Who is traudl junge

She was She died of cancer overnight Sunday at a Munich hospital, festival spokeswoman Silke Lehmann said Wednesday. In , she married Hitler aide Hans Junge, who was killed a year later when a British plane strafed his company in Normandy, France.

Junge was with Hitler and his staff when they moved into an underground bunker in Berlin in January As the end neared in April , Junge remembered increasingly ghostly scenes in the bunker. Downfall Writer. Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary Self. Show all Hide all Show by Hide Show Writer 1 credit. Hide Show Additional Crew 1 credit.

Hide Show Self 9 credits. Hitler's Secretary Documentary Self. Self - Hitler's Secretary. Self - Secretary to Hitler Hide Show Archive footage 5 credits. Related Videos. Alternate Names: Gertraud Junge. A multi-talented Austrian artist, Andre Heller, who is famous for creating circuses, his writing and more recently filmmaking, has completed one of the most difficult tasks of his career, securing 10 hours of almost non-stop monologue from the now year old pensioner.

In the film she reveals what it was like to work for Hitler, his attitude towards women and his love for his dog, Blondi. She was petrified, she said, of making mistakes. She explains why she remained quiet for so long. Andre Heller is convinced that, unlike other "Nazi women" such as filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, Junge feels she can never make up for her collaboration with him. Junge evidently found it hard to "bare her soul" to the camera, although her account is highly articulate and self-critical.

But the documentary, called In the Blind Spot, which has its premiere at the Berlin film festival this week, has had perhaps as much an impact on its creator as on his subject. Heller, an Austrian Jew, several of whose relatives perished in Auschwitz, says he can no longer bear to watch the film. Are the children still with her? Some girl from the kitchen, or maybe it was a chambermaid, had offered to take the six children out with her.

The Russians might not harm them. But I don't know if Frau Goebbels accepted this offer. We sit around and wait for evening. Only Schadle, the wounded leader of the escort commando, has shot himself. Suddenly the door of the room occupied by the Goebbels family opens. A nurse and a man in a white coat are carrying out a huge, heavy crate. A second crate follows. My heart stands still for a moment.

I can't help thinking of the children. The size of the crate would be about right. So my dulled heart can still feel something after all, and there's a huge lump in my throat. Krebs and Burgdorf stand up, smooth down their uniform tunics, and shake hands with everyone in farewell. They are not leaving, they're going to shoot themselves here. Then they go out, parting from those who mean to wait longer. We must wait for darkness to fall.

Goebbels walks restlessly up and down, smoking, like a hotel proprietor waiting discreetly and in silence for the last guests to leave the bar. He has stopped complaining and ranting. So the time has come.

We all shake hands with him in farewell. He wishes me good luck, with a twisted smile. But I shake my head doubtfully. We are completely surrounded by the enemy, and there are Russian tanks in the Potsdamer Platz One by one we leave these scenes of horror. I pass Hitler's door for the last time. His plain grey overcoat is hanging from the iron coat-stand as usual, and above it I see his big cap with the golden national emblem on it and his pale suede gloves.

The dog's leash is dangling beside them. It looks like a gallows. I'd like to take the gloves as a memento, or at least one of them. But my outstretched hand falls again, I don't know why. My silver fox coat is hanging in the wardrobe in Eva's room. Its lining bears the golden monogram E.

I don't need it now, I don't need anything but the pistol and the poison. So we go over to the big coal-cellar of the New Reich Chancellery. We nod to each other. Most of them I've never seen again. Then we wait in our bunker room to be fetched. We have all destroyed our papers. I take no money with me, no provisions, no clothes, just a great many cigarettes and a few pictures I can't part with.

The other women pack small bags. They are going to try to find their way out through this hell too. Only the nurses stay behind. It could be about eight-thirty in the evening. We are to be the first group leaving the bunker. For hours we crawl through cavernous cellars, burning buildings, strange, dark streets!

Somewhere in an abandoned cellar we rest and sleep for a couple of hours. Then we go on, until Russian tanks bar our way. None of us has a heavy weapon. We are carrying nothing but pistols. So the night passes, and in the morning it is quiet.

The gunfire has stopped. We still haven't seen any Russian soldiers. Finally we end up in the old beer cellar of a brewery now being used as a bunker. This is our last stop. There are Russian tanks out here, and it's full daylight. We still get into the bunker unseen. Hewel lies on one of the plank beds, stares at the ceiling and says nothing. He doesn't want to go on. Two soldiers bring in the wounded Rattenhuber.

He has taken a shot in the leg, he is feverish and hallucinating. A doctor treats him and puts him on a camp bed. Rattenhuber gets out his pistol, takes off the safety catch and puts it down beside him. A general comes into the bunker, finds the defending commander Mohnke and speaks to him. We discover that we are in the last bastion of resistance in the capital of the Reich. The Russians have now surrounded the brewery and are calling on everyone to surrender.

Mohnke writes a last report. There is still an hour to go. The rest of us sit there smoking. Suddenly he raises his head, looks at us women and says, "You must help us now. We're all wearing uniform, none of us will get out of here. But you can try to get through, make your way to Donitz and give him this last report. I don't want to go on any more, but Frau Christian and the other two urge me to; they shake me until I finally follow them.

We leave our steel helmets and pistols there. We take our military jackets off too. Then we shake hands with the men and go. An SS company is standing by its vehicles in the brewery yard, stony-faced and motionless, waiting for the order for the last attack. The Volkssturm, the OT men and the soldiers are throwing their weapons down in a heap and going out to the Russians. At the far end of the yard Russian soldiers are already handing out schnapps and cigarettes to German soldiers, telling them to surrender, celebrating fraternization.

We pass through them as if we were invisible. Then we are outside the encircling ring, among wild hordes of Russian victors, and at last I can weep. Where were we to turn? If I'd never seen dead people before, I saw them now everywhere. No one was taking any notice of them.

A little sporadic firing was still going on. Sometimes the Russians set buildings on fire and searched for soldiers in hiding.

We were threatened on every corner. I lost track of my colleagues that same day. I went on alone for a long time, hopelessly, until at last I ended up in a Russian prison. When the cell door closed behind me I didn't even have my poison any more, it had all happened so fast. Yet I was still alive. And now began a dreadful, terrible time, but I didn't want to die any more; I was curious to find out what else a human being can experience.

And fate was kind to me. As if by a miracle, I escaped being transported to the East. The unselfish human kindness of one man preserved me from that.