Hitler's Last Secretary (6 page)

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.

From then on, except for a few weeks’ holiday, there were very few days when I didn’t see Hitler, talk to him, work with him or share meals with him.

II

IN THE ‘WOLF’S LAIR

I got used to this strange new world relatively quickly. Nature, the forest and the landscape quickly won me over to my new workplace. There were no fixed working hours here, no office atmosphere, I could go for long walks and enjoy being out in the woods. I didn’t miss the big city for a moment.

Hitler himself used to say they’d chosen him the cheapest, most marshy, mosquito-ridden and climatically unpleasant place possible, but I thought it was lovely. In winter at least there was an indescribable charm about East Prussia. I shall never forget the snow-covered birch trees, the clear sky and the spreading plains with the lakes in them.

In summer, however, I had to agree that my boss had a point, because myriads of mosquitoes plagued us, sucking our blood. The air was heavy and humid and sometimes quite difficult to breathe. In such weather it was hard to persuade Hitler to take his daily walk. He stayed in his cool bunker, and it was only for the sake of his dog Blondi that he would go for a little stroll after breakfast in the small area of land next to the bunker that was specially reserved for that purpose. This was where Blondi, a German shepherd, had to do her tricks. Her master had trained her to be one of cleverest, most agile dogs I ever saw. Hitler was delighted when Blondi managed to break her jumping record by a few centimetres, or could balance on a narrow pole a couple of minutes longer than usual. He said he relaxed best in his dog’s company.

The things Blondi could do were really amazing. She jumped through hoops, climbed a ladder, and would sit up and beg nicely when she reached the little platform at the top. It was a pleasure to see the satisfaction both master and dog got from these games.

Spectators often turned up outside this piece of land to watch the games, and it was the only opportunity I myself had for contact with the Führer during those first weeks. When he saw me he would greet me with a friendly handshake, and ask how I was.

He didn’t summon me to take dictation. My main business in those first four weeks was to ask every morning whether I should expect any work, and I always had to tell either the valet on duty or the telephone switchboard where I could be found.

I used the time to get to know the people around Hitler better. First there were his valets Heinz Linge and Hans Junge,
¹⁰
who relieved each other on duty every other day. They had both been chosen from Hitler’s personal bodyguard, the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, and theirs was a busy and responsible position.

To say ‘valet’ doesn’t really cover it – the post was more like that of household manager, travelling companion, butler and maid-of-all-work combined. The valet on duty had to wake Hitler in the morning, that is to say knock at his bedroom door, announce the precise time, and give him the morning news. He also had to decide on the menu for the day, fix mealtimes, pass instructions on to the kitchen, and serve the Führer when he ate. He was in charge of a whole staff of orderlies who looked after Hitler’s wardrobe and had to clean the rooms and run the establishment, and he made appointments with the dentist and barber and supervised the care of the dog.

Nobody knew the Führer’s personal qualities and habits, or his moods and whims, as well as Linge, who was an extraordinarily clever, able man. He also had the calm disposition he needed, never lost his temper and had a good sense of humour, which quite often came in very useful. No wonder even Hitler’s most distinguished colleagues would ask Linge, out in the anteroom, whether this was a good time to give Hitler bad news, and sometimes the valet advised them to wait until the Führer had taken a refreshing afternoon nap and was in a better mood.

We secretaries were inevitably thrown together with the valets a good deal, since they were the people who always told us if we were needed or not. That way we heard many details of Hitler’s habits, and got to know them personally only much later, when we were in closer contact with him.

The only fixture in the Führer bunker, besides his valets, was Hitler’s chief adjutant, Gruppenführer Julius Schaub.
¹¹
For historical research purposes it’s not worth saying much about him, but even now I’m often asked how a statesman could keep such a strange character always with him and raise him to such a position of trust. So I must try to explain, even though I never really understood it myself.

