Hitler's Last Secretary (17 page)

But as I was saying, it took entire and total collapse, a
really
bitter end and many deep disappointments, before I could see clearly and with any certainty. At the time life flowed pleasantly by. I enjoyed being beside the lakes in the great forests in summer. My memory almost fails me today when I think of all the terrible things going on in the world in 1943. The German Wehrmacht was marching against Stalingrad, and our cities at home were beginning to feel the effects of the air raids. Göring made his great speech: ‘If a single enemy aircraft appears in the skies over Berlin then my name’s Meyer.’ And the sirens began wailing not only in Berlin but all over the Reich. A great deal of building and consolidation went on at headquarters. The bunkers were reinforced, and barbed wire and mines disfigured the forest.

One day another woman appeared at the Wolf’s Lair. Professor Morell brought her, introducing her as the Führer’s dietician. From now on she would cook exclusively for him. Frau von Exner
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was met with interest by the gentlemen and with icy reserve by the ladies. Only when we all moved into a hut with bright, spacious rooms, which Frau von Exner shared with us, did I come into contact with her, and we became the best of friends. Then I found out what had brought her here. She was Viennese, and had been a dietician at Vienna University Hospital when by chance she was offered a position in Bucharest by Marshal Antonescu. He had temporary stomach trouble and wanted to cure himself by following a diet. Frau von Exner’s skills were so successful that Antonescu was perfectly all right again after a few months. When the two statesmen with their delicate digestions met in Salzburg in the spring, they apparently discussed the ailment they shared. Hitler turned to his physician and told him to look for a good dietician too. Morell thought his own injections and medicaments did more good than any diet, but to avoid unpleasantness he himself went to Vienna University Hospital and urged Frau von Exner to come and cook for Hitler. She had not been very enthusiastic about this offer, since she didn’t want to interrupt her own work and her independent career, but in the end she accepted Morell’s offer. She was a little older than me when she joined us, about twenty-four. Dark haired, well built, full of the vivacious charm of Vienna, frank and amusing, she attracted me very much. So now Hitler had a fifth female companion for his mealtimes. He liked to hear stories of Frau von Exner’s family in Vienna. She had several brothers and sisters and came from a distinguished Viennese medical family. At the time when the emerging NSDAP was banned in Austria, she and her brothers and sisters had been enthusiastic supporters of National Socialism, and later joined the Party. But their enthusiasm waned once the German Gauleiter was lording it in Vienna, and Nazi government and the war came to Austria too. Frau von Exner stood up to Hitler for the interests of the Viennese: ‘My Führer, you promised to give Vienna, the pearl of Austria, a golden setting. But your people are destroying more of the old culture of Vienna than they build up. Why do you prefer Linz?’

Hitler tolerated her reproaches and remained kindly and thoughtful. He liked her lively manner, was very fond of Viennese puddings, and admired her skill in making vegetarian soups that tasted better than meat broth. He couldn’t guess that poor Marlene was unhappy about his modest demands. With Antonescu, despite his diet, she had been able to revel in lobster, mayonnaise, caviar and other delicacies, and she had cooked fine dinners for festive receptions. But Hitler, as usual, wanted nothing but his one-pot dishes, carrots with potatoes, and boring soft-boiled eggs. ‘He’ll never thrive on food like this,’ she wailed, and she simmered a bone in his soup now and then. Above all, she smoked like a chimney, and I assured her that she would be Hitler’s cook only until he found a cigarette end in his cocoa.

Later Antonescu paid another visit to headquarters. He was pleased to see his dietician again, and sent her a puppy by air, one of the offspring of the two fox terriers that Frau von Exner had looked after lovingly in Bucharest. He was a tiny little thing; every tuft of grass was an obstacle to him and he never grew to normal dog size, but he did become a charming, lively, clever little animal. Hitler thought him a gift unworthy of a statesman, and made haste to give Frau von Exner a dog as a present himself. ‘What a Balkan like Antonescu can do, I can do better,’ he said to himself, and told Reichsleiter Bormann to find the best prize-winning pedigree fox terrier he could. Frau von Exner was tearing her hair out over this proposition. ‘What on earth am I going to do with
two
dogs?’ she said. ‘I’m in the kitchen all day.’ But the pedigree dog arrived. Bormann had found a splendid specimen, the winner of several beauty contests and very expensive. Hitler proudly handed him over. The dog was called Purzel, and was a very calm, slow-moving gentleman who had never learned to do anything but stand in the proper position, well aware of his pedigree, and be admired. But he wasn’t house-trained.

