By Peter David Orr 

Gertraud “Traudl” Junge was the youngest of Hitler’s personal secretaries.  Her closest associates were Dara Christian, Johanna Wolf, and Christa Schroeder. She had the least direct contact with her boss; had comparatively little experience; spent the least time in Hitler’s employ of the female personal secretaries; and was seldom utilized. Nevertheless, after the war, she had the most to say about her experiences—by a mile.

Among the women that were with or around Hitler in the closing days of the war, her account has been the most frequently utilized by historians, screen writers, journalists, commentators, and World War II pundits of all stripes. It’s easy to see why this has been the case, because she often provided details and a sense of atmosphere that was lacking with other Führerbunker witnesses.

Unfortunately, because she was affable, loquacious, and pretty, her account was never subjected to serious scrutiny by the men who interrogated or interviewed her.

Because many people have a misunderstanding of what being Hitler’s personal secretary entailed, Traudl Junge’s own description is instructive:

“We did not really have the duties of a secretary…We were not employed for him all day long, but it was only when the Führer personally wanted to write things”.

This is not what most people imagine when they hear the words “personal secretary”. Frau Junge was not “at hand” just outside of Hitler’s office(s), answering phones, making calls, taking his regular dictation, keeping his appointment book, etc. Those tasks were all performed by men: primarily Hitler’s valet, but also his aide-de-camp and adjutants.

All the secretaries were essentially “on call”, with offices nearby, but not directly connected with Hitler’s office.

Furthermore, Frau Junge was the least involved of the female secretaries. In fact, during most of her service she was regarded as a “temp” or a “fill in” when the other, more experienced women were not available.

Führerbunker witness Rochus Misch[4] put it this way when recalling the events of April 24, 1945:

"But why was Frau Junge still here? Traudl Junge was always the spare wheel. I never knew Hitler to call her as his first choice for dictation; she was only used as a reserve if another secretary could not come".

He puzzled: Why were Hitler’s most trusted and most regularly utilized secretaries flown out of Berlin to Bavaria, whereas she remained in Berlin? Little did he know that Frau Junge had volunteered to remain out of a sense of loyalty to her Führer.

Her actual proximity to the events she claimed to have witnessed is problematic.

During her post-war interrogations and interviews Traudl Junge attempted to explain why she was privy to so many details of Hitler’s last days. She did so by placing herself closer to the action than she really was.

She claimed that as of April 26, 1945, the secretaries "had no sleeping accommodation in the bunker” and had, for this reason, “placed mattresses on the floor of the conference room".

This explanation has never been challenged; but it should have been. Perhaps it has just been overlooked or was seen as unimportant.

It's not true that they had no sleeping accommodation; they had private quarters in the cellar of the New Reich Chancellery. It is true that they had no sleeping accommodations in the Führerbunker, but none was needed because they didn’t need to be—and were not expected to be—“at hand”. To reiterate a prior point: Hitler's secretaries were not needed on a continuous basis.

Traudl Junge and the other secretaries spent most of their time in their rooms in the vast network of cellars under the New Reich Chancellery. They were quartered—and slept—in a bunker that was one level up from the Führerbunker and approximately 100 meters away.

This was just her way of explaining why she'd be there to witness more events than one who is aware of the nature of her work would expect.

Again, Rochus Misch’s memoirs are helpful:

“Much further on were the rooms of the female secretaries—Gerda Christian, Christa Schroeder, Traudl Junge and Johanna Wolf. These were adjacent to the offices of Himmler’s liaison officer Hermann Fegelein, General Hans Krebs and Major Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven. Finally, rooms had been allowed to Vice-Admiral Hans-Erich Voss, diplomat Walther Hewel and Hitler’s pilots Hans Baur and Georg Betz. The remaining rooms were for the house staff”.

There was absolutely no reason for Hitler’s private secretaries to be sleeping on mattresses on the floor of the Führerbunker “conference room”. Furthermore, during her interrogation she refers to the “conference room” and the “map room” interchangeably, which is accurate. This room was used for the daily military conferences, up to the evening of April 28, 1945. However, it’s nonsense to imagine that mattresses were thrown on the floor for the secretaries to sleep on.

This is just the first in a series of such testimonial oddities. For this reason, it’s necessary to address each one, chronologically. Otherwise, the reader would miss out on just how unclear, confused, contradictory and nonsensical her account often is.

 Incredibly, even with the assistance of professional historians and co-writers, most of these problems weren’t ironed out.

1. She did not attend any birthday celebration for Hitler on April 20, because there was none. Many significant Nazi government and military officials did gather briefly in the reception room of the Reich Chancellery, but none of the secretaries knew this was going on until after it had already happened.

2. She recalled that Hitler first mentioned the idea of committing suicide in casual conversation over a meal on April 21. No other bunker witness with direct contact with Hitler remembered it occurring that early. However, it’s reasonable to believe that she was among the first to hear Hitler talk of this possibility since he was in the practice of having tea, and sometimes lunch, with a small group often made up of his female secretaries.

3. She vividly remembers Hitler's despair of April 22 when she first heard him say, "All is lost", and then proclaim that he was now going to remain in Berlin. 

Beyond Hitler's despair, what stood out to her was how everyone around Hitler attempted, in vain, to convince him to leave Berlin and to go to Berchtesgaden. She specifically names Bormann, Burgdorf, Krebs, Ribbentrop and Göring, as those who made significant efforts to assuage Hitler’s sense of hopelessness, to offer encouraging possibilities about the military situation, or to alter Hitler's decision to remain in Berlin.

Since Göring had departed for Berchtesgaden already by that time, her interviewer had to redirect her. Perhaps she was just conflating two separate events that took place on two separate days because they shared a common thread.  That’s understandable, but this sort of error by conflation can’t be dismissed because now due consideration must be taken: does she do the same thing with other events and thereby distort the timeline?