Dear old Julius thought he was an amazingly important, significant person. […] I didn’t yet know him at all when I heard the following little anecdote about him, and I can’t be a hundred per cent certain that it’s really true, but it’s so typical that I just have to tell it. Even back in the mists of time, Schaub had been a Party member. His Party number was a very low one. Someone once asked him who really decided on the policies of the National Socialist Workers’ party. Julius Schaub happened to be cleaning Hitler’s boots at the time, and was acting as his valet. He replied: ‘Oh, that’s me – and Hitler’, and after a moment’s hesitation he added, ‘And Weber too!’
¹²
[…]

Both Schaub’s feet had been injured in the First World War, leaving him crippled. Later he had joined the NSDAP, and Hitler noticed him as an ardent admirer who always attended Party meetings, hobbling in on his crutches wherever Hitler appeared. When Hitler discovered that Schaub had lost his job because of his Party membership he took him on as a valet. Soon his devotion, reliability and loyalty made him indispensable. He slowly worked his way up to adjutant and finally to chief adjutant, because he was the only one of the old guard who had been through the early years of the struggle himself, and he shared many experiences in common with Hitler. He knew so many of the Führer’s personal secrets that Hitler just couldn’t make up his mind to do without him.

In a way we secretaries regarded Herr Schaub as our boss too. We had to deal with his post, copy out the petitions sent to him that he wanted to put before Hitler – most of them were from people the Führer knew – and deal with the mail coming into and going out of the personal adjutant’s office.

Obviously we could hardly write letters exactly as he dictated them to us. Most of them had to be translated from Bavarian dialect into German first. On the whole Julius Schaub was extremely kind, but very curious too. He was always collecting anecdotes so that he could entertain the Führer at breakfast. He passed on every joke told at the camp barber’s to his master, usually missing the punch line.

He had long ago given up smoking for the Führer’s sake, leaving drink as his only indulgence. He had an astonishing head for alcohol. The light would be on in his room until late at night, or you would hear his voice in the mess, or from another bunker where some of the gentlemen were sitting around a bottle in earnest conversation. The amazing thing was, however, that he would go to the barber’s freshly washed at eight in the morning, then walk round to the camp to show everyone that he was an early riser and a lesson to anyone who slept late. Only much later did I realize that after his morning walk, when the whole camp had respectfully noticed that Herr Schaub was up and about already, he went back to bed and slept happily until noon.

In the past Hitler always used to eat lunch in the mess with his closest colleagues and his generals, but as he didn’t want to be tied to fixed mealtimes, and even during a meal could never get away from discussing official business with such people around him, he had been eating alone in his bunker for months now. But if Himmler, Göring, Goebbels, or another high-ranking visitor was present, which wasn’t often, he ate with his guest in the guest’s room. We had a camp chef, who cooked well but didn’t have a great range. He was from Berlin, and had to rely on good advice and his imagination when he was cooking Bavarian specialities. His name was really Günther, but that wasn’t a name familiar to many people, and even Hitler never called him by anything but his nickname ‘Krümel’ – ‘Crumbs’. There was a big notice up over the kitchen door saying: ‘Wer Krümel nicht ehrt, ist den Kuchen nicht wert!’ (‘If of Crumbs no heed you take, then you don’t deserve the cake!’) Little Crumbs cooked for everyone inside the restricted area, feeding almost two hundred people a day from his huge pans. No wonder someone so used to catering on a large scale, a man who had done nothing but cook for soldiers for years on end, couldn’t pay particular attention to the whims of vegetarians. He heartily hated, or anyway despised, those who turned down meat. But as he now had to cook for the Führer – there was no other chef for miles around, and after all Hitler was the most important person here – he did his best to devise a vegetarian menu willy-nilly. I must say Hitler put up with a good deal in that respect, as I saw later at meals in the Berghof too. He was a very undemanding and modest eater, and only occasionally complained that his diet was very boring; he got only the side dishes without the meat, so there was definitely something missing. And Crumbs thought people couldn’t live without meat, so he would add at least a little meat stock or lard to all his soups and most other dishes. Usually Hitler noticed the deception, was cross, and then of course said the meal had given him a stomach-ache. In the end he wouldn’t let Crumbs cook him anything but gruel, mashed potato, and dishes guaranteed to have no animal ingredients in them. Not surprisingly, that didn’t make his menu any more appealing and varied.