Hitler had had a special little diet kitchen built next to the main kitchen for the mess. When he noticed that I had made friends with Marlene von Exner, and I complained once again of not having enough work to do for him, he suggested that I might learn to cook from her. I did so, with enthusiasm, but now I was asked before every meal whether I had had a hand in cooking it. I thought this question was put with a certain amount of suspicion. But I’m sure he wasn’t so much afraid of being poisoned as wondering whether I might not have added sugar instead of salt.

At the beginning of July Hitler flew to Italy for talks with Mussolini, and I accompanied him.
⁶¹
It was another of those journeys kept so secret that even the participants didn’t know what was going on. We had been eating with Hitler the evening before, and he didn’t say a word about his plans. Next morning I noticed a certain restlessness in the vicinity of the Führer bunker. Orderlies were hurrying about earlier than usual, carrying cases; Schaub was striding through the camp looking very important and expressing himself less clearly than ever, because he was trying to speak correct High German in honour of this important occasion. I supposed some kind of reception must be planned, and thought nothing much of it, but I did pack the office case to be on the safe side. At midday my phone suddenly rang and Linge asked, ‘Do you have a uniform?’ I said, ‘No, why would I have a uniform? I’ve never needed one before.’ ‘Then you’ll be left behind on the airfield.’ Before I could ask any more questions he had hung up. I went off to Schaub, because as chief adjutant it was his business to tell us when we were needed. It was awkward for him when I asked whether the Führer was going away, and how it was that I’d learned I was to go too only by chance. He muttered something vague and said I was to be ready at two to drive to the airfield. When I asked where we were going and how long for, he said it was secret and none of my business. I just laughed and found out more from Linge. Unfortunately he was so busy that he could only tell me, briefly, it was expected that the trip would last three days. But I still didn’t find out where we were going. As the situation on the Eastern Front wasn’t very good, I assumed the Führer was going to visit the Army Group in Ukraine. I drove to the airfield with two of the stenographers whose job it was to take down the daily conferences verbatim in shorthand. When one of them asked me, ‘Have you ever been to Italy before?’ I finally knew our destination.

We flew in four large, four-engined Condor planes. I was in the same aircraft as the Führer. It was a roomy passenger plane and held about sixteen people. Hitler had a single seat just behind the pilot’s cockpit, on the right-hand side of the plane. There was quite a large folding table in front of him. The other seats were arranged as they would be in a comfortable dining car, in groups of four with a little table in the middle of each group. The pilot, Captain Baur,
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soon took the plane up to a high altitude so that the passengers would feel tired in the thinner atmosphere and go to sleep. As long as Hitler was awake, there was always someone walking up and down, disturbing the balance of the plane. Professor Morell hated flying. He sat in front in the cockpit, next to the pilot, and he was throwing up all the time. He arrived more dead than alive at the end of any flight. We stopped off for the night at the Berghof. This time I had felt upset by the flight too, and I went to bed directly after dinner. But first I asked what time we were to start next morning, and was told that we were to get into the cars and drive to the airfield at seven-thirty in the morning. I went to sleep at once, after telling the switchboard to wake me next day.

I was just sitting comfortably in the bathtub when the phone rang and an orderly asked why I wasn’t ready yet, everyone was waiting for me. I was horrified, flung my clothes on, and ran downstairs still doing them up and cursing my watch which seemed to be so unreliable and said only seven o’clock. However, I was being unfair to it, for during the evening and night the weather had changed, and Hitler had decided to set off half an hour earlier. No one had thought to tell me.

