Until The Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Interesting and Unique Perspective …While the life of Adolph Hitler has been well-documented in text and film, our understanding of his ultimate demise is heavily based on words and memory of Traudl Junge (nee Humps). HITLER’S LAST SECRETARY provides a fly-on-the-wall perspective that reveals one of history’s most notorious figures as being rather dull.I first saw Traudl Junge on several episodes of the “World at War” (the fabulous and comprehensive British documentary of the Second World War) and found her eyewitness account of Hitler’s last days quite memorable. As Hitler’s youngest secretary, she became a trusted member of his inner circle (he even dictated his last will and testament to her). From the peak of his power in 1942 to his cowardly demise underneath the ruins of Berlin, Junge saw Hitler in a variety of lights: relaxing atop the Eagle’s Nest, bantering with Nazi lapdogs, surviving an assassination attempt and his somewhat odd relationship with Eva Braun … she saw it all. While much of the book centers on her casual observances, Junge provides enough extraordinary details to make it all worth reading and I found it hard to put the book down once I started reading.Even though Junge wrote the book a few years after the war, I never sensed that absolution was her purpose in writing the book … she simply had a story worth telling. There are points in the book where hindsight comes into play, but most of her story is pretty straightforward. She makes no bones that Hitler’s charisma and power were hard to ignore and admits that working for him was a pleasant experience overall. Of course, one wonders to what extent she was aware of the atrocities being committed under her boss’ order. There are instances in the book where the Nazi’s pervasive attitude toward Jews is known/accepted (including one moment where a respected woman with Jewish lineage appears to have been “spared” by Hitler), but this is an issue that Junge opts not to indulge … the war is what takes front and center. The reader is left to judge whether Junge’s account was intentionally void of such particulars or that she simply wasn’t privy to certain matters. The individuals she is exposed to on a regular basis represent a “who’s who” of Nazi war criminals (Himmler, Boremann, Goebbels, etc.), so it is plausible to assume she was aware (to some degree) of Nazi atrocities.While the movie “Downfall” (which draws heavily from Junge’s experiences), portrays Hitler as a raging madman reaching the end of his rope, the book doesn’t deliver any of the movie’s intensity. In fact, much of the book details a different side of Hitler … less of a madman and more of a simple, boring and somewhat strange man. Junge’s interactions with Hitler are always described as being pleasant. She notes many of the man’s idiosyncrasies, including his hypochondria (requiring daily “injections”), his penchant for napping in front of guests, the affection he has for his dog (“Blondi”) and his oddly platonic relationship with Eva Braun. In fact, Junge speaks more negatively about Hitler’s bootlicking followers and confidents. Simply put, the book does not paint Hitler as the detestable person we know he proved to be. But, it is not difficult to believe that Junge’s experience with the man never led her to draw such a conclusion at the time as he was always kind and respectful toward her. While some may view her book as “humanizing” such a despicable figure, I have always felt the stereotypical depiction of ruthless dictators as a monstrous “supervillains” tends to inadvertently aggrandize these people and make them larger than life. Junge’s observations of Hitler do not portray him as anything special.HITLER’S LAST SECRETARY offers a smooth read, even though it mainly consists of one long chapter (one reason it was hard to put down). I found the details provided about Hitler and his inner circle quite fascinating: the interior of the Berghof retreat, Eva Braun’s clothes and demeanor, Hitler’s eating habits, his opinions on mundane topics (like his disdain for smoking) and frank commentary on those close to Hitler. Junge provides a much clearer image of the chaos that erupted deep within the bunker in the war’s final days, including Goebbels decision to poison his six children, Hitler/Eva Braun’s wedding ceremony, as well as their suicides and the subsequent disposal of her bodies (which she doesn’t witness first hand). Even though Junge’s own account ends with her emerging from the bunker, Melissa Muller provides an informative and interesting final chapter that picks up where Junge’s writing stopped. This final chapter serves as a biography of Traudl Junge from the war’s end through the 1990s.HITLER’S LAST SECRETARY is a worthy read as it offers a fascinating peek inside the machine responsible for mankind’s greatest tragedy. While some readers may question the author’s intent or be turned off by her unapologetic/straightforward approach to the subject matter, it is hard to ignore the historical significance of Traudl Junge’s observations.
