Hitler's Last Secretary (15 page)

So the chatter round the table went on, and Goebbels aimed his sallies, which hit their mark and were not returned. Curiously enough, Himmler and Goebbels entirely ignored each other. It wasn’t too obvious, but still you couldn’t help noticing that their relationship was a superficial veneer of civility. The two of them met relatively seldom; they didn’t have much to do with each other, and were not, like the warring Bormann brothers, kept on the same leash by their master. The hostility between the Bormanns was so habitual and firmly established that they could stand side by side and ignore each other entirely. And when Hitler gave a letter or request to the younger Bormann to be passed on to the Reichsleiter, Albert Bormann would go out, find an orderly, and the orderly would pass instructions on to his big brother even if they were both in the same room. The same thing happened in reverse, and if one Bormann told a funny story at table all the rest of the company would roar with laughter, while his brother just sat there ignoring them and looking deadly serious. I was surprised to find how used Hitler had become to this state of affairs. He took no notice of it at all. Unfortunately I never managed to find out the reason for their enmity. I think there was a woman behind it. Or perhaps those two fighting cocks had long ago forgotten the reason themselves?

Afternoon tea was taken in the Great Hall on Hitler’s birthday. The important military men, Jodl, Keitel, Schmundt and so on, were there too. Göring came only for the conference, and took the opportunity of offering his congratulations then. In the afternoon, however, his wife ‘the Queen Mother’
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arrived in a huge, cornflower-blue cape, bringing little Edda to offer birthday wishes. We could see them only through the window as Hitler greeted them on the terrace, and Eva ran up to the first floor to fetch her camera and take a picture of little Edda reciting her birthday poem to Uncle Hitler. For once, Hitler had gone out on the terrace without his cap, and Eva didn’t want to miss such a good opportunity.

Later, Hitler paid his traditional visit to the field hospital at the Platterhof. He always visited wounded soldiers on his birthday.

I made an interesting new acquaintance myself that day. I met my predecessor, of whom Hitler had always spoken with real enthusiasm. She had been Fräulein Daranowski, but now she had married Colonel Christian, head of the Luftwaffe operations department, and reluctantly she had given up her job with the Führer. Eva Braun didn’t mind that, because the Führer sometimes spoke a little too warmly of his secretary. She really was a very pleasant, charming person, well groomed, a brunette, spirited and youthful, the embodiment of life itself. Her glance was irresistible, and her laughter sounded like little silver bells. And while the Führer liked her sex appeal, she was also an extremely good secretary. I seldom saw such nimble fingers on the typewriter keys. Her hands were so supple they might have been made of rubber. Later we worked together.
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By now it was no secret in our close-knit circle that I was on particularly friendly terms with Hans Junge. If I excused myself from a meal it was usually when Linge was on duty, so that Hans Junge and I could take long walks in the mountains together, or go on expeditions to Berchtesgaden or Salzburg. But not only was Julius Schaub as naturally nosy as a washerwoman, he was always on the look-out for subjects of conversation to serve up to the Führer at breakfast. However, while gossip about little love affairs might be very interesting, that wasn’t really what the Supreme Commander wanted. If he heard about such things he recognized only serious, long-term relationships.

Hans Junge was a particular favourite of the Führer’s, serving him devotedly and with a strong sense of duty. All the same, he was anxious to get further away from Hitler. He was one of the few people to realize that in the long run Hitler’s ideas would have such an effect on you that in the end you wouldn’t know what you had thought of yourself, and what was due to outside influence. Junge wanted his sense of objectivity back. He had applied several times to go to the front, which was the only way he could give up his job with Hitler. Every time his request was turned down on the grounds that he was indispensable; there were plenty of good soldiers but few trustworthy valets and adjutants. Finally Junge saw his chance in getting engaged to me. He knew very well that Hitler was as unwilling to lose me as his secretary as he was to lose Hans as his valet. And an engagement wasn’t too firm a tie, but would give us the chance to spend time together and get to know each other. So we both decided to tell the Führer we were engaged, and at the same time Junge would ask for a transfer to the front again.

