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

I never saw Hitler so depressed and distracted as he was that day. His voice hardly rose above a loud whisper; his eyes were lowered to his plate or stared absently at some point on the white tablecloth. An oppressive atmosphere weighed down on the cramped, rocking cage in which we were gathered together, and an eerie feeling came over us all. Suddenly Hitler said something about an operation. At first I didn’t know what he was talking about. He mentioned his great confidence in Professor Eicken’s skill. ‘He bears a great responsibility, but he’s the only man who can do it. An operation on the vocal cords isn’t exactly life-threatening. But I might lose my voice…’ He left the sentence unfinished. And we saw the dark cloud of silence hanging over his head. You could almost touch it. He knew very well that his voice was an important instrument of his power; his words intoxicated the people and carried them away. How was he to hold crowds spellbound if he couldn’t address them any more?

His colleagues had been telling him for weeks: ‘My Führer, you must address the German people again. They’ve lost heart. They have doubts about you. There are rumours that you’re not alive any more.’ The adjutants had asked us secretaries to try to get the Führer to dictate a speech to us. But he had always replied, ‘This is no time for making speeches. I have to take decisions and act. And I have nothing to say to the German people. First I must achieve success, then I can give them strength and courage again.’ And now, soon after he had escaped the assassination attempt, a new sword of Damocles was hanging over his head. The fronts were ablaze everywhere; he would have needed to be on both the Western and the Eastern Fronts at the same time. He decided to stay in Berlin for the time being.

We arrived in Berlin that evening without hearing any air-raid warnings. We had to use Grunewald Station; the Silesian Station had come under fire the day before. When we got out of the guest carriage, Hitler had already left. The tail lights of his car were just turning the corner as we drove out of the station. In blackout, the city looked darker and bleaker than the forest by night. As far as possible, the column of cars tried to drive down streets that were still intact. Once again, Hitler had no chance to see Berlin’s wounds as they really were. The dipped headlights of the cars merely touched on mounds of rubble to right and left of the road.

When we reached the Reich Chancellery there was already quite a large company assembled in the Ladies’ Room. It was some time since the Ladies’ Room had had anything to do with ladies. It was a large room with a fireplace, tall mirrors, several comfortable nooks for sitting in, and its title came from the days of brilliant parties when Hitler received a great many artists here. Now the thick carpets had been taken down to the bunkers, and the valuable furniture replaced by comfortable but simple tables and chairs.

Hitler did not sit with us for long. We had already eaten our evening meal in the train. He told Linge to get his bedroom ready and take Blondi out. He himself withdrew very early. There was no mistaking his nervous state. He was to have his operation tomorrow.

I had never been in Berlin for very long with Hitler and his whole staff. For the first time since the beginning of the war, headquarters had now been moved to the heart of Germany, to Berlin itself. The huge complex of the Reich Chancellery, which stood between what had once been Hermann-Göring-Strasse, Voss-Strasse and Wilhelmstrasse, was always a maze to me. I couldn’t get the hang of it. I did know Hitler’s apartment in the old palace looking out on Wilhelmstrasse, but the rooms were dead and empty, like a gentleman’s town house when its owner has gone into the country.

By now several bombs had fallen here too, and the old building had suffered a good deal of damage. It was a very remarkable old structure, and even Hitler’s conversion could never make it really practical and useful. There were any number of flights of front stairs and back stairs, and an astonishing amount of forecourts and halls that had no purpose except to make it more difficult to find important people who were needed urgently.

Hitler’s library and study, his bedroom and Eva Braun’s apartment were on the first floor. There was also a large and very handsome Congress Hall, which Hitler said he had saved from collapsing. ‘The old gentleman’◦– that was what he called Hindenburg◦– ‘received me in this hall when he appointed me Reich Chancellor. “Keep to the walls if you can, Hitler,” he said in his deep voice. “The floor won’t hold up much longer!” I think the building would gradually have fallen into ruin if nothing had been done.’ It was true that Hitler had had new ceilings put in, but a bomb had fallen in this very hall, and now it was empty and abandoned, and no more repairs had been carried out. Three different flights of stairs led to this upper floor.

Directly opposite the door of Hitler’s study, a few steps led to a long passage with the rooms of Hitler’s entourage opening off it. The first room, at the foot of some steps, was called the Staircase Room. It was now our sitting room, the adjutants’ waiting-room, and was sometimes used as a bedroom by some unexpected visitor. Schaub’s room was next to it, then came a room for Dr Otto Dietrich the press chief, then the room really meant for Sepp Dietrich but now occupied by Adjutant Bormann, and finally there was the living room always used by Gruppenführer Albrecht, the permanent Berlin adjutant.

The corridor went round a corner and led to rooms for Morell, Colonel von Below, General Burgdorf [85] Wilhelm Burgdorf, b Fürstenwalde 15 February 1895, d Berlin 2 May 1945 (missing); 1914 ensign; 1915 lieutenant; 1930 captain; 1938 lieutenant colonel; 1940 major; 1942 major general and head of the 2 nd department of the army personnel office; 1942 deputy chief of the same department; 1944 infantry general and head of the army personnel office and chief adjutant of the Wehrmacht; April 1945 present in the Führer bunker. Holder of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. and Professor Hoffmann. The ground-floor rooms were arranged in the same way. They included the office of the household manager Kannenberg, [86] Arthur and Freda Kannenberg worked from 1933 to 1945 as household managers of the Reich Chancellery. Arthur Kannenberg, b Berlin, Charlottenburg 23 February 1896, d Düsseldorf 26 January 1963; trained as a chef, waiter and bookkeeper; 1924 took over his father’s business; 1930 went bankrupt, then business manager of Pfuhls Weinund Bierstuben, hostelries patronized by Göring and Goebbels among others; 1931 catering manager in the ‘Brown House’ in Munich. May 1945 to July 1946 interned; 1957 landlord of the Schneider-Wibble-Stuben in Düsseldorf. a small room furnished in rustic style as a staff dining room, the valet’s room, a medical room, and a shower and bathroom. The cook and housemaid lived down here too, and the laundry rooms and ironing room were also on the ground floor.

The rooms of state were under Hitler’s private rooms. Even with carpets, furniture and pictures less valuable than usual, the huge room through which you entered them was still handsome and pleasant, but it was never used. You reached the salon through a small anteroom. On its right was the Ladies’ Salon, on its left the cinema and concert hall. Three handsome, wide doors led straight into the grounds of the Reich Chancellery. The Winter Garden was the finest room in the whole place. It was a building in itself, extending a long way and with a semicircular bay which contained many tall windows and doors and looked out on the park. The word ‘garden’, however, didn’t suit it any more; the beautiful plants, flowers and shrubs that used to stand here had gone long ago. There were two round tables in the curved bay of the room, where we took breakfast, and Hitler also held his usual military briefing here if he didn’t need a particularly large staff. If he did, he used the huge study in the New Reich Chancellery. Now these long-deserted rooms were suddenly full of life again.