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Ebook376 pages7 hours
Hitler's Last Secretary: A Firsthand Account of Life with Hitler
By Traudl Junge
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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About this ebook
A firsthand account of Adolf Hitler from the woman who worked at his side, stayed with him in the bunker, and was featured in the film Downfall.
In 1942 Germany, Gertraud “Traudl” Junge was a young woman with dreams of becoming a ballerina when she was offered the chance of a lifetime. At the age of twenty-two, she became private secretary to Adolf Hitler and served him for two and a half years, right up to the very end.
Junge observed the intimate workings of Hitler’s administration: She typed his correspondence and speeches—including Hitler’s public and private last will and testament—and ate her meals and spent evenings with him. She was close enough to hear the bomb intended to assassinate Hitler in the Wolf’s Lair—and to smell the bitter almond odor of Eva Braun’s cyanide pill in Hitler’s bunker and ultimate tomb.
In this intimate, detailed, and chilling memoir, Junge explains what it was like to spend everyday life with a human monster.
In 1942 Germany, Gertraud “Traudl” Junge was a young woman with dreams of becoming a ballerina when she was offered the chance of a lifetime. At the age of twenty-two, she became private secretary to Adolf Hitler and served him for two and a half years, right up to the very end.
Junge observed the intimate workings of Hitler’s administration: She typed his correspondence and speeches—including Hitler’s public and private last will and testament—and ate her meals and spent evenings with him. She was close enough to hear the bomb intended to assassinate Hitler in the Wolf’s Lair—and to smell the bitter almond odor of Eva Braun’s cyanide pill in Hitler’s bunker and ultimate tomb.
In this intimate, detailed, and chilling memoir, Junge explains what it was like to spend everyday life with a human monster.
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Author
Traudl Junge
Traudl Junge was born in Munich in 1920. From the end of 1942 until April 1945 she was Hitler’s private secretary. After the war she was sent to a Russian prison camp and later returned to Germany. She died on February 10, 2002, shortly after the publication of the German edition of her book.
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Reviews for Hitler's Last Secretary
Rating: 3.7878788989898995 out of 5 stars
4/5
99 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Junge was Hitler's personal secretary from 1942 to the end in the bunker in Berlin in 1945. Never interested in politics, she never realized what the Nazi's were really doing until after the war. She admits she was mesmerized by Hitler who to her was a warm caring man who almost treated her like his daughter.She writes about Hitler and his entourage as they enjoyed a life that was unavailable to the average German citizen. She only realized the difference when she went to Munich to visit her mother and saw the bomb damage and the people seeking food and new housing. She tried to ask Hitler about what he was doing about it but he did not seem interested and as far she could see, he never saw a bombed German city in daylight.She was there in the bunker when Hitler and Braun committed suicide, Hitler gave her a pill to end her life if she wished although he gave her permission to flee. Eventually captured by the Russians, she eventually made it back to Munich where she made a career as a writer and editor although her personal life never lived up to her hopes.If you wish to find out what went on in the Wolf's Lair or Berchtesgaden, here is a good source. As well, Junge describes the regulars in Hitler's entourage and often explains why she did not like an individual.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was written by a woman who, at the age of 22, became one of Hitler's secretaries. She is naive and unaware of what is actually going on in the prison camps. She paints a picture of 2 Hitlers--the harsh fuhrer, and the paternalistic employer. It goes into very great detail about day-to-day life as she travels with his entourage to Wolf's Lair and Berintesgarden in the Bavarian Alps. She stays with him until the end, even after most of his staff has left. She does not apologize for her role during the war, but subsequently feels a great deal of guilt over not realizing how evil Hitler was.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Detailed memories from an interesting view...that of hitlers last secretary Traudl Junge. Sorry, not sorry that I am not as enamored of her as other readers. Why? I do not believe she was as naïve as she would like us to believe.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is not a definitive history of World War II, or the Third Reich, or even of Hitler, Traudl Junge makes many errors in the order of things and minor things that happened. It’s also not an attempt to make Hitler look human. It is an account of what it was like to live with Hitler the last few years of his life.Traudl Junge did not involve herself in the politics of the day, she was more concerned with making a living, helping to support her family, and having some fun> She wanted to become a ballerina, even went to a dance academy but the war intervened. When her plans to become a ballerina fell through, she ended up being hired as a secretary by the Reich Chancellery, a job with good pay and to her young mind exciting. From there she becomes one of Hitler’s personal secretaries.This is not an exciting book, mainly about the day to day life in the last days of Hitler’s life, Traudl Junge also writes about how Hitler was able to sway people to his way of thinking, remembering that this was written a few years after she mentions how at the time she felt a vague uneasiness, but couldn’t describe it but now realizes what was happening, how those in Hitler’s inner circle were influenced by his personality. There are many endnotes to explain who the people Traudl mentions are and also to explain events that happened differently from what she wrote. Traudle admits that in many places her memory is fuzzy.An interesting book, well written but a little slow.
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