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

Of course Goebbels was immediately informed of the failed assassination, but it wasn’t made public knowledge. No one knew yet how many accomplices Stauffenberg had and what was going on in Berlin. But soon there was much hurry and bustle, with a great many confused orders and counter-orders. All hell was let loose at OKW. [77] OKW = Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Wehrmacht High Command. None of them there knew where their allegiance lay◦– with the resistance movement in the Wehrmacht, or with those loyal to Hitler? The circumstances of what went on in Berlin were never quite clear to me. All I know is that the commander of the ‘Greater Germany’ regiment, Colonel Remer, [78] This was Major Otto Ernst Remer, loyal to Hitler and◦– Traudl Junge’s memory was inaccurate here◦– head of the guard battalion. Hitler had told him by phone that his superior officer, Lieutenant General Paul von Hase, commandant of Berlin, belonged to a ‘small clique of traitors’ and was to be arrested at once. Meanwhile he, Remer, was to take over command of all the Wehrmacht troops in Berlin and follow the orders of Goebbels. Otto Ernst Remer, b Neubrandenburg 18 August 1912, d Marbella, Spain, 4 October 1997. Traudl Junge is incorrect in saying that as commander of the Führer’s escort brigade Remer received the Knight’s Cross from Hitler in Berlin next day. Indeed, this would have contravened the regulations governing the order, since it would not have been won in action against the enemy, but only in the course of restoring internal security in Berlin. Remer had already received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross as a major on 18 May 1943, and the 325 th award of oakleaves to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross on 12 November of the same year. He was promoted to colonel retrospectively with effect from 1 July 1944, skipping the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was promoted to major general on 31 January 1945. decided the matter when he placed himself under the orders of Goebbels, ordered his men to occupy the Reich Chancellery and the radio station, and denied entrance to the resistance officers. This action earned him the award of the Knight’s Cross from Hitler next day, and peace was restored to the streets of Berlin without a shot being fired.

But it took a long time for the waves of excitement to die down at headquarters. When I saw Hitler that evening he was still full of fury and indignation over such treachery at the most crucial phase of the war. ‘What cowards they are! They could at least have shot at me◦– then I might feel some respect for them. But they daren’t put their lives at stake. There can’t be many people stupid enough to think they could do better than me. Those fools don’t know what chaos there will be if I let go of the strings. But I’ll make an example of them that will stop anyone else wanting to commit such treachery against the German nation!’ Hitler’s eyes were flashing. He was livelier than I’d seen him for a long time, although his right arm was causing him pain. He held it motionless between the buttons of his tunic. The table top had wrenched his arm when the bomb blast sent it up in the air.

I don’t know what would have happened if the assassination had succeeded. All I see is millions of soldiers now lying buried somewhere, gone for ever, who might instead have come home again, their guns silent and the sky quieter once more. The war would have been over.

But that vision is quickly banished by what really happened: the assassination attempt of 20 July was the greatest possible misfortune for Germany and Europe. Not because it was made but because it failed. Hitler saw all the unfortunate coincidences that foiled the plot as his personal success. His confidence, his certainty of victory and his sense of security, his consciousness of power and his megalomania now really passed beyond all the bounds of reason. If recent military defeats might perhaps have made him ready to compromise, if his inmost heart had sometimes wavered in its belief in victory, now he thought that Fate had confirmed his own worth, his ideals, his power and all that he did.

‘Those criminals who wanted to do away with me have no idea what would have happened to the German nation then. They don’t know about the plans of our enemies who want to destroy Germany so that it can never rise again. If the Jews, with the hatred they feel, ever get power over us, then all will finally be over for German and European culture. And if they think the Western powers are strong enough to hold back Bolshevism without Germany they’re wrong. This war must be won or Europe will be lost to Bolshevism. And I shall make sure that no one else can keep me from victory or do away with me. I am the only one who sees the danger and the only one who can stop it.’ Hitler thought it necessary to address the German people that same day. While we were still in the bunker a radio car was ordered from Königsberg, and the transmission line was set up in the tea-house. [79] As Traudl Junge says today, there was no separate tea-house at the Wolf’s Lair such as there was at the Berghof. Here she means an annexe to the mess. We went over there with Hitler just before midnight. The officers who had survived the assassination attempt with only slight injuries were in the tea-house as well. General Jodl had a bandage round his head, Keitel’s hands were bandaged too, and other officers wore plasters. It looked like the aftermath of a battle. For the first time you got the impression of a field headquarters. Men had really been wounded.

They were acting as if they had won a hard battle and a great danger had now passed. They congratulated the Führer on his miraculous survival, and we stood there and let their mood infect us, we went on believing in him, never realizing that the die had been cast to decide our fate that day.

Then Hitler spoke. He made a short speech intended to show the German nation that he was uninjured. He thanked Providence for averting a great misfortune from the German people, and urged them to go on believing in victory and work for it with all their might.

We listened, isolated and dazed by the frenzied aura of superior confidence radiating from these heroes of 20 July, and it never occurred to us that thousands of listeners out there were groaning in disappointment, burying their hopes and cursing the fate to which Hitler was so grateful. I still thought we had to win the war because otherwise all the terrible things Hitler had mentioned would happen, and they meant the end.

After the speech we went back to the bunker. Hitler summoned Professor Morell to come and examine him. He had had his pulse taken directly after the assassination attempt, and was very proud that it was perfectly regular and had been no faster than usual. Now, before he went to bed, he wanted confirmation that he was uninjured. We sat there for a while until the fat doctor made his way through the door, and then we went to bed ourselves. The morning sky was already showing pale through the trees. The sun would soon rise.

Of course the assassination attempt was the main subject of every conversation for a long time to come. Eva Braun was dreadfully upset, and wrote Hitler an anxious, desperate letter. He was very moved by her affection, and sent his wrecked uniform to Munich as a memento. Once he said, ‘I can rely absolutely on my presentiments. I once had such a restless, odd feeling at the Berghof that I just had to leave. And now I know an assassination attempt was being planned on the Obersalzberg. There was new equipment for me to look at, and one of the soldiers involved in the display was to have an explosive device put in his knapsack without his knowledge. But by chance a general who was one of the conspirators was present, and they wanted to spare him, so the attempt had to be called off. However, if that bomb had exploded at the Berghof or in the new bunker none of us would be alive now. I don’t fear death. My life is so full of care and so hard that death would come merely as a release. However, I have a duty to the German people, and I will do that duty.’