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

Fräulein Wolf, who had also spent Christmas in Munich but had returned to Berlin a few days earlier, was waiting for me, and next day the two of us boarded the train to the Führer headquarters, this time going west.

Once again the courier train was taking me to a part of Germany I had never seen before. We arrived at a small, snowbound station in Hesse in the morning. The place was called Hungen.

There were cars here to take any new arrivals to Führer headquarters. We drove through Bad Nauheim, which was still sleepy and lifeless this early winter morning, and forged our winding way through deep snow up the wooded hills of the Taunus, until we saw the Führer headquarters well camouflaged on one of the mountain crests. It was a beautiful place. Little log cabins clung to the wooded slopes, each of them with a deep, solid bunker underground. The rooms were small, but better furnished than at the Wolf’s Lair. The Führer lived in two rather larger rooms in the log cabin situated lowest down.

I went for a little walk round the place on the first day. There was a castle quite close, on the nearest hill. This was the headquarters of General Rundstedt, who at the time was commander of the Army Group West. [89] Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt, b Aschersleben 12 December 1875, d Schloss Oppershausen near Celle 24 February 1954; professional soldier; 1893 officer with the Prussian infantry; 1914–1918 on the general staff; 1928 commander of the 2 nd Cavalry Division; 1932– 1938 commander of the Group Command I Berlin; 1939 colonel general, head of Army Group South on the march into Poland; 1940 Field Marshal; 1942–1945 supreme commander in the west. Holder of the 133 rd award of swords to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with oakleaves. Hitler was holding important talks with him. He had come here to calm the situation on the Western Front and hold up the American advance.

All day there was feverish coming and going in the Führer bunker. The conferences went on for hours. We didn’t see Hitler until dinner in the evening. He had recovered and looked better than in Berlin. I told him about the heavy raid on Munich. He listened to my description and then said, ‘All these horrors will come to a sudden end in a few weeks’ time. Our new aircraft are now in production, whole series of them, and then the Allies will think better of flying over the Reich.’ Blondi was lying beside Hitler’s chair as we sat drinking tea together. She tried to attract his attention once or twice, but he indicated that she was to keep still, and she obediently lay down again. If I could trust my nose the dog really did badly need to go out. But Hitler didn’t notice. Although he claimed he could infallibly smell any cigarette, he was completely unaware of the smells his beloved dog made. Finally I said, ‘My Führer, I really do think Blondi needs to go out.’ She reacted to my words by gambolling with joy, ran to the door, jumped up at it, and rushed out when Hitler had rung for Linge. We were all rather relieved when fresh air came in through the door. I said, ‘My Führer, it’s amazing what pleasure you can give a dog with such a little thing.’ At that he laughed and said, ‘Have you any idea what pleasure a little thing like that can give human beings too? Once I was on a long tour with my staff. I used to take many car journeys all over Germany. At the end of this one I still had to go to Magdeburg to open the first stretch of the completed autobahn. When my motorcade was recognized on the roads cars kept joining it and following me, and I often had great difficulty in getting away. Sometimes it was impossible to disappear into a wood and be alone, much as I needed to. But on that occasion, as we came to the autobahn, there was nearly an accident. We’d been driving for hours and were longing for a break. But there were crowds lining the route everywhere. First the Hitler Youth, then the BDM, the SA, the SS, all the formations. I hadn’t realized how many formations there really were in my Party, and on that occasion I thought there were far too many. I had to stop and look friendly. Brückner and Schaub were sitting there, stony-faced, until suddenly Brückner had a wonderful idea: “My Führer, I had the special train left at Magdeburg, just in case. Couldn’t we…?” So we raced to the station and were delighted to see our train.’ Schaub, who was sitting at the table with us, cupped his ear round his hand and grunted with pleasure when Hitler told this story. Then he added, ‘My Führer, do you remember Weimar? When you stayed at the Elephant?’ ‘Yes,’ said Hitler, smiling. ‘That was another tricky moment. I used to go to Weimar often, and I always stayed at the Elephant Hotel. It was quite an old hotel, but very well managed. I had my usual room, which did have running water but no bathroom and no lavatory. I had to go down a long corridor and through the last door. And that was quite a trial every time, because when I left my room word ran like wildfire right through the hotel, and when I came out of the smallest room again people were giving me ovations, and I had to run the gauntlet back to my own room with my arm raised in a salute and a rather embarrassed smile on my face. I had the hotel modernized later.’

