Hitler's Last Secretary (29 page)

The Führer is impatient to see what I have typed. He keeps coming back into my room, looking to see how far I’ve got, he says nothing but just casts restless glances at what remains of my shorthand, and then goes out again.

Suddenly Goebbels bursts in. I look at his agitated face, which is white as chalk. Tears are running down his cheeks. He speaks to me because there’s no one else around to whom he can pour out his heart. His usually clear voice is stifled by tears and shaking. ‘The Führer wants me to leave Berlin, Frau Junge! I am to take up a leading post in the new government. But I can’t leave Berlin, I cannot leave the Führer’s side! I am Gauleiter of Berlin, and my place is here. If the Führer is dead my life is pointless. And he says to me, “Goebbels, I didn’t expect you to disobey my last order too …” The Führer has made so many decisions too late – why make this last one too early?’ he asks despairingly.

Then he too dictates me his testament, to be added as an appendix to the Führer’s. For the first time in his life, it says, he is not going to carry out an order by the Führer because he cannot leave his place in Berlin at the Führer’s side. In later times, an example of loyalty will be more valuable than a life preserved … And he too tells the world that he and his whole family prefer death to life in a Germany without National Socialism.

I type both documents as fast as I can. My fingers work mechanically, and I am amazed to see that they make hardly any typing errors. Bormann, Goebbels and the Führer himself keep coming in to see if I’ve finished yet. They make me nervous and delay the work. Finally they almost tear the last sheet out of my typewriter, go back into the conference room, sign the three copies, and that very night they are sent off by courier in different directions. Colonel von Below, Heinz Lorenz and Bormann’s colleague Zander take Hitler’s last will and testament out of Berlin.
¹¹⁰

With that, Hitler’s life is really over. Now he just wants to wait for confirmation that at least one of the documents has reached its destination. Any moment now we expect the Russians to storm our bunker, so close do the sounds of war seem to be. All our dogs are dead. The dog-walker has done his duty and shot our beloved pets before they can be torn to pieces up in the park by an enemy grenade or bomb.

Any of the guards or soldiers who have to go out in the open now are gambling with their lives. Some of our people have already been wounded. The leader of the escort commando has been shot in the leg and can’t move for pain.

Almost no one stops to think of the five blonde little girls and the dark-haired boy still playing in their room, enjoying life. Their mother has now told them it’s possible they may all have to be inoculated. When there are so many people living together in a small space you have to take precautions against disease. They understand that, and they’re not afraid.

29 April. We’re trapped here, we just sit waiting.

30 April begins like the days that went before it. The hours drag slowly by. No one knows just how to address Eva Braun now. The adjutants and orderlies stammer in embarrassment when they have to speak to the ‘gnaüdiges Fraüulein’. ‘You may safely call me Frau Hitler, ’ she says, smiling.

She asks me into her room because she can’t spend the whole time alone with her thoughts. We talk about something, any-thing, to distract ourselves. Suddenly she opens her wardrobe. There hangs the beautiful silver fox fur she loved so much. ‘Frau Junge, I’d like to give you this coat as a goodbye present,’ she says. ‘I always liked to have well-dressed ladies around me – I want you to have it now and enjoy wearing it.’ I thank her with all my heart, much moved. I am even glad to have it although I’ve no idea how, where and when I can wear it. Then we eat lunch with Hitler. The same conversation as yesterday, the day before yesterday, for many days past: a banquet of death under the mask of cheerful calm and composure. We rise from the table, Eva Braun goes to her room, and Frau Christian and I look for somewhere to smoke a cigarette in peace. I find a vacant armchair in the servants’ room, next to the open door to Hitler’s corridor. Hitler is probably in his room. I don’t know who is with him. Then Günsche comes up to me. ‘Come on, the Führer wants to say goodbye.’ I rise and go out into the corridor. Linge fetches the others. Fraüulein Manziarly, Frau Christian, I vaguely realize there are other people there too. But all I really see is the figure of the Führer. He comes very slowly out of his room, stooping more than ever, stands in the open doorway and shakes hands with everyone. I feel his right hand warm in mine, he looks at me but he isn’t seeing me. He seems to be far away. He says something to me, but I don’t hear it. I didn’t take in his last words. The moment we’ve been waiting for has come now, and I am frozen and scarcely notice what’s going on around me. Only when Eva Braun comes over to me is the spell broken a little. She smiles and embraces me. ‘Please do try to get out. You may yet make your way through. And give Bavaria my love,’ she says, smiling but with a sob in her voice. She is wearing the Führer’s favourite dress, the black one with the roses at the neckline, and her hair is washed and beautifully done. Like that, she follows the Führer into his room – and to her death. The heavy iron door closes.

