we made an incorrigible arsonist fire-watcher in one camp. He’s responsible for seeing that no fire breaks out, and I made sure he knew that he would be the prime suspect the moment there was any fire at all. You should just see how reliable and conscientious that man is now, my Führer.’ So saying, he smiled happily, and we were bound to get the impression that as a humanitarian psychologist he didn’t just imprison the inmates of the camps, he trained and educated them too. Hitler nodded his approval of Himmler’s remarks, and no one had anything else to add to the subject.

Ribbentrop was a very odd man. The impression he made on me was of someone absent-minded and slightly dreamy, and if I hadn’t known that he was Foreign Minister I’d have said he was a cranky eccentric leading a strange life of his own. In the middle of the conversation he suddenly asked, abruptly, why the Führer didn’t drink sparkling wine. ‘It’s extremely refreshing, my Führer, and very digestible too.’ Hitler looked at him in some surprise and told him firmly that he hated champagne. ‘It’s much too acid for me, and if I want something sparkling to drink I prefer Fachinger or Apollinaris water. I’m sure they’re healthier.’ Probably the Foreign Minister had temporarily forgotten that he was no longer a champagne manufacturer but a diplomat now. He always cut a good figure, but I like him a lot less when I remember how, on visiting London for the Coronation, he greeted the King of England by raising his arm and announcing, ‘Heil Hitler!’