Hitler’s Last SecretaryA FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF LIFE WITH HITLER
Arcade Publishers
„Among the memoirs of men and women who knew Hitler well, Traudl Junge´s is the best.”
Los Angeles Times Book Review
Traudl Junge wrote her account in 1947, when her memories of her time as Hitler’s private secretary were still fresh. She observed the intimate workings of Hitler´s administration. She traveled back and forth with Hitler between the Wolf´s Lair in eastern Prussia and Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps, and finally to the bunker in Berlin. She heard the shot with which Hitler ended his life. But it is her precise, detailed observations of the outwardly normal day-to-day life with Hitler that prove most disturbing.
Her memoirs were not meant for publication. It took two years of intense, often painful discussions before I was able to convince her of how revealing and important her notes were for future generations.
The book was a main source for the movie Downfall.
„Junge’s account, undoubtedly a primer on the so-called ‘banality of evil’, is a detailed, efficient and humorless memoir of the three years she spent as Hitler’s secretary. Her tale—full of trivial tidbits and, often interchangeably, chilling observations—draws a picture of a man at once astonishingly uninspired, quixotic and devoted to his cause.”
Publishers Weekly