Traudl Junge

Traudl Junge (born Gertrude Humps, 16 March, 1920 – 10 February, 2002) was Adolf Hitler's last personal private secretary, from 1942 to 1945.

Biography

Marriage and the war

Gertrude Humps was born in Munich (Bavaria), the daughter of a master brewer and lieutenant in the Reserve Army, Max Humps.

In 1943 she married the SS-officer Hans-Hermann Junge (1914–1944), who died in combat. She worked at Hitler's side in Berlin, the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, in East Prussia and finally, back in Berlin. After the war Junge was sent to a Russian prison camp and, on her release, returned to Germany to work as a secretary and later, a sub-editor.

Following the war Junge was not widely known outside the academic and intelligence communities. Other than appearing in the television documentary "The World at War" (1974) she lived a life of relative obscurity until the release of her autobiographical book Until the Final Hour (written with author Melissa Müller), which described the time she worked for Hitler. She was also interviewed for the 2002 documentary film Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary.

Her book was used as a source for the movie Der Untergang (Downfall, 2004), much of which is told from her perspective. Excerpts from the documentary were also used in Der Untergang. This suddenly brought her much attention and for a few days she was accorded something approaching global celebrity when, aged 81, she died of lung cancer in a Munich hospital.

Working for Hitler

Before her appointment as Hitler's secretary she had girlish dreams of becoming a ballerina. "I was 22 and I didn't know anything about politics^* it didn't interest me." Junge later said she felt great guilt for "...liking the greatest criminal ever to have lived."

She said, "I admit, I was fascinated by Adolf Hitler. He was a pleasant boss and a fatherly friend. I deliberately ignored all the warning voices inside me and enjoyed the time by his side almost until the bitter end. It wasn't what he said, but the way he said things and how he did things."

Junge also claimed Hitler and his inner circle almost never mentioned Jews (a statement which some historians reject, attributing it to a kind of "self-induced amnesia").

She said the Führer did not like cut flowers because he did not want to be (in his words) "surrounded by corpses." Junge said he spent much of the time during his final days staring blankly and saying little.

Junge typed Hitler's last private and political will and testament in the Berlin Führerbunker shortly before his suicide.

She wrote that while playing with the Goebbels children on 30 April, 1945, "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."

Traudl Junge died at Munich on February 10, 2002.

Shortly before her own death she is reported to have said, "Now that I've let go of my story, I can let go of my life."

Quote

"We should listen to the voice of conscience. It does not take nearly as much courage as one might think to admit to our mistakes and learn from them. Human beings are in this world to learn and to change themselves in learning." —Traudl Junge

"Of course, the terrible things I heard from the Nuremberg Trials, about the six million Jews and the people from other races who were killed, were facts that shocked me deeply. But I wasn't able to see the connection with my own past. I was satisfied that I wasn't personally to blame and that I hadn't known about those things. I wasn't aware of the extent. But one day I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz Josef Strasse, and I saw that she was born the same year as me, and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler. And at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out." —Traudl Junge (interviewed during the movie Der Untergang (English title: Downfall)).

References

Junge, Traudle, Until the Final Hour, (English edition) London, 2002, ISBN 0-297-84720-1

Hirschbiegel, Oliver (Director), Downfall, (DVD) 2005, www.momentumpictures.co.uk

External links