| Traudl Junge | |
| Born | Gertraud Humps March 16, 1920 Munich, Bavaria, Germany |
|---|---|
| Died | February 10, 2002 (aged 81) Munich, Bavaria, Germany |
| Cause of death | Cancer |
| Nationality | German |
| Ethnicity | White |
| Occupation | Secretary, sub-editor science reporter |
| Employer | Adolf Hitler |
| Known for | Adolf Hitler's personal secretary during the Second World War |
| Spouse(s) | Hanse Junge (killed in combat in 1944) |
| Parents | Max Humps and Hildegard Humps (née Zottmann |
| Relatives | Sister; Inge Humps |
Traudl Junge (16 March, 1920 – 10 February, 2002), born Gertraud Humps, was Adolf Hitler's youngest personal private secretary, from December 1942 to April 1945.
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Gertraud "Traudl" Humps was born in Munich (Bavaria), the daughter of a master brewer and lieutenant in the Reserve Army, Max Humps and his wife Hildegard (née Zottmann). She had a sister, Inge, born in 1923. As a teenager she thought of becoming a ballerina.
A detailed account of her upbringing, early life and her family before she started to work with Hitler is documented in the first chapter of the book Until the Final Hour co-written by Melissa Müller.
In November 1942, Junge was hired as a private secretary to Adolf Hitler.
| “ | I was 22 and I didn't know anything about politics, it didn't interest me, | ” |
Junge said decades later, also saying that 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."
At Hitler's encouragement, in June 1943 Junge married SS-officer Hans Hermann Junge (1914 – 1944), who died in combat. She worked at Hitler's side in Berlin, the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, at Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, and lastly back in Berlin.
She said Hitler did not like cut flowers because he did not want to be (in his words) "surrounded by corpses," and said he spent much of the time during his final days staring blankly and saying little.
In 1945, Junge was with Hitler in Berlin. She typed Hitler's last private and political will and testament in the Führerbunker a day and a half before his suicide. Junge wrote that while playing with the Goebbels children on 30 April, "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 [Goebbels] with no idea how right he is. The Führer is dead now."
On 1 May, Junge left the Führerbunker with a group led by SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke. Also included in the group were Hitler's personal pilot, Hans Baur, the chief of his bodyguard, Hans Rattenhuber, secretary Gerda Christian, secretary Else Krüger, Hitler's dietician, Constanze Manziarly, and Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck. On the morning of 2 May, Soviet troops discovered remnants of the group hiding in a cellar off the Schönhauser Allee.[1]
Junge was held for a year as the "personal prisoner" of a Soviet major.[2][3] At least one author asserts that Junge suffered a fractured skull while resisting a gang rape[4] but she does not mention such a rape or injury in her autobiography. After spending time in a Soviet prison camp, Junge returned to Germany to work as a secretary and later as a sub-editor.
Following the war, Junge was not widely known outside the academic and intelligence communities. Other than appearing in the 1974 television documentary The World at War, she lived a life of relative obscurity. This included two brief periods of residence in Australia, where Junge's younger sister still lives.[5]
She returned to the public eye with the release of an autobiography, Until the Final Hour (2002, co-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. This suddenly brought her much attention and for a few days she was accorded something approaching global celebrity when, at age 81, she died of cancer in Munich on February 10, 2002.[6] Shortly before her death she is reported to have said, "Now that I've let go of my story, I can let go of my life."
| “ | 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. | ” |
| “ | 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,[7] 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 has been portrayed by the following actresses in film and television productions.[8]
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