Books like Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary

It was quite unexpected for me that Traudl Junge’s memoirs proved to be so fascinating. She was a secretary of Adolf Hitler from 1942 to his last day in the bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945. Traudl wrote her memoirs in 1947, consequently only two years after Hitler’s death and her own narrow escape from the Russians. I found it a remarkable account by Frau Junge, because it is very clear that Traudl is looking at the people she lived and worked with on a daily basis with the eyes of a 22 year old. She had no idea of or interest in politics and merely was grateful for a good job with such a prestigious man. In contrast, all other memoirs and autobiographies of people surrounding Hitler at the time are politically influenced, often trying to condone their part in the gruesome story. Hitler was obviously pretty fond of Traudl Junge. He had two much older secretaries and needed more assistance. Traudl was one of ten girls applying for the job. Upon viewing the row of these ten girls in front of him, Hitler only wished to talk to her and hired her on the spot. She was a diligent and adaptable person and he was obviously very satisfied with her work. He always called her ‘my child’. The job entailed that you could be summoned to work day and night and required that you lived in the same place as Hitler and his immediate staff, all of them SS officers plus civilian cooks, valets and physicians. The entire personal staff moved twice a year to the Berghoff in Bayern and to the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia and vice versa. Hitler only stayed in Berlin secretely now and then for a short period. It was clear he did not like Berlin. As to the travelling between the two permanent residences, it is quite shocking to read that Hitler nor his staff ever encountered anyone outside his close circle consisting of Himmler, Goebbels, Speer and Bormann and a few more high ranking nazi's, nor did Hitler ever see the bombed out cities or the hardship of the people with his own eyes, as they were always travelling with blinded windows in the trains they used or travelled by car only in the dark of night.It is, therefore, so fascinating that you get information from Traudl of the daily life with Hitler which was actually rather uneventful from her point of view. She tells you about the interior of the Berghoff and the Wolf’s Lair in great detail, the numerous rooms and halls, how they were decorated, what paintings were on the wall, how thick carpets were, where the bedrooms were located. To my knowledge, there is no other author or biographer who ever talked about these details of daily life in these residences. It was pretty revealing how terribly bourgeois daily life with Hitler was. How shocking it is then to realize what decisions were daily made behind the closed doors of which his staff had no idea of nor never heard about.Reading her memoirs, it is clear that Traudl had no idea that she was dealing with the greatest war criminal that had ever lived. She thought it was odd that he called himself a genius, but that was the only time she thought he was saying something rather distasteful. But for us, the reader, it is quite strange and enlightening to read what very strange hours Hitler was keeping and forcing all his staff to do the same. He had a tea party every evening around 10 o’clock, talked about nothing but pleasantries and forcing people to stay up till 02.00 in the morning. Then he would not show himself again till noon the following day. He then worked and met people in the early afternoon and subsequently forced all his staff to walk with him to a small tea house on his property and stay a couple of hours, playing with Blondi, his dog, and having only non-political conversations. Everyone in his employment had to participate in this routine and spend extraordinary amounts of time just sitting around. He was a strict veganist and did not drink. Traudl often remarks that his food looked horrible, it was gruel and fried eggs on a daily basis. It is only when they are all staying in the Berlin bunker at the end of the war, that Hitler suddenly preferred to spend his time with only his three secretaries and Eva Braun and does not tolerate anybody else at lunch and dinner. He declares that this is the only way he can get distraction from his troubles and can enjoy uncomplicated cheer which only the women can provide. What does that say about the mental state of the Fuhrer? He has obviously given up.It is not until the end of the 60’s en 70s that Traudl realizes to what monsters she had been exposed and that she was in a rather unique position to have witnessed the last days in the bunker and even having typed Hitler’s last will and testament. It was around that time that people started to learn the full impact of what had transpired during WW-II. Traudl became a subject of interest and she was shocked to be pressed by people to shake hands, solely because they liked to shake the hand of a person who had shook hands with Hitler. Traudl began to be deeply upset and traumatized by her past and never quite recovered from the shock of being so close to the center of evil and not being aware of it. She had years of psychotherapy, but remained a traumatized person until she died.I thought it is a very interesting memoir. It must be quite unique that a person who was not a member of the nazi party and had no political knowledge lived in such a close proximity to Hitler and could tell how his daily life looked like. After Hitler’s suicide, most of the people in his close circle tried to escape, but either got caught and sentenced to death or put in prison. Some escaped. I am not aware of anyone close to Hitler told the private story in such an extensive way as Traudl Junge did.