By now it was no secret in our close-knit circle that I was on particularly friendly terms with Hans Junge. If I excused myself from a meal it was usually when Linge was on duty, so that Hans Junge and I could take long walks in the mountains together, or go on expeditions to Berchtesgaden or Salzburg. But not only was Julius Schaub as naturally nosy as a washerwoman, he was always on the look-out for subjects of conversation to serve up to the Führer at breakfast. However, while gossip about little love affairs might be very interesting, that wasn’t really what the Supreme Commander wanted. If he heard about such things he recognized only serious, long-term relationships.
Hans Junge was a particular favourite of the Führer’s, serving him devotedly and with a strong sense of duty. All the same, he was anxious to get further away from Hitler. He was one of the few people to realize that in the long run Hitler’s ideas would have such an effect on you that in the end you wouldn’t know what you had thought of yourself, and what was due to outside influence. Junge wanted his sense of objectivity back. He had applied several times to go to the front, which was the only way he could give up his job with Hitler. Every time his request was turned down on the grounds that he was indispensable; there were plenty of good soldiers but few trustworthy valets and adjutants. Finally Junge saw his chance in getting engaged to me. He knew very well that Hitler was as unwilling to lose me as his secretary as he was to lose Hans as his valet. And an engagement wasn’t too firm a tie, but would give us the chance to spend time together and get to know each other. So we both decided to tell the Führer we were engaged, and at the same time Junge would ask for a transfer to the front again.
Schaub was delighted when we asked him to tell the Führer about our intentions. Soon after Hitler’s birthday, he took his master this world-shattering news. I found the whole thing terribly embarrassing. I could feel Hitler’s eyes resting on me with a surreptitious smile at table, I thought I saw faces full of sly glee around me, and I felt like getting up and running away. I remembered, with a rather guilty conscience, saying with heartfelt conviction only three months earlier that I took no interest in men.
That evening by the fireside Hitler suddenly said, ‘Well, I certainly do have bad luck with my staff. First Christian marries Dara and takes my best secretary away, then I finally get a really good replacement, and now Traudl Humps is leaving me too and taking my best valet with her into the bargain.’ Then he turned to me. ‘But you’ll be staying with me for the time being. Junge insists that he wants to go to the front, and while you’re on your own you can carry on working for me.’ So now I was suddenly engaged, although I didn’t really feel quite up to this new dignity. However, I thought confidently, who knows what may happen between engagement and marriage?
On the First of May, National Labour Day, Hitler at last dictated a document to me again, quite a long one. In the old days he had spoken at mass meetings and personally attended celebrations and huge rallies. During the last years of the war, however, Hitler nearly always recorded his speeches, and then they were broadcast on the radio. Often his proclamations were just read out by someone else or published in the press. And he had made no unscripted public speeches since the beginning of the war. ‘I prefer to improvise,’ he said, ‘and I speak best off the cuff, but now that we’re at war I have to weigh up every word, because the world will be listening attentively. If some spontaneous impulse leads me into making a remark that doesn’t go down well there could be unfortunate complications.’ It was only on internal occasions, for instance addressing Gauleiters, officers or industrialists, that Hitler spoke without notes. Although I had been reminding him of the forthcoming speech for days beforehand, it wasn’t until the night of 30 April that he felt in the mood to dictate it to me and could find time to do so. I spent all night typing it out. I finished in the early hours of the morning, Hitler recorded the speech at ten, and at twelve noon it was broadcast on all the German radio stations.
Soon afterwards Hitler and a small entourage went to Munich. He didn’t want to miss the opportunity of seeing the exhibition at the House of German Art. It was to open in July,[53] but he intended to be back in East Prussia well before then, so he got Heinrich Hoffmann and Frau Professor Troost[54] to show him the pictures and sculptures that had been selected.
I was the only woman to go with him. Fräulein Schroeder had gone to Berchtesgaden for a course of treatment at the Sanatorium Zabel, and on the way back we were to pick up Fräulein Wolf to return to the Berghof with us as Hitler’s second secretary. While Hitler went straight to his apartment on Prinzregentenplatz, I paid a surprise visit to my mother. Our happy reunion didn’t last long, for Schaub summoned me to Hitler’s apartment a few hours later. I knew the building, but I had never been in his private rooms. I was particularly surprised to find that Hitler occupied only one floor. The ground floor contained a porter’s lodge and offices for the police and guards, and there were some guestrooms available to Hitler on the first floor. His private rooms were on the second floor, which he shared with his housekeepers Herr and Frau Winter. All the other floors of the building were occupied by private tenants. Hitler’s apartment was no different from the home of any respectable, well-to-do citizen. There were basket chairs in the roomy entrance hall, and the windows had curtains with a brightly coloured flower pattern. A cloakroom was tastefully furnished with big mirrors and wall-lights. You trod on soft carpets everywhere. The broad corridor ended on the left in a door leading to the Winters’ rooms. This was where the housekeeper had her kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom. The living room was also used by Hitler’s employees as a sitting room when the government was staying in Munich. Hitler’s big study and the library were directly opposite the front door. Originally they had probably been two rooms, now turned into one very large one by the removal of a wall. Hitler had a great liking for spacious rooms, and I was sometimes surprised that he could bear to be in his little cage-like bunker, with its low ceiling and tiny windows. The room next to the library was always kept locked. This was where Hitler’s niece, of whom he was very fond, had apparently killed herself for his sake. The Führer sometimes mentioned his niece in conversation, and an oil painting of her had a place of honour in the Great Hall of the Berghof. Much later Erich Kempka[55] the chauffeur, who was already in Hitler’s employment at the time◦– I think it happened in 1935[56]◦– told me the whole story. Hitler was Geli’s guardian◦– his niece was called Geli◦– and she lived very close to him. She was in love with a man whom Hitler didn’t like. When he went to Nuremberg to the Party rally, she shot herself in her room in his apartment.[57] It wasn’t entirely clear whether or not her death was the result of an unfortunate accident while she was cleaning her pistol, but anyway Hitler was very upset, and no one had been allowed to use Geli’s room since her death.
53
The Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung (GDK), the ‘Great German Art Exhibition’, an exhibition also selling works of art held annually in the House of German Art between 1937 and 1944, to promote ‘new German art’◦– conservative works related to 19th-century realism.
54
Gerhardine ‘Gerdy’ Troost, née Andersen,
55
Erich Kempka,
56
Traudl Junge was misinformed. In fact Hitler’s niece Angela Maria Raubal, known as Geli, committed suicide on 18 September 1931 after a quarrel with Hitler.
57
In 1931 Adolf Hitler was on his way not to Nuremberg but to Hamburg for elections. However, he was near Nuremberg when news of his niece’s death reached him.