Traudl Junge

Traudl Junge
Junge in 1945
Born	Gertraud Humps (1920-03-16)16 March 1920 Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Died	10 February 2002(2002-02-10) (aged 81) Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Cause of death	Cancer
Nationality	German
Occupation	Secretary, sub-editor science reporter
Employer	Adolf Hitler
Known for	Adolf Hitler's personal secretary during the Second World War
Spouse(s)	Hans Junge (killed in combat in 1944)
Children	none
Parents	Max Humps and Hildegard Humps (née Zottmann)
Relatives	Sister; Inge Humps

Gertraud "Traudl" Junge (born Gertraud Humps; 16 March 1920 – 10 February 2002) was Adolf Hitler's youngest private secretary from December 1942 to April 1945. After typing out Hitler’s will, she remained in the Berlin Fuhrerbunker until his death. She was arrested in June 1945 and imprisoned. Junge was interrogated by both the Soviet and the American military. Later, in post-war West Germany, she worked as a secretary. Junge remained in obscurity until her old age, when she decided to publish her memoirs, claiming ignorance of the Nazi atrocities during the war, but blaming herself for missing opportunities to investigate reports about them.

Early life

Gertraud "Traudl" Humps was born in Munich, 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. She once expressed her desire to become a ballerina as a teenager.^[1]

Working for Hitler

Traudl Junge began working for Hitler in December 1942. She was the youngest of his private secretaries.

"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 Waffen-SS officer Hans Hermann Junge (1914–1944), who died in combat in France in August 1944. She worked at Hitler's side in Berlin, the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, at Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, and lastly back in Berlin in the Führerbunker.

Berlin, 1945

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 later wrote that while she was 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 Waffen-SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke. Also in the group were Hitler's personal pilot Hans Baur, chief of Hitler's Reichssicherheitsdienst (RSD) bodyguard Hans Rattenhuber, secretary Gerda Christian, secretary Else Krüger, Hitler's dietician Constanze Manziarly and Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck. Junge, Christian and Krüger made it out of Berlin to the River Elbe. The remainder of the group were found by Soviet troops on 2 May while hiding in a cellar off the Schönhauser Allee. The Soviet Army handed those who had been in the Führerbunker over to SMERSH for interrogation, to reveal what had occurred in the bunker during the closing weeks of the war.^[2]

Post-war

Although Junge had reached the Elbe, she was unable to reach the western Allied lines, and so she went back to Berlin. Getting there about a month after she had left, she had hoped to take a train to the west when they began running again. On 9 July, after living there for about a week under the alias "Gerda Alt", she was arrested by two civilian members of the Soviet military administration and was kept in Berlin for interrogation. While in prison she heard harrowing tales from her Soviet guards about what the German military had done to members of their families in Russia and came to realize that much of what she thought she knew about the war in the east was only what the Nazi propaganda ministry had told the German people and that the treatment meted out to Germans by the Russians was a response to what the Germans had done in the Soviet Union.^[3]

Junge was held in sundry jails, where she was often interrogated about her role in Hitler's entourage and the events surrounding Hitler's suicide. By December 1945, she had been released from prison but was restricted to the Soviet sector of Berlin. On New Year's Eve 1945, she was admitted to a hospital in the British sector for diphtheria, and remained there for two months. While she was there, her mother was able to secure for Junge the paperwork required to allow her to move from the British sector in Berlin to Bavaria. Receiving these on 2 February 1946, she traveled from Berlin and across the Soviet occupation zone (which was to become East Germany) to the British zone, and from there south to Bavaria in the American Zone. Junge was held by the Americans for a short time during the first half of 1946, and interrogated about her time in the Führerbunker. She was then freed, and allowed to live in postwar Germany.^[4]

Later life

Following the war, Junge was not widely known outside the academic and intelligence communities. Other than appearing in two episodes (#16, "Inside the Reich" (1940–1944) and #21, "Nemesis: Germany (February – May 1945)") of the 1974 television documentary series The World at War and being interviewed for the 1975 book The Bunker by James P. O'Donnell and Uwe Bahnsen, she lived a life of relative obscurity. She worked in secretarial jobs and for many years as chief secretary of the editorial staff of the weekly illustrated magazine Quick. Junge twice resided briefly in Australia, where her younger sister lived; her application for permanent residency was denied due to her Nazi past.^[5]

Later, Junge became more public about her experiences. In 1989, Junge's manuscript about her life throughout the war was published in the book Voices from the Bunker by Pierre Galante and Eugene Silianoff (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons). In 1991, she appeared in the documentary series Hitler's Henchmen produced by German television channel ZDF. The 2002 release of her autobiography Until the Final Hour, co-written with author Melissa Müller and describing the time she worked for Hitler, brought media coverage. She was also interviewed for the 2002 documentary film Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, which drew much attention.