In any event, with prompting from her interrogator, she corrected herself: what she had meant was that Göring had encouraged Hitler to go to Berchtesgaden when he had visited on April 20.

3. It was from this point (April 22) forward that Frau Junge said, "All discussions at the table only revolved around his suicide, even at lunch with the secretaries present".

Although other bunker witnesses have contradicted this statement, insisting instead that Hitler always ate his meals alone in his last days,[13] there's insufficient reason to discount or dismiss her statement.

Bolstering this interpretation is an understanding of the psychology of pseudocide. The tendency among the pseudocidal and suicidal is the same: both drop not-so-subtle hints among associates to test the waters. They want to know whether they’ll really be missed and the feedback they get from others helps them to confirm the value of the act they are already seriously contemplating.

4. She then related that Hitler's staff, including his personal secretaries, was ordered out of Berlin on April 21 and 22.

Why didn't she leave? She and Dara Christian felt a sense of duty to Hitler, personally. In this decision, she admits that their decision was probably influenced by Eva's decision to stay.

It's important to consider the fact that Hitler had neither requested nor demanded that any of his personal secretaries remain, because it raises a question about his frame of mind.  If he believed he would shortly be forced to kill himself to avoid capture by the Soviets, wouldn't he have given immediate consideration to what government would continue after his death, and to the formulation of a will and political testament?

He had only the foggiest idea of how much longer he could hold out in central Berlin.  Wouldn't this uncertainty have driven him to make decisions about these things sooner than later? And, if so, wouldn't he need his personal secretaries to take down dictation and type up these documents in an official manner? It would make sense to get these items out of the way as soon as possible.  Putting it off could have deprived him of the opportunity for careful deliberation on these matters and the proper formulation of these documents.

All things considered it would have made a good deal of sense to utilize one of his personal secretaries to assist in this task. With shorthand dictation completed and the documents properly formatted and typed up, they could be dispatched later. The longer he waited to get these tasks done, the less likely they’d be accomplished.

Perhaps it was only after the other secretaries had been sent away that it dawned on Hitler that he needed to have these documents drawn up, so Traudl Junge and Dara Christian were asked to remain just for this purpose. They would stay another day to finish the paperwork and then fly south to Bavaria when Julius Schaub left to finish destroying Hitler’s papers and personal property in Munich and the Obersalzberg.

But when the secretaries’ work was completed, something happened that changed their minds. After all, Traudl Junge would not have left if it hadn’t been for that fact that Eva had announced among Hitler’s inner circle that she wasn't leaving. It’s reasonable to imagine Eva’s act of bravery impressing the two remaining secretaries so much that they, in the moment, decided to stay too.

All these factors suggest that Hitler’s will and political testament may have been composed on an earlier date than Traudl Junge indicated. As will be shown, there are other things she told her interrogator that bolster this possibility.

5. Traudl Junge then detailed Hitler's other decisions of that day—the ones which made it clear that his mind was made up. For example, she said that he ordered his doggedly loyal factotum, Julius Schaub, to destroy his personal papers and other items in the Führerbunker and Chancellery.

She paints the scene as an emotional one:

"This confidential task was entrusted to Julius Schaub. Looking miserably unhappy, he limped through the bunker, up the stairs to the park, and there, with his heart bleeding, burned his Führer's treasures. He was told to go and do the same in Munich and Berchtesgaden. Eyes wet with tears, he said goodbye to us, since he would have to leave that same day”.

Traudl Junge didn't mention how long it took Schaub to destroy these items or what precisely was destroyed, so one is left to match up her account with that of others[16] and then map out what Schaub did, how he did it, and how long it took.

At least two witnesses said that Schaub took items out of Hitler's rooms, and safes, and out into the courtyard of the Old Reich Chancellery where he burned them.This same source also indicates that Schaub loaded these things into suitcases and carried them out to the aforementioned courtyard, which may or may not explain why Hitler and Eva's personal travel bags were never found even though they supposedly remained in Berlin and committed suicide.

It can be reasonably determined that Schaub did not leave Berlin until April 23.

6. Based on the testimony of multiple eyewitnesses to his presence in the Führerbunker, Albert Speer arrived late in the evening on April 23. However, Traudl Junge told Musmanno, “I think [it was] on the 27th” but “he [Speer] left again immediately, without Hitler mentioning one word about his visit”. 

Considering her unspoken contention that she was often at hand in the relatively small confines of the Führerbunker or Vorbunker for so much of what occurred in ‘Hitler’s last days’, one can only imagine that her lack of knowledge when it came to Speer’s final visit to Hitler must have been puzzling to her interviewer.

How could she be right there and miss the dramatic entrance and exit of the man who ran the Nazi war economy and who had been one of Hitler's closest associates? Speer was seen by others who were there at that time. Speer risked his life by being flown into central Berlin in a Fieseler Storch, whereas so many others seemed to want to get as far away from Berlin—as fast as possible.

But just when the reader senses that Judge Musmanno will probe deeper into this oddity, Frau Junge escapes follow-up by admitting that she had only “read about Speer’s visit after the war”.

7. Speer’s visit roughly parallels Hitler receiving the famous radiogram ‘ultimatum’ from Göring about turning over the reins of power to him because Hitler no longer had the “freedom of action” requisite of a Head of State.

The accounts of the other bunker witnesses are consistent on this point: the news of the Reichsmarschall’s 'betrayal' and 'treachery' of Hitler spreading like wildfire.

One would expect that Frau Junge would at least dish up some hearsay on Speer’s visit. Curiously, her account contained nothing of the sort.

She doesn’t place any special emphasis on Göring’s ‘betrayal’ or ‘treachery’ playing a significant role in Hitler’s suicidal ideations.

Himmler’s ‘betrayal’ is a different story. She portrayed it as Hitler’s breaking point.

The reason for Traudl Junge’s spotty memory, re: Albert Speer, will be revealed under point 12 in this segment.