I am suddenly seized by a wild urge to get as far away from here as possible. I almost race up the stairs leading to the upper part of the bunker. But the Goebbels children are sitting halfway up, looking lost. They felt they’d been forgotten in their room. No one gave them any lunch today. Now they want to go and find their parents, and Auntie Eva and Uncle Hitler. I lead them to the round table. ‘Come along, children, I’ll get you something to eat. The grown-ups have so much to do today that they don’t have any spare time for you,’ I say as lightly and calmly as I can. I find a jar of cherries, butter some bread and feed the little ones. I talk to them to distract them. They say something about being safe in the bunker, and how it’s almost fun to hear the explosions when they know the bangs can’t hurt them. Suddenly there is the sound of a shot, so loud, so close that we all fall silent. It echoes on through all the rooms. ‘That was a direct hit,’ cried Helmut, with no idea how right he is. The Führer is dead now.
¹¹¹

I want to be on my own. The children, satisfied, go back to their room. I stay sitting by myself on the narrow bench at the round table on the landing. There is a bottle of Steinhäger standing there, with an empty glass beside it. Automatically, I pour myself a drink and swallow the strong liquor. My watch says a few minutes after three in the afternoon. So now it’s over.

I don’t know how long I sit like that. Men’s boots have passed me by, but I didn’t notice. Then the tall, broad figure of Otto Günsche comes up the stairs, and with him a strong smell of petrol. His face is ashen, his young, fresh features look gaunt. He drops heavily to sit beside me, reaches for the bottle too, and his large, heavy hand is shaking. ‘I’ve carried out the Führer’s last order … his body is burned,’ he says softly. I don’t answer, I don’t ask any questions.

He goes down again to make sure that the bodies are burned without trace. I stay sitting there for a while motionless, trying to imagine what will happen now. Then, after all, I suddenly feel an urge to go down to those two empty rooms. The door to Hitler’s room is still open at the end of the corridor. The men carrying the bodies had no hands free to close it. Eva’s little revolver is lying on the table with a pink chiffon scarf beside it, and I see the brass case of the poison capsule glinting on the floor next to Frau Hitler’s chair. It looks like an empty lipstick. There is blood on the blue-and-white upholstery of the bench where Hitler was sitting: Hitler’s blood. I suddenly feel sick. The heavy smell of bitter almonds is nauseating. I instinctively reach for my own capsule. I’d like to throw it as far away as I can and leave this terrible bunker. One ought to be able to breathe clear, fresh air now, feel the wind and hear the trees rustling. But freedom, peace and calm are out of reach.

Suddenly I feel something like hatred and helpless anger rise in me. I’m angry with the dead Führer. I’m surprised by that myself, because after all, I knew he was going to leave us. But he’s left us in such a state of emptiness and helplessness! He’s simply gone away, and with him the hypnotic compulsion under which we were living has gone too.

Footsteps are approaching the entrance door now. The last men to prop up the Reich have been present at the pyre and are now coming back. Göebbels, Bormann, Axmann, Hewel, Günsche, Kempka. I don’t want to see anyone now, and once again I go over to my bunker room in the New Reich Chancellery, down the damaged corridor. Other women have taken up their quarters here now. Secretaries from the adjutancy office; I know them too. They don’t yet know what has happened over there, they’re talking about holding out and showing courage, they’re laughing and still working. As if there were any point in that! My cases are all there, neatly packed with my possessions, my books and wedding presents. I wanted to keep them safe and have them near me. Now they don’t belong to me any more. I can’t take anything with me.

There’s nowhere to be alone in this terrible, huge building. I throw myself on my camp bed and try to think sensibly. It’s hopeless, and finally I fall asleep.