Schaub was delighted when we asked him to tell the Führer about our intentions. Soon after Hitler’s birthday, he took his master this world-shattering news. I found the whole thing terribly embarrassing. I could feel Hitler’s eyes resting on me with a surreptitious smile at table, I thought I saw faces full of sly glee around me, and I felt like getting up and running away. I remembered, with a rather guilty conscience, saying with heartfelt conviction only three months earlier that I took no interest in men.

That evening by the fireside Hitler suddenly said, ‘Well, I certainly do have bad luck with my staff. First Christian marries Dara and takes my best secretary away, then I finally get a really good replacement, and now Traudl Humps is leaving me too and taking my best valet with her into the bargain.’ Then he turned to me. ‘But you’ll be staying with me for the time being. Junge insists that he wants to go to the front, and while you’re on your own you can carry on working for me.’ So now I was suddenly engaged, although I didn’t really feel quite up to this new dignity. However, I thought confidently, who knows what may happen between engagement and marriage?

On the First of May, National Labour Day, Hitler at last dictated a document to me again, quite a long one. In the old days he had spoken at mass meetings and personally attended celebrations and huge rallies. During the last years of the war, however, Hitler nearly always recorded his speeches, and then they were broadcast on the radio. Often his proclamations were just read out by someone else or published in the press. And he had made no unscripted public speeches since the beginning of the war. ‘I prefer to improvise,’ he said, ‘and I speak best off the cuff, but now that we’re at war I have to weigh up every word, because the world will be listening attentively. If some spontaneous impulse leads me into making a remark that doesn’t go down well there could be unfortunate complications.’ It was only on internal occasions, for instance addressing Gauleiters, officers or industrialists, that Hitler spoke without notes. Although I had been reminding him of the forthcoming speech for days beforehand, it wasn’t until the night of 30 April that he felt in the mood to dictate it to me and could find time to do so. I spent all night typing it out. I finished in the early hours of the morning, Hitler recorded the speech at ten, and at twelve noon it was broadcast on all the German radio stations.

Soon afterwards Hitler and a small entourage went to Munich. He didn’t want to miss the opportunity of seeing the exhibition at the House of German Art. It was to open in July,
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but he intended to be back in East Prussia well before then, so he got Heinrich Hoffmann and Frau Professor Troost
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to show him the pictures and sculptures that had been selected.

I was the only woman to go with him. Fräulein Schroeder had gone to Berchtesgaden for a course of treatment at the Sanatorium Zabel, and on the way back we were to pick up Fräulein Wolf to return to the Berghof with us as Hitler’s second secretary. While Hitler went straight to his apartment on Prinzregentenplatz, I paid a surprise visit to my mother. Our happy reunion didn’t last long, for Schaub summoned me to Hitler’s apartment a few hours later. I knew the building, but I had never been in his private rooms. I was particularly surprised to find that Hitler occupied only one floor. The ground floor contained a porter’s lodge and offices for the police and guards, and there were some guestrooms available to Hitler on the first floor. His private rooms were on the second floor, which he shared with his housekeepers Herr and Frau Winter. All the other floors of the building were occupied by private tenants. Hitler’s apartment was no different from the home of any respectable, well-to-do citizen. There were basket chairs in the roomy entrance hall, and the windows had curtains with a brightly coloured flower pattern. A cloakroom was tastefully furnished with big mirrors and wall-lights. You trod on soft carpets everywhere. The broad corridor ended on the left in a door leading to the Winters’ rooms. This was where the housekeeper had her kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom. The living room was also used by Hitler’s employees as a sitting room when the government was staying in Munich. Hitler’s big study and the library were directly opposite the front door. Originally they had probably been two rooms, now turned into one very large one by the removal of a wall. Hitler had a great liking for spacious rooms, and I was sometimes surprised that he could bear to be in his little cage-like bunker, with its low ceiling and tiny windows. The room next to the library was always kept locked. This was where Hitler’s niece, of whom he was very fond, had apparently killed herself for his sake. The Führer sometimes mentioned his niece in conversation, and an oil painting of her had a place of honour in the Great Hall of the Berghof. Much later Erich Kempka
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the chauffeur, who was already in Hitler’s employment at the time – I think it happened in 1935
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– told me the whole story. Hitler was Geli’s guardian – his niece was called Geli – and she lived very close to him. She was in love with a man whom Hitler didn’t like. When he went toNuremberg to the Party rally, she shot herself in her room in his apartment.
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It wasn’t entirely clear whether or not her death was the result of an unfortunate accident while she was cleaning her pistol, but anyway Hitler was very upset, and no one had been allowed to use Geli’s room since her death.

