In 1942 Germany, 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 bitter end. Junge observed the intimate workings of Hitler’s administration, she typed correspondence and speeches, including Hitler’s public … public and private last will and testament; she ate her meals and spent evenings with him; and she was close enough to hear the bomb that was intended to assassinate Hitler in the Wolf’s Lair, close enough to smell the bitter almond odor of Eva Braun’s cyanide pill. In her intimate, detailed memoir, Junge invites readers to experience day-to-day life with the most horrible dictator of the twentieth century.
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I just finished reading this book and am still not quite sure how to feel about it. Traudl Junge very clearly adored Hitler and seemed to have lived the last couple of years of WWII with her head in the sand. Quite literally since they spent a good part of that time underground in Hitler’s bunker. But she did get out, and she did see the devastation and she did hear about what was going on. Yet she writes glowingly about Hitler. The remorse afterwards seems forced and insincere. It is an interesting read because of the perspective but I found myself feeling frustrated when I put down the book and really disliking this woman instead of feeling sorry for her.
Hitler’s Last Secretary shows how Germans got sucked into Hitler’s circle of deception.
Guilt and youth are keynotes of this memoir. You can easily understand how the author got so caught up in something so horrible without even realizing what was happening.
A window into the thinking of the German people during the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s.
The writer should have asked better question. Not very credible or interesting
Great to see a realistic account of how Hitler really was and how he interacted with his associates and family and not just the stereotypical purely evil person with no good side.
I have a fascination for WW II history and this memoir was fascinating to me. Hitler’s secretary told a compelling history of the last days in the Bunker
Repetitive. Not great from a literary perspective. Gives some insight into the less maniacal side of Hitler. The author was a twenty some year old secretary that claims to have been shielded from the war and atrocities. Some insight into Eva Braun’s persona.
Very good read. Sometimes all you are offered are books about Hitler himself so when one comes along about the people around him I find them really interesting.
Super interesting. Just this sort of spacy young woman who was one of Hitler’s secretaries until his death. Amazingly, she thought he was an ok guy and didn’t get it until years later.
I got bored with this book.
I don’t think this book really sheds any light on the final couple years of Hitler’s life. I also couldn’t believe that the author didn’t know what Hitler’s ideology was and didn’t know what the war was all about. Her claims of innocence were just too impossible to believe. Additionally, the book did not satisfactorily document her life in any detail after the war. I also found it hard to stomach the fact that Hitler and those close to him lived in such luxury when the Jews were being exterminated and his own army was starving.
The perspective of a woman who served on Hitler’s secretarial staff. She knew him as a person in day to day interactions. Pretty unique as she was not involved in the big decisions but just meals and innocuous chats. Pretty dull until the closing days.
This was an eye-witness view from a young, naive woman who had no clue of the significance of her situation. Her innocence and the savagery she never saw at the time later haunted the last thirty years of her life. Very detailed. Reads like a diary and was first put to paper in 1947 but not published until relatively recently.
The quote about evil being banal–suits this book. Traudl Junge was 22 and says ” I didn’t know anything about politics; it didn’t interest me”, Junge later felt guilt for not looking into what was going on, for liking the worst man in history.
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.” She remarked on his way of intoxicating the German people with his words, his voice and how at one point, he underwent surgery for throat nodules that threatened the instrument of his power, that voice.
Insights; the cyanide poisoning of Blondi, his beloved German Shepherd. Not to avoid the dog being captured and killed at the end–but to test the cyanide to see if it really was any good.
This is really an “I was there” autobiography and one of the most realistic I read. I’ve read the diary of Speer and it was a lot less insightful even though Traudl was a not very intellectual and curious young person who seemed to take life as it came along. She intended to be a dancer as a young woman; took secretarial skills only as a way to work and so we have an ordinary, sports-loving young person who fell into the most historic and desperately evil regime in modern history, could have been anyone ordinary and unquestioning. So it’s like looking through the eyes of an innocent. Very strange diary but very worth reading.
Only for hardcore WWII history buffs.
Another interesting book about Nazi Germany, and the life of Adolph Hitler. Told through the eyes of a nieve young woman.
Traudl Junge is your typical German working girl in the mid 1940s. That is until she becomes one of Hitler’s secretaries, which she only gets by sheer chance. The book was written by Junge herself, along with the help of Melissa Muller, and she offers an interesting sight into Hitler’s inner world. But, might I say, the first part of the story is slow but does provide some good information. The second part, the fall of the Third Reich, is when most of the ‘action’ takes place. Junge is a very intesting character who I began to like very early on. What I found most interesting of this book was Junge’s potrayal of Hitler. Most people think he was screaming and yelling at every single moment, which happens ever so often in the book, but Junge potrays him as a father like figure, who was always worried about her, especially after tragedy hits her life half way through the novel. I would recommend this book, but again, the beginning is kind of slow.
A sad look at Adolf Hitler’s personal life and the deadly vaccuum his personality created for his country and the people around him. Shows Hitler as barely caring enough to engage in governing. His bizarre schedule and the people who maintained his dreamlike fantasy.
A different view of Hilter and Germany.