Junge died from cancer in Munich on 10 February 2002 at the age of 81 and received global celebrity status for a few days,^[6] reportedly having said shortly before her death, "Now that I've let go of my story, I can let go of my life." Further fame came two years later, when some of Junge's experiences with Hitler were portrayed in the Academy Award-nominated film Der Untergang (Downfall). Her interviews are seen at the beginning and at the end of the film. At the end she says:^[7]

Portrayal in the media

Traudl Junge has been portrayed by the following actresses in film and television productions.^[8]

• Wanda Moore in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler.
• Ann Lynn in the 1973 British film Hitler: The Last Ten Days.
• Sarah Marshall in the 1981 United States television production The Bunker,^[9] which is based on the book The Bunker by James P. O'Donnell and Uwe Bahnsen, who interviewed Traudl Junge among others.
• Alexandra Maria Lara in the 2004 German film Downfall (Der Untergang). The film was based on Junge's book and includes clips of Junge herself, taken from the 2002 documentary film Im toten Winkel (Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary), but the film's ending, depicting Junge being saved by a boy with whom she walks through the Russian line, is a fictional and metaphorical device.
• Stacy Hart in the 2005 British television production Uncle Adolf.

See also

• Erna Flegel
• National Socialism

Notes

References

• Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Viking-Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-03041-4
• Junge, Traudl; Müller, Melissa (editor). Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary, Arcade Publishing, 2004. ISBN 978-1-55970-728-2
• Childs, David, Obituary The Independent, 18 February 2002
• Hooper, John. Traudl Junge obituary, The Guardian, 14 February 2002

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Traudl Junge

• Traudl Junge at Find a Grave
• Traudl Junge at the Internet Movie Database
• The Line, a comic that compares and contrasts Traudl Junge and Sophie Scholl
• "Witness: The Death of Hitler" Interview in BBC Radio's oral history series "Witness". Speaking in English, Traudl Junge recalls her memories of working with Hitler, and of events in the bunker at the time of his death.

v t e Final occupants of the Führerbunker by date of departure (1945) 20 April Hermann Göring Heinrich Himmler 21 April Robert Ley 22 April Karl Gebhardt Julius Schaub Christa Schroeder Johanna Wolf Eckhard Christian 23 April Albert Bormann Theodor Morell Karl-Jesco von Puttkamer Joachim von Ribbentrop Albert Speer 24 April Walter Frentz 28 April Robert Ritter von Greim Hanna Reitsch Walter Wagner 29 April Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven Gerhard Boldt Rudolf Weiss Wilhelm Zander Heinz Lorenz Willy Johannmeyer 30 April Nicolaus von Below 1 May Wilhelm Mohnke Traudl Junge Gerda Christian Constanze Manziarly Else Krüger Otto Günsche Walther Hewel Ernst-Günther Schenck Hans-Erich Voss Johann Rattenhuber Peter Högl Werner Naumann Martin Bormann Heinz Linge Erich Kempka Hans Baur Georg Betz Ludwig Stumpfegger Artur Axmann Günther Schwägermann Ewald Lindloff Hans Reisser Armin D. Lehmann Josef Ochs Werner Schwiedel Heinz Krüger Heinrich Doose Gerhard Schach 2 May Rochus Misch Helmuth Weidling Hans Refior Theodor von Dufving Siegfried Knappe Still present on 2 May Erna Flegel Werner Haase Helmut Kunz Fritz Tornow Johannes Hentschel Committed suicide Alwin-Broder Albrecht Ernst-Robert Grawitz Adolf Hitler Eva Hitler (Eva Braun) Joseph Goebbels Magda Goebbels Wilhelm Burgdorf Hans Krebs Franz Schädle Executed Hermann Fegelein Killed Goebbels children Unknown Heinrich Müller