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

The following account of her experiences in 1947/48 are Traudl Junge’s personal memoirs, published as she originally wrote them. The text, with Frau Junge’s own co-operation, has been slightly altered only where there were simple typing errors in the spelling of proper names, occasional omissions of words, etc. The few minor cuts in the content of the memoirs are indicated by […].

Secretaries aren’t usually asked much about their former boss. But I was Hitler’s secretary for three years, so everyone is always asking me, ‘Do tell us, what was he really like?’ And then, almost always, comes the second question: ‘How did you get the job in the first place?’ People are usually disappointed or at least surprised by both answers, because I can’t tell them anything from first-hand experience about Hitler’s famous fits of rage or his carpet-biting, and I didn’t become his secretary because of any outstanding services to National Socialism or a low party membership number. {2} 2 A low party membership number indicated that the holder had joined in the early years. It happened more or less by chance.

I would probably never have become Hitler’s secretary at all if I hadn’t wanted to be a dancer. I am afraid I must explain at a little more length so that readers will understand what I mean by that. My younger sister and I both went to dance and gymnastics schools from a very young age, and I had no doubt at all that one day I would make a career in one of those two fields. But unfortunately we lived in straitened financial circumstances, and when I left school, being the elder sister, my priority had to be to earn money as quickly as possible. I thought that would be very easy and pleasant, and believed that I could earn enough working in an office to go on training as a dancer at the same time. But it turned out that it wasn’t so simple to find a firm where I could first earn enough money, and second have enough time left for what I really wanted to do. I finally found a job which, to be honest, I didn’t like at all, but it did meet those two conditions. Anyway, I didn’t expect it to be long before I could finally turn my back on the world of the typewriter I just had to pass my dance exams first. By now, however, the war had begun, and gradually we all found that personal restrictions and duties were imposed on us. Myself, I realized that I hadn’t reckoned with the state regulations. By the time I finally passed my dance exams in 1941, and triumphantly gave notice to the firm where I was working, rules about the state control of jobs and workplaces had come into effect. [1] 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’. You couldn’t just do as you liked any more, you had to do what mattered most to the state, and secretaries and shorthand-typists were needed a great deal more urgently than dancers. In fact dancers had become completely superfluous. However, I was twenty-one, and the war looked like being not a Blitzkrieg and over in a flash after all, but a long, long business. In a few years’ time the agility I had worked so hard to gain would be getting rusty, and then my dream of dancing would finally be over. I probably wasn’t entirely objective in my disappointment, because all my despair and resentment were directed against the firm and my boss. I blamed him, and accused him of spoiling my whole life out of selfishness because he wouldn’t accept my resignation, which was a terrible thing to say. But if my employer had agreed, then I could have given up the job. Anyway, I couldn’t stand the sight of him any more, and I wanted to leave that office at any price. So the avalanche slowly began to roll◦– an avalanche that was to come near to burying me in Berlin in 1945.

My sister Inge was living in Berlin then, performing at the German Dance Theatre as a ballerina. One of her colleagues was related to Albert Bormann, [2] 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. and through him I got an invitation one day to go and work at the Führer’s Chancellery in Berlin. If I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the place and the position, the idea of getting away from home, getting to know the capital and beginning a real life at last was very tempting. The working conditions sounded all right too, so I accepted and went to Berlin. The first train journey of my life in a sleeping car was exciting in itself, but when I entered the huge labyrinth of the New Reich Chancellery to introduce myself I began to feel that I had made rather a bold decision. However, I couldn’t very well go back on it now◦– that would have been too embarrassing. I was met by Gruppenführer Albert Bormann, brother of Reichsleiter Martin Bormann. [3] 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. He was a friendly, pleasant man. I was working in a department of the Führer’s Chancellery where post addressed to ‘The Führer’ came in to be sorted, sent on, and some of it dealt with there in the office. My job was extremely innocuous, and I didn’t have very much to do. Albert Bormann, head of the Führer’s Chancellery, was also Hitler’s adjutant and was seldom in Berlin. I sometimes wondered why they had engaged a secretary from Munich specially for him, even stipulating that my job was compulsory war service. I was working in the huge, magnificent building where I was always losing my way, sliding over the shiny polished marble floor of the hall, and generally waiting for the job to develop further. And soon the first upheaval in my tranquil existence did come. All of a sudden there was a rumour going round that Hitler needed new secretaries, and they were to be chosen from the staff of the Reich Chancellery.

All the secretaries, shorthand-typists, trainees and office assistants were very excited. Competitive shorthand and typing tests were held, and I was one of the secretaries who had to take part. By now I had been moved to the Führer’s Personal Adjutancy Office. This department was in the same building, but in a different part of it, looking out on the park. I didn’t expect to do well in the typing competition, because first I didn’t really see the point of it, and second I didn’t think I was a suitable candidate to be Hitler’s secretary. And the last of my self-confidence drained away when I saw how the other girls’ fingers raced over the keys. But probably for that very reason I was less nervous than anyone else in the final round, made fewer mistakes, and came out as one of the best typists. And one fine day I was given a railway ticket and told to take the courier train next day to Führer headquarters, where I and nine other girls were to present ourselves to the Führer.

At this time Hitler had three secretaries. The youngest of them, Frau Christian, [4] 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. had now married and left her job with Hitler. The other two, Fräulein Wolf [5] 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. and Fräulein Schroeder, [6] 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. had been his secretaries and constant companions for over ten years. All the stress and strain of such an irregular life had already affected their ability to perform well, and so had their increasing age. One day Hitler wanted to dictate a document. Fräulein Wolf was unwell; Fräulein Schroeder was out at the theatre in Berlin. He was furious to find that there was no one available when he happened to need secretarial help, hauled his adjutant Bormann over the coals and told him to make sure such a thing never happened again. Younger secretaries must be recruited to take some of the burden off the shoulders of the two veterans. And so it was that at the end of November 1942 we ten girls, all of us still quite young, were summoned to the Supreme Commander.