I wake up late at night. My companions in the bunker room are just going to bed to get a few hours’ sleep. They still don’t know that the Führer is dead. There’s no one to talk to. I go over to the Führer bunker again. All the others who were left behind have assembled there. Suddenly they are human beings thinking and acting independently again. They are all sitting together and talking. Frau Christian and Fräulein Krüger are there too. Young Fräulein Manziarly is sitting in a corner, eyes red with weeping. She had to cook supper for the Führer as usual today, 30 April, so that his death could be kept secret. But no one ate the fried eggs and creamed potatoes.

They are discussing what to do next. General Krebs is to go to Russian headquarters as a peace negotiator and offer our total surrender on condition that everyone in the bunkers can have safe conduct. He sets out with one companion late at night. The rest of us wait over coffee, schnapps, pointless conversation. I would like to get out of this bunker, I don’t want to wait for the Russians to come and find my corpse in this mousetrap! I hear Otto Günsche talking to General Mohnke. They want to lead a group of fighting men and break out of the Reich Chancellery. There’s no hope of surviving such a venture, but it’s better than committing suicide in this trap. Almost without knowing we’re saying, Frau Christian and I say, with one voice, ‘Take us too!’ A brief sympathetic and understanding look is bent on us, then the two men nod. But for the time being we’ll wait and see what news Krebs brings.
¹¹²

It is a long time before he comes back. It’s the First of May now. A great festival! Hitler couldn’t wait for it, he had thought this was the day that the Russians wanted to celebrate by storming the Reich Chancellery. But in fact the gunfire isn’t as fierce today as on the days before.

I take Otto Günsche aside and look for a quiet corner where we can talk undisturbed. I want to know how the Führer died. And Günsche is glad to be able to talk about it. ‘We saluted the Führer once more, then he went into his room with Eva and closed the door. Goebbels, Bormann, Axmann, Hewel, Kempka and I stood out in the corridor waiting. It may have been ten minutes, but it seemed an eternity to us, before the shot broke the silence. After a few seconds Goebbels opened the door and we went in. The Führer had shot himself in the mouth and bitten on a poison capsule too. His skull was shattered and looked dreadful. Eva Braun hadn’t used her pistol, she just took the poison. We wrapped the Führer’s head in a blanket, and Goebbels, Axmann and Kempka carried the corpse up all those stairs and into the park. It was heavier than I’d thought it could possibly be, with his slim figure. Up in the park we put the two bodies down side by side, a few steps from the entrance to the bunker. We couldn’t go far because the firing was so fierce, so we picked a bomb crater quite close. Then Kempka and I poured petrol over the bodies, and I stood in the entrance and threw a burning rag on them. Both bodies went up in flames at once … ’ Günsche stops, and I think how quickly human beings pass away. The most powerful man in the Reich a few days ago, and now a little heap of ashes blowing in the wind. I didn’t doubt what Günsche said for a moment. No one can pretend to be as shaken as he was – and certainly not Günsche, an uncomplicated, muscular young man. Where else could the Führer be now, anyway? There was no car, no plane, nothing within reach, no secret underground passage leading out of this bunker to freedom. And Hitler couldn’t even walk properly any more, his body didn’t obey him …

Finally Krebs comes back. He looks worn out, exhausted, and we don’t even need to ask what news he brings. His offer was rejected. So now we prepare to set out. At this point Goebbels announces on the radio that the Führer is dead, ‘fallen at the head of his troops’. The other inmates of the bunkers under the whole building know too, now. […] The big storerooms stocked with provisions by the household manager are emptied. There are scarcely enough takers for all the canned food, bottles of wine, champagne and schnapps, chocolate. These things have lost their value. But everyone gets weapons from the leader of the escort commando. We women are each given a pistol too. We are not to fire it, we are told, except in the utmost need. Then we get practical clothing. We have to go over to the camp at the very back of the bunker, on Vossstrasse. It means passing through the operating theatre. I’ve never seen a dead body before, and I’ve always run away from the sight of blood. Now, empty-eyed, I see two dead soldiers in a terrible condition lying on stretchers. Professor Haase doesn’t even look up as we come in. Sweating and concentrating hard, he is working on a leg amputation. There are buckets full of blood and human limbs everywhere. The saw grates as it works its way through bone. I see and hear nothing, the pictures don’t penetrate my conscious mind. Automatically, I let someone hand me a steel helmet, long trousers and a short jacket in the room next door, try on boots and go back to the other bunker.