Hitler's Last Secretary (25 page)

That afternoon there was another long military briefing. The Russians were now right outside the gates of the city. Hitler gave orders for one final attack, with all the troops and planes to be found in Berlin. Every single tank, every gun must go to the front. The bunker echoed with the explosions of the small bombs that the Russians kept dropping over the city, and with Hitler’s imperative voice too. The generals left the small, stuffy conference room red-faced. Frau Christian and I sat timidly outside in the corridor. Fräulein Krüger, Bormann’s secretary, had joined us in these last few days. She too could say only that her boss expected either to leave Berlin in the next few days, or … We had no clear idea of the other alternative.

Once again we had to wait. Even Hitler could do nothing more now. He retreated to be with his dogs, which were now being kept in a cubicle near the lavatories. Then he sat in silence on the little bench in the corridor with the puppy on his lap, watching people coming and going. The staff unwaveringly went about their duties. The servants functioned calmly and reliably as ever, carrying out Hitler’s wishes. Theo Morell, who had heart trouble, sat in his room in the bunker worrying. The tension was unbearable.

Eva Braun came out of her room. It was quiet outside now. We had no idea what the weather was like. There was no window to show us where the sun stood in the sky. We wanted to go out in the park, to give the dogs and ourselves a little fresh air and daylight. A hazy cloud of dust and smoke hung over Berlin. The air was mild and you could feel the spring. Eva Braun, Frau Christian and I walked through the park of the Reich Chancellery in silence. There were deep holes everywhere in the well-tended turf, with empty metal containers and broken branches lying around. We saw dugouts and heaps of bazookas at regular intervals along the perimeter wall. Was this to be the final line of defence? We didn’t believe it. Tomorrow, or maybe in the next few days, German troops would drive out the enemy.

We passed through a gap in the ruined, fallen wall and went into the grounds of the Foreign Office. The trees were in blossom, quiet and peaceful. Only a few days ago we women had practised with pistols here. Hitler had finally given his permission. Back in East Prussia, when the Russians were coming closer and closer, Frau Christian and I had already asked if it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to learn how to handle a pistol. At the time Hitler had replied, smiling, ‘No, ladies! I don’t want to die by the hand of a secretary. Aim darts with your eyes, that will do!’ But now he suddenly had no more objections. We had shot at huntsman’s practice targets under Rattenhuber’s supervision. Hitler sent us into the abandoned grounds of the Foreign Office so that we couldn’t do any harm, and here we still saw the tattered paper targets recording our hits. We had no chance to practise any more – the Russian artillery was doing all the shooting around here. But today, briefly, all was quiet. Hidden behind some shrubs in a small round flowerbed we found a beautiful bronze statue. A young naiad with a charming figure stood here in the garden under the blossoming trees. She suddenly seemed to us incredibly beautiful in all this bleakness. All at once we heard the birds still twittering, we saw the daffodils flowering in the grass, and nature waking to new life. We were almost glad to see that all this still existed. That dreadful bunker was surely to blame for the terrible, oppressive atmosphere. Up here in the open air you could breathe more easily, your head was clearer. The dogs romped about on the grass, and we sat on a rock and smoked. Even Eva Braun lit a cigarette. Seeing our surprised looks, she said, ‘Oh, children, I just have to start smoking again. With extraordinary worries like mine, surely I can do something out of the ordinary too.’ But she had a box of menthol pastilles in her bag and took the precaution of popping one in her mouth when we heard the first siren sound and clambered down again.

Down in the bunker Hitler was sitting in the corridor with Goebbels, Bormann and Burgdorf. They were discussing the coming attack. Hitler seemed physically rather more erect and stronger again. We came in from outside, feeling better and full of fresh air, to be received by a surge of hope and confidence. At least a decision would finally be made now. Tomorrow we would find out whether Hitler was going to Berchtesgaden or meant to stay in Berlin for ever. Hitler told us to sit down with him. Everything was very unconventional now that there were so few of us. Eva Braun sat beside Hitler, and taking no notice of the other men she immediately began wheedling him into what she wanted. ‘I say, do you know that statue in the Foreign Office? A lovely sculpture! It would look really good by the pool in my garden. Do please buy it for me if everything turns out all right and we get out of Berlin!’ She looked hopefully at him. Hitler took her hand. ‘But I don’t know whose it is. It’s probably state property, in which case I can’t buy it and put it in a private garden.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘if you succeed in beating the Russians back and liberating Berlin you can make an exception for once!’ Hitler laughed at this feminine logic, but he didn’t discuss the matter any more. Eva, who was painfully clean and tidy, discovered some red and blue specks of colour on Hitler’s field-grey uniform tunic. ‘Oh look, you’re all dirty! You can’t wear that jacket any more. You don’t have to imitate “Old Fritz” in everything and go around looking as scruffy as he did.’ Hitler protested. He was no longer a commander, a politician, a dictator. ‘But this is my working suit, after all. I can’t put on an apron when I’m holding a conference and I have to use coloured pens.’ In fact she wasn’t being fair, since he was meticulous about cleanliness himself. He never shook hands with anyone if he had just touched his dog, however lightly.

