Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary [Paperback]

I am an amateur historian on WWII, particularly as regards the European front and the Axis' side.

Over the years I developed much curiosity on WWII from the German perspective, also due to the lack of documents and testimonials from their side. Recently the gap is closing and, with the healing of time, it is now possible to experience how war was just as hard, and ultimately terrible, for those fighting and living "on the wrong side".

I read this book over a year ago after watching the film "Downfall" (which is excellent), and, contrarly to tradition, it is a great read even after watching the movie.

Although I think the book delves a little too much on the early years of Traudl Junge and her stay in the "Wolf's lair", once you get past that point I guarantee anyone will just rush all the way to the end of the story, even if they already know what happens, as most of us do.

Her account is very dry, very matter-of-fact and that helps to enjoy the story for what it is rather than for whom it involves. One gets to see a side of the Nazi regime from right inside it, and for those who like historical accuracy, it is nice to see some facts nicely fitting into the overall picture, as well as some previously unknown details. Extremely interesting is what happens right after the end of the war, to her, the German people and Berlin, things that few of us were made aware of.

This powerful real story will stand up to and fascinate even those with little interest in WWII. As they'll turn the last page, they may perhaps send a thought to Traudl, who spent the latter half of her life dealing with shame and died, as it often happens, shortly after the release of her book.

A must read, and don't miss the film too.

The Boss

This is a good book. It is good because it is honest. It is good because it looks through the eyes of a woman at a world dominated and usually described only by men. And it is good because it spreads a thin veil of pudeur over events that are today often shown in all their crass ugliness - such as the charred corpses of Saddam Hussein`s sons.

In her first serious professional position Traudl Junge became one of Hitler`s personal secretaries and stayed with him for 30 months until his death. She tells us about him what she saw. To many of us, this may not be enough, many of us would like to be confirmed in our mental picture of a screaming, violent paranoid, apt at biting his carpet when things got rough - this is, after all, the way he has always been depicted, even long before the Second World War had broken out.

The book makes us imagine him, in the presence of Traudl Junge, as a man with a mission and certainly very convincing when it came to that, but otherwise quite commonplace to the point of being somewhat boring, cloth-cap, muffler, and greyhound, quite literally, except that the greyhound would be a German shepherd, not much of a reader, and no longer in a mood to watch movies. He was able to hide his relationship with Eva Braun quite as efficiently as François Mitterand managed to cover his own liaison. Nothing that Traudl Junge tells us about him would have us think that he was anything of an inhibited Dr. Jekyll who would turn into a bloodthirsty Mr. Hide as soon as the padded doors of his office closed behind him.

When Traudl Junge met Hitler, the tide of the war was starting to run against him. He was beginning to realize that he might not be able to achieve his aims. In this situation, he behaved as most of us would: he closed his eyes - partly so to avoid having to face the facts, partly in an effort to go against the sea-change and muster up all the forces that the German people could still mobilize.

An interesting aspect of Traudl Junge`s book is the fact that it was written down in its entirety within a few years of those momentous events, while her memories were still fresh and unaltered by the post-war political re-education that the Allies brought to bear on the German people. Thus, there was no need to incorporate any belated realizations into her account of what she had seen, no need to imagine behind facets of Hitler`s behaviour events that later might have taken on a particular significance, no need to change her point of view and bend with the remover to remove scenes that she had observed.

Even those things that the author does not express sometimes tell a story. We have been told repeatedly that Hitler loved to view in his private theatre the film showing the execution of the men who conspired against him a year before the end of the war. His secretary tells us nothing about that kind of thing, even though it is highly likely that Hitler - if the story were true - would have rounded up his inner circle to share his gloating pleasure.

A special praise should go to Melissa Müller who helped Traudl Junge with this book and who wrote an accompanying text that shows a high degree of empathy for the author and the times she describes.

This book is not an account of what Hitler really was like", but it does show us what he could, at times, be like - at the hour of his death, for example.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the WW2 era or the Third Reich.

I find it hard to believe that Traudl Junge really didn't know the truth about her employer until after the war. Indeed she hints that a guest once asked Hitler about whether he was aware of the treatment of the Jews so surely some alarm bells must have rung? That said, the author does say in her introduction that she is not asking for understanding and I think this helps to read the book for what it is, a historical account.

I found this book impossible to put down once I had entered Traudl Junge's world and her description of life in the bunker in Berlin with the Russians approaching on all sides makes you feel trapped and claustraphobic with her.

Read it, you won't be disappointed!