8. The news of Himmler attempting to negotiate an end to the war in the west by way of the vice-president of the Swedish Red Cross “brought about the climax of [Hitler's] despair". It caused him to "mistrust everyone", according to Frau Junge, because Himmler had been seen as totally loyal and faithful.

Traudl Junge recalled that Hitler was suspicious that Himmler might try to capture him alive “in order to deliver him to the enemy” as the price of peace. His mistrust, she remarked, even extended to "the physician he had employed on Himmler's recommendation", which was Dr. Stumpfegger.

Of course, Hitler was surrounded by SS-men. His security and that of the Reich Chancellery depended almost entirely on the loyalty of SS-men.

9. She recalled that the news of Himmler's 'betrayal' came on April 28. Though she is not the only one who said so, and the accepted narrative of Hitler's last days also assigns Himmler’s ‘betrayal’ to the 28th too, this is incorrect. Hitler received the first news of Himmler's 'treachery' and ‘betrayal’ late in evening on April 27, sometime between 10:00 and midnight.

10. In this connection, the order of events of April 28 presented by Traudl Junge is curious.

The way she described it, Hitler had been primed for Himmler's 'betrayal' because Hermann Fegelein had gone AWOL. He had left the bunker several days prior, without any explanation. His disappearance, she explained, had already raised Hitler's suspicion.

Fegelein, who supposedly was attempting to flee Berlin, had been tracked down and forcibly brought back to the bunker. She suggested that Fegelein was in custody before Hitler received the news of Himmler's dealings behind Hitler’s back. Hitler was "still not clear what to do with Hermann Fegelein", by whom he felt betrayed and abandoned, when "Heinz Lorenz, the press man" delivered news of Himmler's 'treachery' in the form of "a Reuters report".

Frau Junge has both related events taking place on April 28: Fegelein’s arrest early in the day, and Himmler’s ‘betrayal’ revealed at the very end of the same day.

Historians agree with her, in terms of order, but disagree in terms of the days. Instead, they place Fegelein’s arrest on April 27 and portray the news of Himmler’s ‘betrayal’ being brought to Hitler’s attention somewhere between 10-12:00 PM on the 28th.

But if historians (such as Joachimsthaler and Beevor) are correct about that, Hitler had clear evidence of Himmler's 'treason' and 'betrayal' on April 27. Why, then, would he (or so Traudl Junge and other bunker witnesses said) be surprised—late on the evening of the following day—when he first heard of Himmler's treachery? Are we to believe that the man who found and arrested Fegelein on April 27, Peter Högl, withheld from Hitler what he and his men had discovered in Fegelein's briefcase? Supposedly he had found direct evidence of Himmler’s ‘secret’ negotiations with the West in Fegelein’s briefcase. Are we to believe that he only revealed this information after Hitler was told of radio (or perhaps newspaper) reports of Himmler's attempts to make peace with the western Allies?

It didn't happen that way or in that order, and Frau Junge's error (or lie?) helps unravel this contradictory and nonsensical—yet commonly accepted—narrative.

It makes much more sense that both ‘revelations’ took place on the evening of April 27, 1945. Which came first makes no difference, because Hitler would have discovered Himmler’s ‘treachery’ either way.

11. Also, at some time during the day on April 28 Traudl Junge recalled that she was with Dara Christian when Eva dropped a hint about something that would happen that very evening. Eva said, "Tonight you will cry for certain", a phrase that Junge immediately took to mean that Hitler's suicide was imminent.  When Hitler's secretaries responded with horror, Eva corrected them, saying, “No, no, he will tell you, it is something different”.

This interaction, as she portrays it, seems odd and doesn't ring true.  If Eva came around to these secretaries to announce something that she had always longed for, one would assume that the women would notice Eva's demeanor at the moment this somewhat cryptic hint was dropped. After all, the meaning of subtle verbal hints is typically found in its deliverer's countenance. How did these secretaries get it so wrong? What expression appeared on Eva's face that encouraged this misinterpretation?

It seems doubly strange that Frau Junge so vividly remembered Eva's hint whereas Dara Christian never mentioned this interaction during her interview with Judge Musmanno. In fact, she made it quite clear that she had no hint that the wedding was going to take place.

Then again, Dara Christian places the Hitler-Braun wedding at a totally different time of day on April 28: in the middle of the afternoon. Traudl Junge was certain that the wedding happened in the earliest morning hours of April 29, what normally would be described as the middle or the night.

Of course, nothing much about life in Berlin bunker was normal!

12. Even more dramatic is Traudl Junge's recollection about Hitler seeing a picture of Mussolini and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, dead. This was one of the photos taken of their beaten, bloodied, and bloated corpses hanging upside down by piano wires in Milan's Piazzale Loreto.

Frau Junge said seeing this photo caused Hitler to consider the grim public humiliation that he might face at the hands of the Soviets if captured alive while fighting in the streets of Berlin.

If he had to die, he preferred a heroic death. In prior talks with the women at teatime, that's what they supposedly told Hitler would be proper. Suicide? No. It would be better for Der Führer to go down in a blaze of glory.

Considering his supposedly greatly diminished physical condition, could he risk going down fighting in the streets of Berlin? No. If he fell into Soviet hands, alive, Stalin would make an ugly and undignified public spectacle of him.

Junge revealed these specifics to bring the verbal picture she was painting into sharp focus for her interviewer:

“I know that Hitler had seen the pictures. He spoke of them. I personally saw them in Berliner Illustrierte".

Unfortunately for Frau Junge, there’s a major problem with this tale. The last issue of Berliner Illustrierte went to press on Thursday, April 26, 1945, though it bore the date of Sunday, April 29, 1945. Mussolini was felled by Italian partisans on the afternoon of April 28.

Perhaps she was mistaken about the publication. Could it have been some other paper or magazine? No. Mussolini’s death was not reported until the morning of April 29. Pictures of the gruesome scene in Milan didn’t appear in any newspaper or magazine in the world until April 30.

