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

And guess what◦– the fateful summons came after one of those snowball fights, when I was sitting in my compartment in the train with my face flushed and my hair all wet.

I and a colleague◦– a pretty blonde girl who also came from the Führer’s Adjutancy Office◦– were told to come and take dictation. We felt very excited again as we went over to the Führer bunker, taking the same route as before.

I was to be the first sacrificial lamb, and if I failed Fräulein Böttcher was to step in. After we had waited a few minutes Linge took me into the study again, announced me to Hitler, and this time the door closed behind me and I was alone with him.

I noticed that he wore glasses. An old-fashioned, cheap pair of glasses with a nickel-rimmed frame◦– or I suppose it could have been platinum, but it wasn’t showy anyway.

He shook hands with me again and took me over to a desk with a typewriter on it near his own. While I took the cover off the machine and adjusted the paper, he explained in kindly tones, as if speaking to a child about to have her photograph taken: ‘There’s no need to be nervous, I make more mistakes in my own dictation than you possibly could!’

I assured him that I wasn’t nervous, but my hands gave me away, because when he finally began on the first sentence my fingers were trembling so badly that I didn’t hit a single correct key. I stared in horror at that first line, which looked like something in Chinese, and desperately tried not to lose the thread of the dictation and to calm my hands down.

At that moment there was a knock on the door and the valet announced the envoy Hewel, [8] 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. who was liaison officer between Hitler and Ribbentrop. [9] 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. Hewel had a short discussion with Hitler which ended in a telephone call to Ribbentrop. When I saw Hitler talking quite easily and naturally on the phone, in just the same way as Herr Müller or Herr Schulze or any other of my former bosses, I felt all right again. The rest of the dictation went ahead without any problems. Today, however, I can’t remember exactly what the document was about. I think it was probably some memo or other that was never published.

When I had finished I put the sheets of paper together and handed them to the Führer. I had been told in advance that I must type with very wide spacing between the lines so that the Führer could make his corrections easily. After he had said goodbye, assuring me that I had typed very well, he sat down at the desk.

Feeling very relieved, I left the room and met Gruppenführer Bormann outside the door. He had been sitting there on a chair all this time, looking nervously at his watch and hoping I wouldn’t let him down. When I told him it had all gone well he was considerably happier than I was, as if he had some great achievement to his credit. Later I found out that he had been terribly afraid of being let down, because his brother Martin, who was his bitterest enemy, wanted to choose Hitler’s secretaries himself and so go one better than him.

Of course Fräulein Böttcher had been hoping to get a chance of stepping in, but she was pleased for me when she heard that my test had turned out well. As we sat in the waiting room talking about the experience I had behind me, while it was still to come for my colleague, Hitler suddenly appeared in the doorway, sat down at the round table with us, asked me some more questions about my family and my past life, and repeated that I had typed very well.

I thought to myself: but you haven’t tried any of the other secretaries yet◦– you’ll soon find out that I wasn’t very brilliant. I wasn’t to know that no comparisons would be drawn, and my fate was already sealed.

It turned out that Hitler didn’t want to try any of the other secretaries, because he thought that I had done satisfactorily and was suitable. So nine girls went back to Berlin next day while I stayed in the ‘Wolf’s Lair’, as this headquarters was called.

However, I exchanged my compartment in the special train for a little room in the secretaries’ bunker, was given a permanent pass for the restricted area, and now I was living about a hundred metres from the Führer bunker itself.

I wasn’t entirely happy with my new quarters. I’m someone who likes light and fresh air, and I just can’t stand the atmosphere of a bunker. I was working in a room with small windows during the day, but I had to sleep in an uninviting, windowless little cell. It was no smaller but definitely less appealing than my pretty compartment in the special train. Air came through a ventilator in the ceiling. If you closed it you felt you were stifling, if you opened it the air wheezed noisily as it came into the little room, and you might have been sitting in an aeroplane. That was probably why the other two secretaries, Fräulein Wolf and Fräulein Schroeder, preferred to sleep on sofas in their offices, and had made themselves combined living and working quarters in the front part of the bunker, which had windows and larger, brighter rooms. I soon did the same, and with Bormann’s support and permission I furnished the general office comfortably. After all, I was to stay for an indefinite length of time.

When Hitler had something to dictate he always summoned me, and I was always in a nervous state again. I still didn’t know if these were more ‘tests’ or if I was definitely appointed to the post. On 30 January 1943 I was called in to Hitler once more. When I entered the room the other two secretaries were with him, and I realized at once that he didn’t want to dictate. I thought some kind of oath or official swearing-in ceremony must be coming, and I felt a bit odd. Hitler said he was very pleased with me, and his two experienced colleagues here also thought I would make him a very suitable secretary. Would I like to stay on? I couldn’t resist the temptation. I was twenty-two, I had no idea of politics, and I just thought it was wonderfully exciting to be offered such a special position, so in short I said yes.

But that was not the end of the conversation. It looked as if Hitler wanted to say something more, and he seemed to be searching for the right words. Finally he said, smiling at me and speaking almost awkwardly, that he knew I was still very young, there were so many men here, most of them seldom went home and◦– well, soldiers feel particularly strongly attracted to the Eternally Feminine◦– in short, I must be a little careful, not too forthcoming. And if I had any complaints of anyone pestering me, never mind who it was, I was to come and tell him about it, any time.

So much for the swearing-in ceremony! I hadn’t expected anything like that. I’d thought I might have to provide evidence of my loyalty to National Socialism and the Party, vow to be loyal and promise to keep secrets. Instead, here was Hitler himself showing solicitude for my virtue. I was really relieved, because I could honestly tell him that he had nothing to worry about there, but I was very grateful for his protection. He smiled, entrusted me to the care of my older colleagues, and now I was Hitler’s secretary.