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

The conversation was interrupted by bombs and anti-aircraft fire. Another raid had started, as it did at this time every evening. The bunker filled up, the heavy iron door to the first part of the corridor was closed. Hitler had the radio switched on. He never listened to music, only to the news reports of the approach of enemy aircraft, with the regular ticking of the clock on the wall breaking into them. He listened to those reports. Berlin was suffering badly again. And suddenly the ghost of hopelessness came back to haunt us.

[…] [93] The passage omitted here is one that occurs twice in the original manuscript, in almost identical wording, beginning ‘22 April. Feverish restlessness in the bunker.’ However, the end of the passage does vary, and in the one that has been omitted runs: ‘[…] It sounds impersonal and commanding. It goes round and round in my head like a millwheel. The Führer, who has never before hinted at any lack of confidence, is giving up, giving up everything entirely!’ Now all the self-delusion is over. Finally, at last, that desperate, seductive voice in me is silenced, the part of me that wouldn’t see and know reality, that wanted to believe. At the same time I suddenly feel very sorry for Hitler. A hopelessly disappointed man, toppled from the greatest heights, broken, lonely. […] I feel guilty all of a sudden. I think of all the dreadful things going on up there, a few metres above us, the things that have been going on for years, caused by my employer. Should I leave now? Go back to people who will look at me reproachfully, and tell them, ‘I’m back. I was wrong, but when my own life was at stake I saw where I’d gone wrong.’ Pity and a guilty conscience kept me here, and Frau Christian may have had similar feelings. We said, almost at the same moment, ‘We’re staying too!’ Hitler looked at us for a moment. ‘I’m ordering you to go.’ But we shook our heads. Then he shook hands with us. ‘I wish my generals had your courage,’ he said. Fräulein Manziarly, that quiet little woman who had really wanted to be a teacher, and was not bound in any way to stay here, said she wouldn’t leave Berlin either.

Footsteps dragging, Hitler went out to the officers. ‘Gentlemen, it’s over. I shall stay here in Berlin and shoot myself when the moment comes. Anyone who wants to go can go now. Everyone is free to do so.’

One by one they left the bunker, silently saluting the Führer. Most of them left Berlin for ever, only a few returned to their staff and departmental offices.

In his room, Hitler looked out the documents and paperwork to be destroyed from all the drawers and cupboards. This confidential task was entrusted to Julius Schaub. Looking miserably unhappy, he limped through the bunker, up the stairs to the park, and there, with his heart bleeding, burned his Führer’s treasures. He was told to go and do the same in Munich and Berchtesgaden. Eyes wet with tears, he said goodbye to us, since he would have to leave that same day. Now the liaison officers had left too, and the only people left were Hewel, Reichsleiter Bormann, General Krebs, [94] Hans Krebs, b Helmstedt 4 March 1898, d Berlin 1 May 1945 (suicide by shooting himself); 1914 volunteered for the army; 1915 lieutenant; 1925 first lieutenant; 1933–1944 career officer reaching the rank of head of general staff of various Army Groups, finally infantry general; 1 April 1945 head of army general staff in the Führer bunker. Holder of the 749 th award of oakleaves to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. General Burgdorf, Hermann Fegelein, Admiral Voss, [95] Hans-Erich Voss, b Angermünde 30 October 1897; 1915 naval cadet; 1917–1942 naval career officer from naval lieutenant to captain; 1943 rear-admiral and permanent representative of naval command at Führer headquarters; 1944 vice-admiral; 2 May 1945 arrested by the Red Army; 1955 released from internment. Adjutants von Below and Günsche and Heinz Lorenz. Of the servants, only Heinz Linge and three orderlies had stayed. Apart from that almost all the domestic staff had stayed too, the people who worked in the kitchen and ran the house and the switchboard, the chauffeurs, and so on. They all had makeshift accommodation on camp beds and temporary sleeping places in the upper rooms of the Führer’s bunker. The kitchen too was underground now, and the front part of the corridor served as a dining room. We secretaries were sharing our bunker bedroom in the New Reich Chancellery with several other women, most of them secretaries and telephonists from the Führer’s adjutancy office. We could get straight to the Führer bunker down a long underground corridor.

The hours crept by. I felt completely empty, hollowed out and numb. I really thought I ought to sleep for a couple of hours, but restlessness kept me in the Führer bunker. Perhaps some decisive news would come within the next hour? It must be late afternoon by now. Had Hitler eaten any lunch? There probably hadn’t been time. Now he was sitting in his room talking to Goebbels. How would the great Propaganda Minister take Hitler’s decision to die in Berlin? What would he tell the German people? The door opened and Goebbels went to the telephone. When he came back he looked enquiringly around. There was no one there except for the orderlies and me. The Minister came over to me. ‘My wife will soon be arriving with the children. At the Führer’s wish they will be staying in his bunker from now on. Please be kind enough to receive my family when they arrive.’ My God, I thought, where are we going to put so many people? Six small children in all this turmoil! I went a few steps up to the upper part of the bunker and looked for Günsche. He cleared a room that was full of cases, crates, furniture and provisions, and put beds in.

By now Hitler had summoned Keitel and Jodl. The two generals had one last brief discussion with Hitler. I heard them talking to Bormann and Hewel afterwards. Yet again they had tried in vain to make it clear to Hitler that there was nothing he could do in Berlin now. The OKW offices were going south. He couldn’t command his generals any more from Berlin. […] Hitler emphasized his firm resolve to stay in Berlin and die there. He was going to shoot himself, he said, he didn’t want to fall into enemy hands alive or dead. He couldn’t fight any more, physically he was a broken man. So saying, he dismissed his generals, and now they finally left the bunker.

Meanwhile the Goebbels family had come over from the bunker underneath the Propaganda Ministry to the Führer bunker. I went to meet them and welcome the children. Frau Goebbels was taken straight to Hitler. The five little girls and the boy were happy and cheerful. They were pleased to be staying with ‘Uncle Hitler’, and soon filled the bunker with their games. They were charming, well brought-up, natural-mannered children. They knew nothing of the fate awaiting them, and the adults did all they could to keep them unaware of it. I took them over to the storeroom where Hitler’s birthday presents were kept. There were children’s toys and clothes among them, and the children chose what they liked.

When we came back there was another air-raid warning. The raids were coming thick and fast now, concentrating on the area round the Reich Chancellery. We had almost got used to the artillery fire. We noticed only when the roaring noise stopped. Once again we were sitting with Hitler. He was getting more oddly behaved and difficult to understand all the time. Just as yesterday he hadn’t said a word to suggest that he didn’t think victory certain, today he said with equal conviction that there was no longer any hope for a change in the situation. We pointed to the picture of Frederick the Great looking down from the wall, and now we all quoted the words Hitler had used so often. ‘My Führer, where’s the last battalion? Don’t you believe in the lessons of history any more?’ He shook his head wearily. ‘The army has betrayed me, the generals are no good for anything. My orders haven’t been carried out. It’s finally over. National Socialism is dead and will never rise again!’ How upset we were to hear these words! The change had been too sudden. Perhaps we hadn’t really and truly meant it when we said we wanted to stay in Berlin? Perhaps we had hoped to get away with our lives after all. Now Hitler himself was depriving us of that hope.