Does analysis of her interview reveal that she was being purposefully deceptive in this case? Yes. She ended up backtracking a bit; admitting she wasn't certain. Had she seen this photo during the last days in the bunker, or has she only seen this photo after the war?

It really doesn’t matter because she stuck with the impossible: that Hitler had seen such a photo and that it played a significant role in his decision to commit suicide.

Once again, her dramatic ‘memories’ of the Führerbunker turn out to be two parts drama for each part genuine recollection.

Sadly, this bit of fiction has been repeated unquestioningly by professional journalists, historians, and documentarians for more than seventy years. 

The question remains, “Where did she get the idea of spicing up her story by weaving into it the photo of Mussolini’s brutal post-death scene in Milan”? 

Albert Speer.

The proof can be found in a summary of one of Speer’s pre-Nuremberg trial interrogations.

"Hitler, Speer thinks, had then made up his mind to stay [in Berlin]; he was composed because he knew his life was over.  Hitler, in his conversations, was much concerned over what would happen to his corpse.  He knew what had happened to Mussolini's body and was agitated lest something similar happen to his.  Accordingly, he had decided not to die [on] the barricades where the Russians might get him.  He had decided if the end came to commit suicide instead.  He had given firm instructions that his body was to be cremated. Speer does not doubt that this is what happened."

Spy the lie, and the source of Traudl Junge’s story is revealed.

Speer had been talking to his interrogators about his visit to Hitler in the Berlin Führerbunker of April 23-24, 1945. 

How was it possible for Hitler to have been “agitated” about something which had not yet occurred?

13. Also on April 28, Frau Junge had been called to Hitler’s quarters “for dinner or tea” at “About 11.30 PM” when she was intercepted by Hitler himself in the corridor.

In her memoirs Traudl Junge adds a juicy tidbit: as she came face to face with Hitler, she noticed a table had been set up in the Führerbunker waiting room—Champaign included. To her, it looked like some sort of celebration was taking place. 

It was at that moment, according to her interrogation, that Hitler pulled her aside. He had a special task for her; it needed immediate attention. She followed him into “a little map-room”.

Completely caught off guard, or so she said, Hitler then directed her to take shorthand, adding that afterwards she must type up the documents in triplicate—right away. He then began to dictate, without the use of written notes. It was his last will and political testament.

During her interview with Judge Musmanno, Traudl Junge estimated that she began taking dictation at about midnight. That’s 12:00 AM on April 29. Furthermore, she said it probably took her two, or perhaps three, hours to finish. While she typed up the will the Hitler-Braun wedding took place.

Many books that address Hitler’s last days place the Hitler-Braun wedding 24 hours later than Traudl Junge does in her interview with Judge Musmanno. In other words, many historians have the wedding and reception taking place during the earliest morning hours of April 30.

Traudl Junge (or perhaps her collaborators and/or editors) adeptly avoided the conflict between her actual testimony and what others in the bunker reported by blurring or not even attaching a date to the Hitler-Braun wedding in the several published versions of her memoirs.

Again, this is what Traudl Junge told Judge Musmanno:

"He [Hitler] dictated first his private will, and from this private will I first learned that he intended to marry Eva Braun. While I was writing those two last wills the wedding took place”.

What did she mean by “those two last wills”?

Hitler’s and Goebbels’ last wills.

That’s right. In her interview she also said that after taking down Hitler’s will, Goebbels interrupted her work a few times. One of those times he had another task for her.

The typing took place in another room, she insisted. Not the map room. She had moved to a different room after Hitler finished dictation. There was no typewriter in that room.

This other room was also in the Führerbunker. In fact, it was the room in which Joseph and Magda Goebbels slept. No, the typewriter was not in their bedroom. The Goebbels’ room was divided into three parts: a bedroom, a medical room and an office. In other words, the typewriter she used was in Goebbel’s temporary office.

These rooms had been Dr. Theodor Morell’s quarters in the Führerbunker until he was flown south to Bavaria because he had had a stroke.

While she was typing up triplicate copies of Hitler’s will Goebbels walked in and dictated his “last will” to her. She was then expected to type it up, too.

Whereas Frau Junge called what Goebbels’ had dictated to her, his “last will”, no historian since has called it that. Rather, it is referred to as the “Goebbels’ addendum to Hitler’s Last Will and Political Testament”.

When she was done, she was exhausted. So, she made a brief appearance at the wedding reception and then left the Führerbunker. She needed to get some sleep. A reasonable estimation of the time that she returned to her quarters is 5:15 AM.

14. Traudl Junge never mentions typing up or preparing the Hitler-Braun marriage documents during her interrogation.

That makes sense because presumably marriage documents were standardized and “on hand” at the Reich Chancellery or were brought in by someone qualified to perform and register marriages.

Does this matter?

It does.

Having a woman who was there corroborate the eyewitness accounts of Heinz Linge and Rochus Misch is important. Women tend to notice things in situations like a wedding reception that men don’t.

It seems odd that two men took notice that a stranger to Hitler’s inner-circle was performing the nuptials and hanging out afterwards, whereas the women didn’t.

Dara Christian and Traudl Junge (albeit briefly) were at the reception but didn’t recall Walter Wagner being there, let alone remaining for about twenty minutes to partake in pleasantries, sip Champaign and munch on sandwiches.

As for Traudl June it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that Walter Wagner arrived and left while she was engrossed in the tasks.

15. She explained: “Hitler's last will and political testament was dispatched that same morning”. Elsewhere in the same interview she says that they were "sent away before Hitler's death".

In her published memoirs, she wrote:

“That very night the three copies were sent out of the Führerbunker by Colonel von Below, Lorenz, and Zander".

Well, which was it? Were the three copies of Hitler’s Testaments sent out “that same morning”, “that very night”, or “before Hitler’s death”?

