Traudl Junge - Berlin, 1945

Berlin, 1945

In 1945, Junge was with Hitler in Berlin. She typed Hitler's last private and political will and testament in the Führerbunker a day and a half before his suicide. Junge later wrote that while she was playing with the Goebbels children on 30 April, "Suddenly there is the sound of a shot, so loud, so close, that we all fall silent. It echoes on through all the rooms. 'That was a direct hit,' cried Helmut with no idea how right he is. The Führer is dead now."

On 1 May, Junge left the Führerbunker with a group led by Waffen-SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke. Also in the group were Hitler's personal pilot Hans Baur, chief of Hitler's Reichssicherheitsdienst (RSD) bodyguard Hans Rattenhuber, secretary Gerda Christian, secretary Else Krüger, Hitler's dietician Constanze Manziarly and Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck. Junge, Christian and Krüger made it out of Berlin to the River Elbe. The remainder of the group were found by Soviet troops on 2 May while hiding in a cellar off the Schönhauser Allee. The Soviet Army handed those who had been in the Führerbunker over to SMERSH for interrogation, to reveal what had occurred in the bunker during the closing weeks of the war.