There's a great line in the movie "Se7en" where Somerset and Mills are talking about the serial killer they're after, and Somerset says "If we catch John Doe and he turns out to be the devil, I mean if he's Satan himself, that might live up to our expectations, but he's not the devil. He's just a man." It's a great line, and it's true of a lot of historical figures who have been made into monsters by the popular imagination. And it is true of no one more than Adolf Hitler. That's not to say he wasn't a horrible person, because of course he was. But he wasn't the Devil, because the Devil doesn't exist. And by making him into a mythical creature instead of an actual man, we miss out on the importance of what history has to teach us - that what happened in Germany at that time was a reflection of something much larger than one little man.Traudl Junge was one of Hitler's personal secretaries, and she was with him right up until the end. She wrote her memoirs just a few years after the end of the war, before Hitler had been turned into the superhuman creature we see him as now. To her, he was just her boss, and he was flawed, and sometimes irrational, and had a temper, but she also saw him as somewhat frail and sympathetic. Seeing a humanized portrayal of him does not in any diminish what he did, and doesn't change the fact that he was a fundamentally awful person who should have blown his brains out years before he did. But it reinforces the simple fact that he as a human, and not necessarily as different from the rest of us as we might prefer to believe. In her later years, Traudl Junge has said she was blind to what Hitler and the Nazis were really doing, and she claimed it was her great regret in life. That may or may not be true, and there must have been at least some willful ignorance on her part. But I didn't read this book looking for an apology, or an explanation. I just wanted to see what kind of impressions she had to offer about him as a man, and what you are left with is the sense that he was, in fact, pretty ordinary.The writing is not great, but it's not terrible, and that's not the point. She has a unique insight into her subject that few others had, and she is worth listening to for that reason.
What do You think about Until The Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary (2005)?
There are so many good reviews about this book here at Goodreads so I'm going to keep it short. This is a good book. It is good because it is very honest. Traudl Junge doesn't paint Hitler good or bad but just as he was which is quite strange and still don't get him but I always kind a had this mental picture of Hitler as a screaming, violent paranoid maniac who destroyed the world; reading this, Hitler comes as a man with a Dr.Jekyll-Mr. Hide Complex. This book also gets us 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, things that us were made aware of. One thing, I find it hard to believe that Traudl Junge really didn't know the truth about her employer until after the war but she has clearly stated in the introduction, she's not looking for sympathy or forgiveness but rather felt a great guilt for "...liking the greatest criminal ever to have lived."This book will fascinate even those with little interest in WWII or no interest at all. A must read.
—Amalie
Great book, and a very interesting view into the 'banality of evil'. Traudl Junge was incredibly naive and yet she admits that there was something unsettling about living in such close proximity to Hitler - a nameless discontent that many of his closest staff shared and even spoke about among themselves. As you read her account you pick up these nuances for yourself... there is the occasional debate where he will defend the indefensible but there are even more subtle clues such as the way his staff were required to almost be his 'audience' as he performed the role of a welcoming but distant host. It's a fascinating book and I think it's something we all need to remember; evil people are rarely, if ever, madmen. If they were we'd have less to fear.
—Tanya
After reading this book, I still cannot determine whether the main character, Tradul Jung, was naive or caught in the times. Honestly, probably both. She provided an interesting perspective of Hitler that I've never seen before. He's written in a more fatherly ideal, with some moments of his stereotypical behaviours. I think what bothered me most is the fact that in the end she has such guilt & is so lost because of her past, but yet still finds normalcy by having an affair with a married man for many years until his death. It's as though she doesn't learn from her turmoil & continues in a destructive pattern.
—Elyse