Although these seem contradictory on the surface, they aren’t. For instance, if they were dispatched by courier before the typical time a person would be waking up for a workday on April 29 it makes sense to refer to that as “night”. Moreover, let’s say that the couriers departed sometime between 6:00-7:00 AM, it would certainly be acceptable to describe it as “that same morning”.

Obviously, whether Hitler’s Will was taken out of Berlin by courier at that time, it was certainly “before Hitler’s death”.

However, backtracking a bit is necessary because she lists the couriers as “Colonel von Below, Lorenz, and Zander”.

Whereas it is true that Colonel Nicolaus von Below did leave the bunker at approximately the same time as Heinz Lorenz and Wilhelm Zander, he did not carry a copy of Hitler’s Will.

Though it’s true that “Bormann”, “Dr. Goebbels” and Below’s names and signatures are on the document as “witnesses” to Hitler’s will, it’s not true that von Below was one of the three couriers. The couriers were Wilhelm “Willy” Johannmeyer, Heinz Lorenz, and Wilhelm Zander.

Of course, one can understand her mistake. After all, she was, by her own admission, asleep at the time of their departure. On the other hand, if she was asleep at the time that Nicolaus von Below and the other couriers left, why would she even associate his name with the others?

Perhaps, like so many other things she reported, that was second or third-hand information too.

16. Most curious of all, Hanna Reitsch is mentioned as being at the Hitler-Braun wedding and reception by Traudl Junge.

This is only the case with her interrogation. In her memoirs she’s able to tidy things up by simply not mentioning what day Hanna Reitsch left the Berlin bunker.

The truth is that Reitsch had left sometime after dark on April 28 and 12:00 AM of April 29. Reitsch had no idea about the wedding, or she pretended not to know about it because she held little regard for Eva Braun.

Incredibly Traudl Junge’s interrogator corrected her. He coached her with this chronological problem without even asking her for clarification first! This is a darn shame because, without Judge Musmanno’s interference, who knows what unintentionally revealing yarn Traudl Junge might have spun next.

17. Perhaps the strangest part of Traudl Junge's account involves dogs living in the Führerbunker.

Her memoirs indicate that these events involving dogs took place sometime on April 29. But her interview by Judge Musmanno calls this chronology into question because in them she seems to be talking about April 28 when she introduces the topic—without prompting.

She starts by explaining that Dr. Werner Haase[38] was summoned by Hitler. At that time, Dr. Haase was working in the emergency room medical clinic, which was at the far end of the cellar-bunker of the New Reich Chancellery. Hitler had Dr. Haase test one of the vials of hydrocyanic acid on Blondi.

Other witnesses attribute the carrying out of this horrific experiment to another of Hitler’s doctors—the one who replaced Dr. Theodor Morell: Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger.

Unlike other bunker witnesses, during her interrogation Traudl Junge didn’t indicate that anyone helped Dr. Haase with this horrific experiment.

The standard account of this event has one of these two doctors using pliers to stick the poison into Blondi’s mouth, which is being held open by a helper. The doctor then crushes the small glass ampoule with immediate, life-ending results. All the while, Hitler is looking on as his beloved Alsatian crumbles to the floor and dies.

While Traudl Junge didn’t supply the above-outlined details in her interrogation, she mentioned other tid-bits.  For example, she claimed, “We women [Eva included] took refuge in Eva's room [next to Hitler’s room] with the Goebbels children [six] and the pups [Blondi’s whelps, born three weeks prior]”.

In her memoirs, she adds, “All our dogs are dead. The dog-walker does his duty and shot our beloved pets before they can be torn to pieces up in the park by an enemy grenade or bomb”.

Now, it is often asserted that Blondi and her puppies were kept in a whelping box in the lavatories used by those who worked, but did not live, in the Führerbunker.

There is good reason to doubt this story.

Traudl Junge never mentioned this detail in her interrogations. Later, for her memoirs, she added it to match what others had reported. But there’s an even later, on-camera version, in which she is filmed saying—

"...I remember now that in Hitler's small bedroom in the bunker there was a big wooden box for Blondi as well. It was very large in case she had puppies".

Well, Blondi certainly did have (was it three, four, or five?) puppies only three weeks before one of Hitler’s doctors supposedly poisoned Blondi.

Keep what Traudl Junge said in her on-camera interview when considering the following recollection by a former Hitler Youth by the name of Armin Dieter Lehmann. Lehmann delivered messages to the Führerbunker at this time. 

"Looking for a toilet, I once ended up in the Hundebunker (dog shelter) where I saw two grown shepherd dogs. One must have been Hitler's "Blondi", who had had pups a month earlier. But there were no whelps in the Hundebunker..."

Perhaps the boy didn’t see Blondi’s pups because they were kept separate from Blondi in a whelping box—in Hitler’s own bedroom.

Of course, nobody else, including Traudl Junge, ever mentioned the presence of “two grown shepherd dogs” in the Führerbunker.

18. Most bunker witnesses described one or two occasions when Hitler called staff and members of his immediate entourage together to express his thanks for their service and bid them good-bye.

Dates and time of day for these events differ from witness to witness, and there's much confusion over which personnel were called to the Führerbunker for this purpose.

Traudl Junge remembered the first occasion being on "the night of 29/30 [April]" when "Hitler wanted to see once more all those who had been faithful to him, the nurses who were working in the Reich Chancellery and the others. These, however, were mostly people whom he had never seen before. They were all called to the Führerbunker. He shook hands with everybody and thanked them all".

She wasn't a participant but was nearby; close enough to see but not hear what Hitler said. She told her interrogator that she and Eva watched from a distance, sitting [at a table] “in the transit canteen”.

She also said that Hitler bid a "final farewell", which took place shortly after lunchtime on April 30:

“…Hitler shook hands with me, here in the corridor [pointing at a map of the Führerbunker]; looked at me in a way and again it seemed as if he were not looking at me, that I had the feeling he was not really seeing me”.

