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

A few weeks later, however, there was another plane crash near Salzburg, and another commander was killed, General Hube. [70] The air accident in which Colonel General Hans-Valentin Hube was killed and Liaison Officer Hewel badly injured near Salzburg was not, as Traudl Junge writes, a few weeks later but a few weeks earlier, on 21 April 1944. Panzer General Hube was summoned to Hitler’s 55 th birthday celebrations on the Obersalzburgon 20 April 1944 to receive the (13 th ) award of brilliants to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with oakleaves and swords. At the same time Hube was promoted to colonel general. Hans-Valentin Hube, b Naumburg, Silesia 29 October 1890, d near Salzburg 21 April 1944 (in a plane crash); 1909 begins his military career, fights in the First World War, has his left arm amputated in 1914; 1918 captain; 1931 major; 1934 lieutenant colonel; 1 August 1936 colonel, later commander of Döbertiz infantry school and commander of Infantry Regiment 3; 1940 commander of the 16 th Infantry division which became the 16 th Armoured division, major general; 1942 general of Panzer troops; 1943 supreme commander of the 1 st Panzer army; 20 April 1944 promoted to colonel general; 21 April 1944 dies in an air crash, state funeral in the presence of Hitler at the Invaliden cemetery in Berlin. This time Walther Hewel had been in the crash too, and was taken to the Berchtesgaden hospital badly injured. I never found out how the accident happened.

I quite forgot to say that meanwhile a new face had appeared in Hitler’s circle, that of Gruppenführer Fegelein. [71] Hermann Fegelein, b Ansbach 30 October1906, d Berlin 28 April 1945 (executed); 1925 takes school-leaving examinations, 2 years of service as temporary volunteer with the 17 th (Bavarian) Cavalry regiment; 1927–1929 in the Munich police as an officer cadet; 1931 joins the NSDAP; 1933 joins the SS; 1935 founds the SS Principal Riding School in Munich; 1936 SS Sturmbannführer, one of the most successful show-jumpers of his time, on the outbreak of war becomes SS OberSturmbannführer in the Waffen SS, as commander of the SS Cavalry Brigade and SS Standartenführer is successful in 1941–1942 on the central section of the Eastern Front; 2 March 1942 awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross; 1 May 1942 inspector of riding and driving at SS head office, then promoted to SS Oberführer, returns to the Eastern Front; 22 December 1943 is the 157 th soldier of the German Wehrmacht to be awarded oakleaves to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross for his achievements as commander of the Fegelein fighting group; until the end of 1943 commander of the 8 th Cavalry division ‘Florian Geyer’; on 30 July 1944 receives the 83 rd award of swords to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with oakleaves; from 1 January 1944 liaison officer of the Waffen SS to Hitler; 3 June 1944 marries Gretl Braun, sister of Eva Braun; 21 June 1944 promoted to SS Gruppenführer and lieutenant general of the Waffen SS; deserts from the bunker of the Reich Chancellery on 27 April 1945, is found in civilian clothing in Berlin and arrested, is interrogated by criminal police chief Peter Högl, condemned to death by a drumhead court martial and immediately shot in the garden of the Foreign Office by an execution squad of the Waffen SS. He acted as liaison officer between Himmler and Hitler and was on Hitler’s staff. At first you only saw him arriving for the military briefings, but soon he made friends with Reichsleiter Bormann, and before long he was setting the tone at the Berghof.

Hermann Fegelein was the daring cavalryman type. He had a very large nose, and wore the Knight’s Cross with oakleaves and swords. No wonder he was used to women flocking around him. In addition he had a refreshing, sometimes very dry wit, and never minced his words. You felt he was a naturally frank and honest person. That helped him to forge a remarkable career quickly and unexpectedly. No sooner had he appeared than he was sitting with us at table in the Berghof. He went to Bormann’s nocturnal parties, drank to the health of all the important men there, and all the women were at his feet. Those who were not his friends were his enemies until he was firmly in the saddle. He was clever but ruthless, and had some very attractive qualities, such as the honesty with which he admitted that at heart he was a terrible coward, and had won his decorations doing heroic deeds out of pure fear. He also frankly admitted that nothing was as important to him as his career and a good life.

Unfortunately differences of opinion and intrigues surfaced in Hitler’s entourage soon after he had joined us. Fegelein, who was an entertaining, sociable person, soon attracted the attention of Eva Braun and her sister Gretl. The latter in particular was the object of handsome Hermann’s attentions. It’s true that before he knew she was Eva’s sister he had said, ‘What a silly goose!’ But he was quick to change his mind in view of her family connections. Everyone was surprised when Fegelein’s engagement to Gretl Braun was announced. It reinforced Fegelein’s position personally too. Hewel the liaison officer, who had married now himself and was at present in hospital, injured, after his plane accident, was the only man to have a good enough personal relationship with Hitler to be an obstacle in Fegelein’s way. So Fegelein used Hewel’s absence to slander him to Hitler, and he succeeded. Hewel, who couldn’t defend himself, fell into disfavour, and Hitler refused even to meet his wife.

But all these personal human experiences became unimportant in view of the American invasion in the West. It came suddenly, although it had long been expected and was supposed to be doomed to failure from the start. My husband, who was just enjoying a short leave with me in Berchtesgaden, had to return to the front immediately. The war conferences went on and on. We saw Hitler’s grave and rather careworn face. His hopes that the enemy would be decisively defeated when they attacked in the West didn’t seem to be being realized very quickly. Guests came and went at the Berghof, the sun shone down over the peaceful landscape, we chatted, laughed, made love and drank, yet the tension still grew from day to day. Julius Schaub’s lower lip was hanging right down to his chin: it was his job to go through the Luftwaffe reports. The reports of losses and injuries were coming in so thick and fast that we could type out only brief notes of them in the reports for the Führer Göring and the Luftwaffe officers were angrily reproached at every military briefing. Large quantities of photographs came in from Gauleiters all over the Reich showing the destruction of their cities. Hitler looked at them all and snorted with rage. But he never saw the extent of the devastation with his own eyes.

One day, when I came back from Munich, which I had left just after a bad air raid, I told him, ‘My Führer, all those photographs you’re looking at are nothing to the misery of the real thing. You ought to see the people standing outside the burning buildings, weeping and warming their hands on the glowing, charred beams, watching their homes collapse and bury everything they have.’ He replied, ‘I know what it’s like, but I shall change things. We’ve built new planes now, and soon all these horrors will be over!’

Hitler never saw what the war looked like in his own country, never realized the full extent of the destruction and devastation. He spoke of nothing but retaliation and the success to come, the certainty of the final victory. I couldn’t help it, I thought he really did have some certain method, some last reserves in the background that would free the people from all their suffering one day.

Life would have been good but for the feeling that we were sitting on a powder keg, while our secret nervousness kept spreading. Among his guests, Hitler was still trying to show his confidence and certainty of victory by making light conversation to the ladies, walking to the tea-house, and playing records and telling stories by the fire in the evening. But I thought he sometimes sat there […] looking old and tired, his mind elsewhere. He, the gallant cavalier who never wanted to look old, asked the ladies whether they minded if he put his feet up on the sofa. And Eva Braun’s eyes looked anxious and sad. She was trying harder than ever to keep Hitler’s guests in a good mood, desperately and with touching efforts doing her best to provide cheerfulness and relaxation. She was never absent from meals or the hearth in the Great Hall these days.