The conversation was interrupted by bombs and anti-aircraft fire. Another raid had started, as it did at this time every evening. The bunker filled up, the heavy iron door to the first part of the corridor was closed. Hitler had the radio switched on. He never listened to music, only to the news reports of the approach of enemy aircraft, with the regular ticking of the clock on the wall breaking into them. He listened to those reports. Berlin was suffering badly again. And suddenly the ghost of hopelessness came back to haunt us.

[…]
⁹³
Now all the self-delusion is over. Finally, at last, that desperate, seductive voice in me is silenced, the part of me that wouldn’t see and know reality, that
wanted
to believe. At the same time I suddenly feel very sorry for Hitler. A hopelessly disappointed man, toppled from the greatest heights, broken, lonely. […] I feel guilty all of a sudden. I think of all the dreadful things going on up there, a few metres above us, the things that have been going on for years, caused by my employer. Should I leave now? Go back to people who will look at me reproachfully, and tell them, ‘I’m back. I was wrong, but when my own life was at stake I saw where I’d gone wrong.’ Pity and a guilty conscience kept me here, and Frau Christian may have had similar feelings. We said, almost at the same moment, ‘We’re staying too!’ Hitler looked at us for a moment. ‘I’m ordering you to go.’ But we shook our heads. Then he shook hands with us. ‘I wish my generals had your courage,’ he said. Fräulein Manziarly, that quiet little woman who had really wanted to be a teacher, and was not bound in any way to stay here, said she wouldn’t leave Berlin either.

Footsteps dragging, Hitler went out to the officers. ‘Gentlemen, it’s over. I shall stay here in Berlin and shoot myself when the moment comes. Anyone who wants to go can go now. Everyone is free to do so.’

One by one they left the bunker, silently saluting the Führer. Most of them left Berlin for ever, only a few returned to their staff and departmental offices.

In his room, Hitler looked out the documents and paperwork to be destroyed from all the drawers and cupboards. This confidential task was entrusted to Julius Schaub. Looking miserably unhappy, he limped through the bunker, up the stairs to the park, and there, with his heart bleeding, burned his Führer’s treasures. He was told to go and do the same in Munich and Berchtesgaden. Eyes wet with tears, he said goodbye to us, since he would have to leave that same day. Now the liaison officers had left too, and the only people left were Hewel, Reichsleiter Bormann, General Krebs,
⁹⁴
General Burgdorf, Hermann Feg-elein, Admiral Voss,
⁹⁵
Adjutants von Below and Günsche and Heinz Lorenz. Of the servants, only Heinz Linge and three orderlies had stayed. Apart from that almost all the domestic staff had stayed too, the people who worked in the kitchen and ran the house and the switchboard, the chauffeurs, and so on. They all had makeshift accommodation on camp beds and temporary sleeping places in the upper rooms of the Führer’s bunker. The kitchen too was underground now, and the front part of the corridor served as a dining room. We secretaries were sharing our bunker bedroom in the New Reich Chancellery with several other women, most of them secretaries and telephonists from the Führer’s adjutancy office. We could get straight to the Führer bunker down a long underground corridor.

The hours crept by. I felt completely empty, hollowed out and numb. I really thought I ought to sleep for a couple of hours, but restlessness kept me in the Führer bunker. Perhaps some decisive news would come within the next hour? It must be late afternoon by now. Had Hitler eaten any lunch? There probably hadn’t been time. Now he was sitting in his room talking to Goebbels. How would the great Propaganda Minister take Hitler’s decision to die in Berlin? What would he tell the German people? The door opened and Goebbels went to the telephone. When he came back he looked enquiringly around. There was no one there except for the orderlies and me. The Minister came over to me. ‘My wife will soon be arriving with the children. At the Führer’s wish they will be staying in his bunker from now on. Please be kind enough to receive my family when they arrive.’ My God, I thought, where are we going to put so many people? Six small children in all this turmoil! I went a few steps up to the upper part of the bunker and looked for Günsche. He cleared a room that was full of cases, crates, furniture and provisions, and put beds in.

By now Hitler had summoned Keitel and Jodl. The two generals had one last brief discussion with Hitler. I heard them talking to Bormann and Hewel afterwards. Yet again they had tried in vain to make it clear to Hitler that there was nothing he could do in Berlin now. The OKW offices were going south. He couldn’t command his generals any more from Berlin. […] Hitler emphasized his firm resolve to stay in Berlin and die there. He was going to shoot himself, he said, he didn’t want to fall into enemy hands alive or dead. He couldn’t fight any more, physically he was a broken man. So saying, he dismissed his generals, and now they finally left the bunker.

Meanwhile the Goebbels family had come over from the bunker underneath the Propaganda Ministry to the Führer bunker. I went to meet them and welcome the children. Frau Goebbels was taken straight to Hitler. The five little girls and the boy were happy and cheerful. They were pleased to be staying with ‘Uncle Hitler’, and soon filled the bunker with their games. They were charming, well brought-up, natural-mannered children. They knew nothing of the fate awaiting them, and the adults did all they could to keep them unaware of it. I took them over to the storeroom where Hitler’s birthday presents were kept. There were children’s toys and clothes among them, and the children chose what they liked.

Traudl aged about two with her mother, Hildegard Humps

Summer holidays by the Ammersee, c. 1927 (left to right: Traudl Humps, a playmate, Inge Humps, in the background Traudl’s grandmother, Agathe Zottmann)

With her friend, Ulla Kares, 1940

Traudl when working at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, 1942