Although this is her attempt to give her interviewer insight into Hitler's state of mind, it really reveals more about her own. Unintentionally, her words included a residue of the truth when she explained that it seemed as if "he [Hitler] was not really seeing me".

He surely didn't see her—at that time. Hitler had already left Berlin by plane in the earliest morning hours of April 29. He literally wasn't there on April 30, 1945, at the event she was imagining.

19. Frau Junge said that Mr. and Mrs. Hitler retired to their rooms “shortly before 3 o’clock" in the afternoon, on April 30. Hitler closed the door behind them. And it wasn’t long before the newlyweds committed suicide. It was about 10 minutes before “we heard a sharp report”, she said.

Now, compare Traudl Junge’s statement to what Hitler’s valet described:

“...a whiff of acrid pistol smoke told me that Adolf Hitler had ended his life.  I was standing outside the map room of the bunker…”

By Traudl Junge’s own admission, Hitler had closed the door to his private quarters when he and Eva decided to commit suicide. Is that the reason why Heinz Linge didn’t hear the gunshot, but only smelled its smoky discharge?

Is one to believe that Heinz Linge did not hear Hitler’s gun when he was only a few feet away, whereas Traudl Junge (and the Goebbels children) heard it from more than 50 meters distance?

What Frau Junge meant by “we”, in this case, was the Goebbels children, one of whom[48] supposedly remarked, “Oh, that was a direct hit”.

Somehow, Traudl knew that Hitler had just shot himself so she gathered up the Goebbels children, like a mother hen, and put them down for a nap.

Not long afterwards she returned, and as she walked through the open door between the Vorbunker and the Führerbunker she smelled gasoline.

At that time the door to Hitler’s private quarters in the Führerbunker was closed, but around 4:00-4:30 PM she encountered Hitler’s chief private adjutant, Otto Günsche, who supposedly told her, “I have now obeyed the last order of the boss; I have just now burnt his body”.

20. In her 1948 interrogation by Judge Musmanno, Traudl Junge said she did not see Hitler's corpse—neither in the Führerbunker nor outside in the garden. In fact, she said she hadn’t been told any details about the suicide or the burning and disposal of the corpses.

"I did not hear anything at all about the manner and treatment of his body after his death. Not a single person talked about it. Intentionally nobody talked about it, for the body should not be found..."

She even admitted to Judge Musmanno that she only knew about the burning of Hitler's corpse because she "read it in a newspaper".

What exactly did she tell the judge that she read?

“I read later that SS-men poured over gasoline for 2 hours after that”.

This is double hearsay. 

Nevertheless, one is forced to address it because professional historians have used this part of her story, for decades, to carry the Berlin bunker suicide narrative along.

Moreover, these prior statements, taken by Judge Musmanno in the 1948 interviews, didn’t stop her from adding elements and specifics about Hitler’s death, later. Her memoirs and later interviews contain copious details about something she—at least at one point—said she didn’t witness.

21. The following quotes are from Traudl Junge’s memoirs. Each illustrates the above-mentioned tendency. All these elaborate and dramatic details are from the same passage in Junge’s memoirs. The passage has been broken into her pithy statements, accompanied by commentary.

"My watch says a few minutes after three in the afternoon. So, now it's over...Men's boots have passed me by, but I didn't notice. Then the tall, broad figure of Otto Günsche comes up the stairs, and with him a strong smell of petrol.”

Comments: She originally said she wasn’t in the Führerbunker at the time of Hitler’s death and his removal to the Chancellery Garden.

As will be shown in other segments, some bunker witnesses said Hitler wore slippers, some said shoes, others said boots.

Recall that she told Judge Musmanno that she only heard about the use of petrol when she read about it, long after the fact, in a newspaper.

So, this took place “A few minutes after three”? That’s interesting, considering what Hitler’s valet wrote:

 “At exactly ten minutes to four on the afternoon of April 30, 1945, a whiff of acrid pistol smoke told me that Adolf Hitler had ended his life.  I was standing outside the map room of the bunker…”

She also intimates that Hitler was wearing boots, but is admitting, “I didn’t notice”. Of course, if she’s sitting (perhaps on a bench) in the Vorbunker, or even in her own room a hundred meters away, this is pure nonsense. Consider that every other bunker witness said Hitler’s corpse was taken out of his room and upstairs of the emergency exit, so his corpse would not have “passed” her—unless she’s implying being on the Führerbunker’s emergency exit staircase.

If Günsche was “coming up the stairs” that can only mean that Traudl Junge was (sitting or standing?) in the Vorbunker, not the Führerbunker.

“His face is ashen; his young fresh features look gaunt...He goes down again to make sure that the bodies are burned without a trace...”

Comments:  If the corpses were “burned without a trace” how did the Soviets perform autopsies?

Her ghost-writer is creating literary symmetry by pairing the visual of Günsche’s “ashen” face with the implied “ashes” of Hitler’s burned corpse. It shouldn’t need to be pointed out that literary devices don’t constitute evidence.

When they were both POWs in Moscow’s Lubyanka prison, Otto Günsche admitted to Dr. Walter P. Schreiber that he had had no part in the burning or disposal of Hitler’s corpse.

“I suddenly feel an urge to go down to those two empty rooms. The door to Hitler's room is still open at the end of the corridor. The men carrying the bodies had no hands free to close it.”

Comment: Compare the above statement to the earlier one given to Judge Musmanno—

“...later I did go down again, everything had been set in order again. The door to Hitler’s study was closed, the room in which he died. The people were all very upset, sat together and talked”.

“Eva's little revolver is lying on the table with a pink chiffon scarf beside it, and I see the brass case of the poison capsule glinting on the floor next to Frau Hitler's chair. It looks like an empty lipstick.”

Comment: All of this could be true but doesn’t establish that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in that room.