It was a very lively conversation that evening. You might have thought there wasn’t a war on and Hitler hadn’t a care in the world. But anyone who knew him as well as we did realized that he was just anaesthetizing himself with such talk, taking his mind off the losses of land, men and war matériel that were reported to him daily, indeed hourly. And the planes constantly flying over his western headquarters and setting off air-raid warnings all day long showed that peace and freedom from care were a long way off.

I didn’t even have a chance to get to know the camp properly before we had to leave. Hitler was urging us to return to Berlin. He wanted to be closer to the Eastern Front again. He really needed to be on both fronts at once, and best of all have the southern section under his direct control too. He couldn’t go back to East Prussia. The Wolf’s Lair was too close to the front line now. I was at the western headquarters for only three days. On 15 January 1945 the Führer’s special train went back to Berlin, towards catastrophe. People were still cracking jokes. Someone said Berlin was a very practical spot for headquarters, because soon we’d be able to travel between the Eastern Front and the Western Front by suburban railway. Hitler could still laugh at that.

By now the Führer’s huge underground bunker in the grounds of the Reich Chancellery had been made ready. Eleven metres of thick reinforced concrete covered the little cabins and rooms inside. But only a flat roof emerged above ground level. The bunker was intended only for temporary accommodation during an air raid, but when an incendiary bomb made the living rooms above ground uninhabitable, particularly the library, it became permanent living space for Hitler and his staff. The adjutants’ wing, as it was called, which contained the little Staircase Room, had not been damaged. This was where we had our typewriters and did our office work, and now we ate lunch there with Hitler too.

But in the evening, punctual as clockwork, enemy aircraft came over, and we had to dine with Hitler in the little room in the bunker where he lived and worked. It was a tiny place in the very heart of the new Führer bunker. If we didn’t climb straight down the stairs from the park into this underground fortress, we had to go through the kitchen of the Führer’s apartments and make our way along several winding corridors to what had once been the air-raid shelter. Then you reached a wide corridor with several rooms for the men on duty to left and right of it, and from there down several more flights of steps, deeper into the real new Führer bunker. Heavy iron doors led to a broad corridor. On the left there was a door leading to the lavatories, on the right the engine room with the lighting and ventilation equipment, then the door to the telephone switchboard and the valet’s room. From here you went on to a general common room which you had to cross to reach Professor Morell’s room, the medical room, and a small room where the men on duty could sleep. This part of the bunker could be closed off by more heavy iron doors, but they were usually left open. Then came the section of corridor leading to Hitler’s rooms. It was also used as a waiting-room and sitting room. A broad red carpet runner covered the stone flags on the floor. Along the right wall of the corridor hung the valuable paintings that had been brought down here for safety from the upper rooms of the Führer’s apartments and the Reich Chancellery. Handsome armchairs were ranged below them. And doors off this corridor led to Hitler’s rooms. You entered his study from the corridor through a small anteroom outside it. The room was about three by four metres with a low ceiling, which had a depressing effect. There wasn’t room for much furniture. A desk stood against the wall to the right of the door, opposite it was a small sofa, more of a bench really, with blue-and-white linen upholstery. In front of that was a small rectangular table and three armchairs. A little table with a radio on it to the right of the sofa completed the furnishings. On the right a door led to Hitler’s bedroom, which had no entrance of its own from the corridor. I never saw inside it. On the left you reached Hitler’s bathroom, and from there you came to a small dressing room which also adjoined Eva Braun’s accommodation in the bunker. There was access to this room too from the little anteroom, which the servants used as a place to store provisions and put things down while they were serving, but the mistress of the place had never stayed here before.