We landed somewhere in northern Italy, boarded Mussolini’s special train, and were taken to Treviso station. Hitler, with his entourage and their host, got into a column of cars and the motorcade roared off, surrounded by carabinieri on motorcycles, for the place where the talks were to be held, a fine old villa nearby. I didn’t see Hitler or any of his entourage all day. I stayed behind in Mussolini’s special train, marvelling at the mess and dirt, the old-fashioned carriages and the way the staff were got up like operetta characters, and I suffered terribly from the heat.

Late in the afternoon we started back the same way as we had come. After a wonderful flight over the Alps in the sunset we reached the Berghof, and next morning we returned to the Wolf’s Lair.

Unfortunately Hitler’s visit to Mussolini turned out to have done little good, for barely four weeks later Mussolini was a prisoner in another villa, and Italian Fascism was in a state of collapse.
⁶³
Hitler swore. He was furious about the secession of Italy and Mussolini’s mishap, and that evening he didn’t hide his bad temper even from us women. He was monosyllabic and absent-minded. ‘So Mussolini is weaker than I thought,’ he said. ‘I was giving him my personal support, and now he’s fallen. But we could never rely on the Italians, and I think we’ll win the victory better alone than with such irresponsible allies. They’ve cost us more in loss of prestige and real setbacks than any success they brought us was worth.’

So now I sit here thinking of what happened next. Only a few salient points stand out from the regular course of our days, and now they look like signposts along the rapid downward course of the avalanche that buried everything. All the separate small parts that added up to the great event are blurred in my mind. Hitler lived, worked, played with his dog, ranted and raged at his generals, ate meals with his secretaries, and drove Europe towards its fate – and we hardly noticed. Germany was echoing with the wail of sirens and the roar of enemy aircraft engines. Fierce battles were being fought in the East.

Then came that grey, rainy day when Fräulein Wolf, eyes red with weeping, met me on the way to the Führer bunker. ‘Stalingrad has fallen. Our whole army has been annihilated. They’re dead!’
⁶⁴
She was almost sobbing. And we both thought of all that blood, and the dead men and the dreadful despair.

That evening Hitler seemed a tired old man. I don’t remember what we talked about, but a dismal image has stayed in my memory, rather like visiting a bleak graveyard in the November rain.

Yet this gloom was temporarily dispelled by news of victories and Hitler’s own unshakeable confidence. He had now made it his habit to have a nocturnal tea-party at headquarters too. As well as the secretaries he invited his doctors, adjutants, Walther Hewel, Heinz Lorenz and Reichsleiter Bormann. Göring and Himmler were never present, but Speer sometimes came, Sepp Dietrich turned up once, and of course Frau von Exner was there.

We laughed a lot, and Hitler usually tried to keep the conversation away from serious matters. But when Speer was present a technical note entered the discussion. Then we talked about all kinds of inventions, new weapons and so on, and memories of past campaigns were revived with Sepp Dietrich. I must say these evenings were much more personal and interesting than the tea-parties at the Berghof. We sat close together round a relatively small circular table, and the bright lighting in the whitewashed bunker room kept us awake.

Again, we divided tea-time duty into two shifts, because it wasn’t possible to go to bed at five or six in the morning every day and then get up again at nine. Hitler entirely understood that, since he knew from Eva Braun how important a woman’s beauty sleep is to her, but he didn’t like it when we spoke of entertaining him as a ‘duty’.

There were probably hundreds of thousands of little stories he told that I found interesting at the time, for instance about his childhood and schooldays, his time as a student in Vienna, the many pranks he played while he was a soldier, and later the early days of the Party, followed by his imprisonment and so on, but all those were such fleeting, trifling impressions in view of what happened later that I can’t remember them properly any more. At the time they drew me the picture of a very human, understanding, invulnerable Führer who might think himself a genius but was also regarded as a genius by his whole entourage, and for quite a while his successes backed that idea up. In fact it was my familiarity with this sensitive, innocuous, private side of him, and my knowledge of his personal experiences, that made it so difficult to see the evil spirit inside the genius.