“There is blood on the blue-and-white upholstery of the bench where Hitler was sitting: Hitler's blood. I suddenly feel sick. The heavy smell of bitter almonds is nauseating”.

Comments: Nearly 80% of people are unable to smell the characteristic odor of hydrocyanic acid.

She’s in the room in which the newlyweds had supposedly committed suicide. The story is that both ingested liquid cyanide. Very little liquid is in each ampoule. None of those who carried the bodies out of the bunker and into the Chancellery Garden for burning mentioned smelling “bitter almonds” in the suicide room.

When this poison meets human saliva, it can cause nausea and vomiting for the person ingesting it. It can even cause serious respiratory distress for physicians conducting an autopsy. Without proper ventilation noxious fumes given off by the reaction in the mouth, throat, and stomach, again becomes airborne and could certainly cause nausea. But Traudl Junge was not anywhere near the corpses at that point.

Even if some of the liquid cyanide swallowed by Hitler just prior to shooting himself in the mouth had been spewed or hurled onto the floor, it’s doubtful to have caused the reaction she’s describing. As smells go, the odor of hydrocyanic acid is not a heavy one, either.

Of course, she never mentioned this nausea in her interrogations, or at all, prior to the publication of her memoirs.

“...I'm angry with the dead Führer...I knew he was going to leave us. But he's left us in such a state of emptiness and helplessness! He's simply gone away, and with him the hypnotic compulsion under which we were living has gone too...”

Comment: She is trying to give the reader a keen insight into Hitler's state of mind but instead reveals more about her own. Her words include a residue of the truth: “leave us”, “left us”, “simply gone away”. 

That’s why she’s angry.

“[May 1]...I take Otto Günsche aside and look for a quiet corner where we can talk undisturbed. I want to know how the Führer died. And Günsche is glad to be able to talk about it. [He explains]: 'We saluted the Führer once more, then he went into his room with Eva and closed the door. Goebbels, Bormann, Axmann, Hewel, Kempka and I stood out in the corridor waiting.

Comment: She’s relating what Günsche told her. The men listed were supposedly waiting for Hitler to kill himself. However, as will be shown in the chapters on Artur Axmann and Erich Kempka, both men denied being there for what Günsche is supposedly relating to Junge. Furthermore, Günsche himself never repeated this story in any interrogation or interview.

Finally, where is Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet? Günsche did report that Linge had been the first person to enter the suicide room. Linge claimed he was just outside of the “map room” when the suicide took place.

“It may have been ten minutes, but it seemed an eternity to us, before the shot broke the silence. After a few seconds Goebbels opened the door, and we went in”.

Comment:  Again, she heard this second-hand from Otto Günsche. These are supposedly his words, not hers. 

But did Günsche also claim that Goebbels went in first? No. He said Heinz Linge entered the suicide room first. Still other bunker witnesses said it was Günsche or Bormann.

“The Führer had shot himself in the mouth and bitten on a poison capsule too. His skull was shattered and looked dreadful. Eva Braun hadn't used her pistol; she just took the poison”.

Comment: These are Otto Günsche’s words, not hers. She did not witness this.

That she attributed these words to Günsche is a rich one, considering what he told historian David Irving in an interview in 1967:

“It has always been said that he shot himself in the mouth: that's not true, he shot himself in the temple—the right temple”.

As will be discussed with greater precision in the segments featuring Günsche, Linge and Axmann’s accounts, it was Axmann who said Hitler shot himself through the mouth.

“We wrapped the Führer's head in a blanket, and Goebbels, Axmann and Kempka carried the corpse up all those stairs and into the park...”

Comment: She saw none of this. Again, these are Günsche’s words; Günsche’s description that she is reporting second hand. Like the children’s game, “Whispering Down the Lane”, she had muddled an important detail. Günsche actually said, “Hitler was wrapped in a blanket, because he shot himself in the head, and this resulted in severe mutilation of his face”.

He’s clearly didn’t say that it was just Hitler’s head that was covered by a blanket.

“Up in the park we put the two bodies down, side by side, a few steps from the entrance to the bunker...Then Kempka and I poured petrol over the bodies, and I stood in the entrance and threw a burning rag on them. Both bodies went up in flames at once...'

Comment: Günsche’s own description doesn’t match the words composed by the woman who’s passing them along once again. Günsche said he poured the petrol on the corpses without Kempka’s assistance.

“...and I [Traudl Junge] think how quickly human beings pass away. The most powerful man in the Reich a few days ago, and now a little heap of ashes blowing in the wind”.

Comment: Ah, yes, as the famous Kansas song goes—unless one believes a Soviet autopsy was performed on Hitler’s corpse while it was airborne.

In this related statement, Traudl Junge was apparently talking about meeting Kempka sometime later, as opposed to their supposed shared time in the Führerbunker:

“I met Kempka later, too, and talked to him. Kempka told me that the body had been consumed, but, of course, I do not know in how far that was actually done [To what extent the corpse was destroyed].”

In this maddening world of endlessly conflicting and contradictory Führerbunker accounts “Dust in the Wind” can quickly become Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke.

“I didn't doubt what Günsche said for a moment. No one can pretend to be as shaken as he was—and certainly not Günsche, an uncomplicated, muscular young man. Where else could the Führer be now, anyway”?

Comment: So, in her opinion, a young and uncomplicated security guard can’t fake intense emotions.

Does that settle it?

Not really.

Could crushing an ampoule of poison into the open mouth of an unknown dead man, shooting him in the mouth (or temple) to simulate suicide, and getting stressed out over the problem of burning his corpse to an unidentifiable state seriously upset such a man?

Is it plausible that an uncomplicated young man was shaken because he participated in creating a gruesome death scene?

Yes, it is.

As for her question, “Where else could the Führer be now, anyway”, it merely reveals that her imagination was engaged when she asked the question.

