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

Goebbels brought verve and wit into the conversation. He wasn’t at all handsome, but I could see why the girls in the Reich Chancellery ran to the windows to see the Propaganda Minister leave his Ministry, but took hardly any notice of Hitler. ‘Oh, if you only knew what eyes Goebbels has, and what an enchanting smile!’ they gushed, as I looked blankly at them. The ladies at the Berghof positively flirted with Hitler’s Minister too. He really did have a delightfully entertaining manner, and his shafts of wit were well aimed, although mostly at other people’s expense. No one around the Führer’s table could stand up to his sharp tongue, least of all the Reich press chief, who made the slightly improper remark that he got his best ideas in the bathtub, to which Goebbels, of course, promptly replied, ‘You should take a bath more often, Dr Dietrich!’ The press chief went pale and said no more.

So the chatter round the table went on, and Goebbels aimed his sallies, which hit their mark and were not returned. Curiously enough, Himmler and Goebbels entirely ignored each other. It wasn’t too obvious, but still you couldn’t help noticing that their relationship was a superficial veneer of civility. The two of them met relatively seldom; they didn’t have much to do with each other, and were not, like the warring Bormann brothers, kept on the same leash by their master. The hostility between the Bormanns was so habitual and firmly established that they could stand side by side and ignore each other entirely. And when Hitler gave a letter or request to the younger Bormann to be passed on to the Reichsleiter, Albert Bormann would go out, find an orderly, and the orderly would pass instructions on to his big brother even if they were both in the same room. The same thing happened in reverse, and if one Bormann told a funny story at table all the rest of the company would roar with laughter, while his brother just sat there ignoring them and looking deadly serious. I was surprised to find how used Hitler had become to this state of affairs. He took no notice of it at all. Unfortunately I never managed to find out the reason for their enmity. I think there was a woman behind it. Or perhaps those two fighting cocks had long ago forgotten the reason themselves?

Afternoon tea was taken in the Great Hall on Hitler’s birthday. The important military men, Jodl, Keitel, Schmundt and so on, were there too. Göring came only for the conference, and took the opportunity of offering his congratulations then. In the afternoon, however, his wife ‘the Queen Mother’ [51] The actress Emmy Sonnemann, who married Hermann Göring on 10 April 1935. Hitler was a witness at their wedding. arrived in a huge, cornflower-blue cape, bringing little Edda to offer birthday wishes. We could see them only through the window as Hitler greeted them on the terrace, and Eva ran up to the first floor to fetch her camera and take a picture of little Edda reciting her birthday poem to Uncle Hitler. For once, Hitler had gone out on the terrace without his cap, and Eva didn’t want to miss such a good opportunity.

Later, Hitler paid his traditional visit to the field hospital at the Platterhof. He always visited wounded soldiers on his birthday.

I made an interesting new acquaintance myself that day. I met my predecessor, of whom Hitler had always spoken with real enthusiasm. She had been Fräulein Daranowski, but now she had married Colonel Christian, head of the Luftwaffe operations department, and reluctantly she had given up her job with the Führer. Eva Braun didn’t mind that, because the Führer sometimes spoke a little too warmly of his secretary. She really was a very pleasant, charming person, well groomed, a brunette, spirited and youthful, the embodiment of life itself. Her glance was irresistible, and her laughter sounded like little silver bells. And while the Führer liked her sex appeal, she was also an extremely good secretary. I seldom saw such nimble fingers on the typewriter keys. Her hands were so supple they might have been made of rubber. Later we worked together. [52] Gerda Christian returned to Adolf Hitler’s employment in the middle of 1943.

By now it was no secret in our close-knit circle that I was on particularly friendly terms with Hans Junge. If I excused myself from a meal it was usually when Linge was on duty, so that Hans Junge and I could take long walks in the mountains together, or go on expeditions to Berchtesgaden or Salzburg. But not only was Julius Schaub as naturally nosy as a washerwoman, he was always on the look-out for subjects of conversation to serve up to the Führer at breakfast. However, while gossip about little love affairs might be very interesting, that wasn’t really what the Supreme Commander wanted. If he heard about such things he recognized only serious, long-term relationships.

Hans Junge was a particular favourite of the Führer’s, serving him devotedly and with a strong sense of duty. All the same, he was anxious to get further away from Hitler. He was one of the few people to realize that in the long run Hitler’s ideas would have such an effect on you that in the end you wouldn’t know what you had thought of yourself, and what was due to outside influence. Junge wanted his sense of objectivity back. He had applied several times to go to the front, which was the only way he could give up his job with Hitler. Every time his request was turned down on the grounds that he was indispensable; there were plenty of good soldiers but few trustworthy valets and adjutants. Finally Junge saw his chance in getting engaged to me. He knew very well that Hitler was as unwilling to lose me as his secretary as he was to lose Hans as his valet. And an engagement wasn’t too firm a tie, but would give us the chance to spend time together and get to know each other. So we both decided to tell the Führer we were engaged, and at the same time Junge would ask for a transfer to the front again.

Schaub was delighted when we asked him to tell the Führer about our intentions. Soon after Hitler’s birthday, he took his master this world-shattering news. I found the whole thing terribly embarrassing. I could feel Hitler’s eyes resting on me with a surreptitious smile at table, I thought I saw faces full of sly glee around me, and I felt like getting up and running away. I remembered, with a rather guilty conscience, saying with heartfelt conviction only three months earlier that I took no interest in men.

That evening by the fireside Hitler suddenly said, ‘Well, I certainly do have bad luck with my staff. First Christian marries Dara and takes my best secretary away, then I finally get a really good replacement, and now Traudl Humps is leaving me too and taking my best valet with her into the bargain.’ Then he turned to me. ‘But you’ll be staying with me for the time being. Junge insists that he wants to go to the front, and while you’re on your own you can carry on working for me.’ So now I was suddenly engaged, although I didn’t really feel quite up to this new dignity. However, I thought confidently, who knows what may happen between engagement and marriage?

On the First of May, National Labour Day, Hitler at last dictated a document to me again, quite a long one. In the old days he had spoken at mass meetings and personally attended celebrations and huge rallies. During the last years of the war, however, Hitler nearly always recorded his speeches, and then they were broadcast on the radio. Often his proclamations were just read out by someone else or published in the press. And he had made no unscripted public speeches since the beginning of the war. ‘I prefer to improvise,’ he said, ‘and I speak best off the cuff, but now that we’re at war I have to weigh up every word, because the world will be listening attentively. If some spontaneous impulse leads me into making a remark that doesn’t go down well there could be unfortunate complications.’ It was only on internal occasions, for instance addressing Gauleiters, officers or industrialists, that Hitler spoke without notes. Although I had been reminding him of the forthcoming speech for days beforehand, it wasn’t until the night of 30 April that he felt in the mood to dictate it to me and could find time to do so. I spent all night typing it out. I finished in the early hours of the morning, Hitler recorded the speech at ten, and at twelve noon it was broadcast on all the German radio stations.