Eva Braun had a room in Hitler’s apartment too, but she seldom used it, and never while Hitler was in Munich. There was another guestroom in the right-hand part of the apartment, which I used as an office when I had some typing to do, and Hitler’s bedroom must have been somewhere as well. I never entered it.

I had been summoned because Hitler had something to dictate. Unfortunately I can’t remember for the life of me what it was. But anyway it wasn’t anything long and difficult. When I’d finished my work I took it into Hitler’s study. He was sitting at his desk when I came in, and I waited standing beside him while he read through what I had typed and corrected it. Suddenly without looking up, he said, ‘You’re engaged to Junge, wouldn’t you like to get married straight away before he goes to join the troops?’

Now I was in a fix! For a moment I looked at him dumbfounded, because I’d had absolutely no intention of committing myself so firmly to the relationship when Hans and I had known each other for such a short time. I tried desperately to find some good argument against the idea, but nothing much occurred to me. Finally I said, ‘Oh, my Führer, why should we marry now? It won’t make any difference. My husband to be is going to the front and I’ll go on working for you just the same anyway, and we don’t need to get married for that.’ I was wondering why the Führer should take any interest in my marriage. Love isn’t an affair of state, this was my own private business, and I was quite annoyed to have such a VIP meddling with it. All the same, I was surprised to hear Hitler say, ‘But you two are in love, so it’s best to get married at once! And you know, once you’re married I can protect you any time if someone tries pestering you. But not if you’re only engaged. And you’ll still be working for me even if you’re married.’ I almost laughed out loud. How very respectable! But I’m afraid I also felt very uncomfortable, because how could I explain to him that love on its own isn’t always reason enough to get married straight away? I said no more, and told myself this wasn’t important and he would soon probably forget all about it again. I told Hans Junge what the Führer had said to me, and he too laughed out loud. ‘That’s typical of him – when he scents the faintest possibility of a marriage he’ll do his best to encourage it. But never mind, he won’t have taken it as seriously as all that.’ I decided that one day I’d have my revenge and ask Hitler why he hadn’t been happily married himself long ago. After all, he said he loved Eva Braun. But at the time I was still too shy and too young to say such things.

At lunch time Hitler drove to a small café where he had often eaten in the past, the Osteria Bavaria in Schellingstrasse. The proprietor, a man with the very Bavarian name of Deutelmoser, had been informed just before our arrival and had his best suit on when we entered the place. The main lunch hour was over by now, and there were only a few guests sitting at some of the tables in the café. She designed and produced tapestries, interiors officers, wondering what precautions were taken for Hitler’s security in such cases. But either they were particularly intelligent officers or genuine customers, because they acted entirely normally, looked with interest at the distinguished guest, and some of them left quite soon.

The least comfortable table, right at the back in the corner, was the one Hitler regularly occupied. We were only a small party of six, Hitler with two adjutants and Professor Morell, Professor Troost and me. Professor Troost was the widow of the late architect who had built the House of German Art. Hitler had thought very highly of him, and Professor Troost, who herself was an interior designer, was carrying on some of her husband’s work. She designed and produced tapestries, interiors, mosaics and so on for the Führer. For instance, she had designed and worked on the document appointing Göring to the post of Reich Marshal, and on the design of his marshal’s baton too. She was a very lively, natural, witty woman, and took the lead in conversation during lunch. She talked so fast and vivaciously that Hitler could hardly get a word in. She laughed at him and his diet, and claimed he wouldn’t live long if he nourished himself on such wishy-washy stuff and didn’t eat a decent piece of meat for once.