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

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-61145-323-2

Printed in the United States of America

State control of jobs as practised by the National Socialists in order to realize the ideas and plans of the ‘New Order of German Living Space’. Job allocation and changes of workplace were supervised and regulated by ‘obligatory services’.

Albert Bormann, b Halberstadt 2 September 1902, d Berlin May 1945 (probably committed suicide by taking cyanide); profession: bank clerk; from 1931 employed in the Führer’s private chancellery office; 1933 head of the Führer’s private chancellery office; 1938 member of the Reichstag; 1943 NSKK Gruppenführer and personal adjutant to Adolf Hitler.

Martin Bormann, b Halberstadt 17 June 1900, d probably Berlin 2 May 1945 (suicide by cyanide); profession: agriculturalist; 1924 joins the NSDAP; 1933–1941 head of staff in the Deputy Führer’s office; 1933 appointed Reichsleiter of the NSDAP; from 1938 on Hitler’s personal staff; 12 May 1941 appointed head of the Party Chancellery; 1946 condemned to death in absentia as a war criminal at Nuremberg.

Gerda Christian, née Daranowski (‘Dara’), b Berlin 13 December 1913, office clerk at Elizabeth Arden in Berlin; 1937 secretary in Hitler’s personal adjutancy office; from 1939 works with Hitler in his various Führer headquarters; 2 February 1943 marries Eckhard Christian, a major in the Luftwaffe and adjutant to the Wehrmacht head of staff at Führer headquarters, stops working for Hitler until mid-1943; then until 1945 works at Führer headquarters; 1 May 1945 succeeds in fleeing to West Germany from the Reich Chancellery.

Johanna Wolf, b Munich 1 June 1900, d Munich 4 June 1985; from 1929 clerical assistant in Hitler’s private chancellery and member of the Nazi Party; after 1933, when Hitler comes to power, secretary in his chancellery and later in his personal adjutancy office in Berlin; is with Hitler during the war at his various Führer headquarters. Hitler says goodbye to her and Christa Schroeder on the night of 21 April 1945, and advises her to leave Berlin. Interned until 14 January 1948.

Christa Schroeder, b Münden, Hanover 19 March 1908, d Munich 28 June 1984; 1930–1933 secretary to the Reich leadership of the NSDAP in Munich; 1933–1939 secretary in the Führer’s personal adjutancy office. Until 22 April 1945 accompanies Hitler as his secretary during the war, on all his journeys and at all the Führer headquarters. Interned until 12 May 1948.

Heinz Linge, b Bremen 23 March 1913, d Bremen 1980; profession: mason; 1933 joins the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH, Hitler’s bodyguard); 1935–1945 Hitler’s valet; 2 May 1945 taken prisoner by the Red Army and interned in Russia; 1950 condemned to 25 years’ penal labour; 1955 released.

Walther Hewel, b Cologne 2 January 1904, d Berlin 2 May 1945 (probably suicide); 1923 standard-bearer of the ‘Hitler Stormtroop’ in the attempted putsch in Munich and imprisoned, works as a businessman abroad after his release until 1936; 1933 joins the NSDAP; 1938 enters the Foreign Office as Legation Councillor First Class, head of the Reich Foreign Minister’s personal staff; 1940 appointed Envoy First Class and Head of Section in the Foreign Office as the Foreign Minister’s permanent liaison officer with Adolf Hitler. He leaves the Reich Chancellery with Martin Bormann on 2 May 1945.

Joachim von Ribbentrop, b Wesel 30 April 1893, d Nuremberg 16 October 1946 (executed); trained in banking in Montreal; 1915 a lieutenant in the First World War; 1920 marries Annelies Henkel and becomes a representative of the Henkel sparkling wine firm in Berlin; 1930 joins the NSDAP; from 1933 works on foreign policy with Hitler; 1934 responsible for questions of disarmament; 1936 ambassador in London; from 1938 Reich Foreign Minister; May 1945 arrested by the British Army; 1946 condemned to death at Nuremberg.

Hans Hermann Junge, b Wilster in Holstein 11 February 1914, d Dreux, Normandy, 13 August 1944. Profession: white-collar worker; 1933 joins the SS; 1934 volunteers for the LSSAH; 1936 joins the SS Führer’s escort commando; 1940 becomes valet and orderly to Adolf Hitler; 19 June 1943 marries Traudl Humps; 14 July 1943 joins the Waffen-SS; from June 1944 at the front with the 12 thSS Hitler Youth Armoured Division. The organization for the care of German war graves, based in Kassel, gives the date of death as 18 August 1944. The same date is given on Junge’s gravestone in the German Military Cemetery at Champigny St.-André in Normandy (block 6, grave no. 1816).

Julius Gregor Schaub, b Munich 20 August 1898, d Munich 27 December 1967; profession: pharmacist, member of the SS, membership number 7, Nazi Party membership number 81, SS-Obergruppenführer and personal adjutant to Hitler; 1936 member of the Reichstag, Hitler’s chauffeur; 1945 destroys Hitler’s confidential files in Munich and Berchtesgaden. Interned in various camps until 1949.

Christian Weber, b Polsingen 25 August 1883, d Munich 1945; innkeeper, bookie and politician, one of the first members of the ‘Hitler shock troops’; 1926–1934 Nazi city councillor in Munich; 1935 city councillor, inspector of the SS riding schools and many other offices; killed by Bavarian rebels in 1945.

The cook Otto Günther was originally an employee of Mitropa, and in 1937 was employed in Hitler’s special train and then in Führer headquarters at the Wolf’s Lair.

Alfred Jodl, b Wurzburg 10 May 1890, d Nuremberg 16 October 1946 (executed); 1912 lieutenant in artillery regiment; 1918 captain and adjutant to the artillery commander; 1933 lieutenant colonel and commander with the Turkish army; 1935 colonel in chief with leadership function at Wehrmacht operations office of High Command; 1939 major general and until the end of the war chief of staff of the Wehrmacht office of High Command, Hitler’s military adviser with responsibility for operations; 1940 promoted to artillery general; 1944 to colonel general; 7 May 1945 signs Germany’s unconditional surrender; 22 May 1945 arrested by British soldiers in Flensburg; 1 October 1946 condemned to death by the military tribunal at Nuremberg. Holder of the 865 thaward of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with oakleaves.

Hitler had originally been an enthusiastic fan of films and the theatre. However, he had given up such entertainments since the beginning of the war.

Theodor Morell, b Trais-Miinzenburg 22 June 1886, d Tegernsee 26 May 1948; 1913 qualifies as a doctor; 1914 naval doctor, war volunteer; 1918 goes into practice in Berlin; 1933 joins the NSDAP; 1936–1945 Hitler’s personal physician; 23 April 1945 leaves Berlin for the Berghof, is in various camps and hospitals from 1945 to his death.

Karl Brandt, b Mühlhausen, Alsace 8 January 1904, d Landsberg 2 June 1948 (executed); 1932 joins the NSDAP; 1934 Hitler’s attendant doctor; 1937 medical director of the Berlin Surgical Hospital; on the staff of the Reich Chancellery until 1944 and thus close to Hitler both at Führer headquarters and in his close private entourage at the Berghof. After the assassination attempt on Hitler of 20 July 1944 relieved of all his medical posts with Hitler. Arrested by the SS on Hitler’s personal orders on 16 April 1945, accused of insufficient belief in the final victory. 1947 condemned to death by an American military tribunal.