Her words are reminiscent of the child who has taken and eaten the last cookie from the jar, after being told by her mother that it was to be saved for her brother. The mother notices her empty-handed daughter standing nervously by the empty jar. But, before mom can get the first question out, the girl shrugs her shoulders and preemptively asks, “Where could that cookie have gone, anyway?”

Plus, she’s unintentionally admitting that she couldn’t imagine anything more than what this supposedly “uncomplicated” man told her.

“There was no car, no plane, nothing within reach, no secret underground passage leading out of this bunker to freedom”.

Comment: She’s making specific claims without having any direct knowledge whatsoever. It will be shown later, through multiple witnesses who did know about cars and planes and secret passages, that this statement is entirely false.

Is she being purposefully misleading? It’s impossible to know.

“And Hitler couldn't even walk properly anymore; his body didn't obey him..."

Comment:  Since in many of the above-outlined statements she was supposedly passing on things she learned from Otto Günsche, let’s find out what her favorite source said about this topic:

“’In general,’ stressed Günsche, ‘Hitler was extraordinarily healthy, and free of common ills... Hitler did not take all sorts of medicines as often reported, but he did not sleep well and slept little’.”

When a clear pattern of greater detail emerges over time in the same account by an eyewitness, red flags go up. Naturally, inquiry into what Traudl Junge may have said during interrogations or interviews prior to Judge Musmanno’s in 1948 is necessary.

For this reason, it’s instructive to look at the text of the earliest interrogation of Traudl Junge; one conducted by US Counterintelligence agent, Karl Sussman.

Agent Sussman’s interrogation of Traudl Junge produced comparatively little detail compared to the Musmanno interviews. One short memo was sufficient for the task of summarizing what she was able to contribute to the Hitler death narrative in 1946.

Yet her earliest statements about Hitler’s ‘last days’ do contain one bombshell statement that historians have either overlooked or neglected for decades. She claimed Günsche returned from the burning of the corpses and confided, "[Hitler’s] ashes were collected into a box, which was given to Reichsjungendführer [Artur] Axmann".

23. After Hitler's supposed suicide, Frau Junge was summoned to the Führerbunker conference room. She claims that Bormann, Goebbels, Axmann and Hewel were sitting around the table. They asked her for her copy of Hitler's Last Will and Political Testament, but she hadn't retained a copy for herself. Only three copies had been made—one original and two copies. These three had been sent out with the couriers.

Next, they asked about the shorthand notes she'd used to type up the documents. Alas, she had destroyed her notes.

According to Junge, Bormann asked her to "re-write the testament from my memory", but this request was met by the understandable admission that she couldn't possibly accomplish this task with any accuracy.

At that point they dropped the subject, without any explanation, and dismissed her.

Why had they pressed her about this? What purpose would this extra copy serve?

The most plausible explanation is that Goebbels had been holding a meeting in the conference room to discuss the initiation of negotiations with the Soviets. Goebbels needed a copy of the documents Traudl Junge had typed up, particularly the succession list. After all, Hitler had designated Dönitz as President and Goebbels as Chancellor.

This explanation resolves a long-time mystery involving the so-called "Führer type" too.

For many years there has been a persistent (yet unsubstantiated) story about Hitler's secretaries always using extra-large type-set on all documents so that Hitler could read them without wearing his glasses.

It turns out that this is "Führer type" story intersects with Goebbels' attempt to negotiate with the Soviets, starting on May 1, 1945—and with secretary Traudl Junge.

When Soviet Lieutenant General Chuikov received General Krebs, who was acting as Chancellor Goebbels' emissary, Krebs informed Chuikov that Hitler was dead. Krebs then handed the Soviet commander documents: a cover letter and one listing the members of the new Dönitz government. It had been typed up using extraordinarily large type and non-standard font.

According to the official Soviet account of Hitler’s last days and death in the Berlin bunker, it was “On the morning of May 1, 1945” that Marshal Zhukov was first shown several pieces of paper with unusually large typing fonts. These were the same papers that General Krebs had given Chuikov.

In the official Soviet account, these documents originated from "Hitler's typewriter”—the unusually large type size was due to the fact that “Hitler had such bad eyes" and had "refused to wear glasses, so all documents had to be in large letters".

Sound familiar?

The cover letter, also in this same weirdly large type, was addressed to Stalin and had been "personally delivered" to Vasili Chuikov's staff on the night of April 30 by Acting Chief of the German General Staff, General Krebs".

So, what is the connection between the papers delivered to the Soviets by General Krebs and Traudl Junge's story about being asked to reproduce Hitler's will?

After Traudl Junge declared that she couldn’t reproduce Hitler’s will from memory, Goebbels, or perhaps one of his adjutants or secretaries from the Propaganda Ministry, must have typed up this document. The Propaganda Ministry used special typewriters, equipped with unusually large typefaces, for the delivery of radio, film and speeches. It’s a type face for scripts.

It is the same typeface that Goebbels’ secretaries used to for his diaries.

One more thing must be brought up about Traudl Junge being asked by Bormann to create a copy of Hitler’s will. It’s very interesting that in both interrogations, prior to 1949, Traudl Junge maintained that Hitler dictated his will off the top of his head. This was typical for Hitler, she indicated. But in her memoirs, this morphed into Hitler reading his will to her from two small pieces of paper.

So, why didn't she simply tell Bormann about Hitler's own notes? Why didn't she suggest that Hitler’s quarters should be searched for Hitler’s notes?

It may be hard to believe, but the issues I've addressed in this lengthy article amount to roughly half of the problems encountered in her decades-long telling and re-telling of Hitler's 'last days'.  She's a "favorite" of many and the primary gateway to the subject of Hitler's death in the Berlin bunker, so I expect a lot of anger in respnse to this statement, but it can't be avoided: I regard her as the second most voluminous prevaricator, exaggerator, and storyteller among those connected with the standard narrative of Hitler's suicide - right behind Albert Speer.