Im Toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretärin (2002)

Traudl Junge was Adolf Hitler’s private secretary from the autumn of 1942 until the collapse of the Nazi regime in [year unspecified]. She worked for him at the Wolf’s Lair, at Obersalzberg, aboard his special train, and, at the end, in the Führer’s bunker beneath the capital’s besieged Chancellery. Hitler also dictated his will to her. After 56 years of silence, Traudl Junge speaks before a camera for the first time. In the spring of 2001, through the writer Melissa Müller, André Heller managed to convince her of the importance of recording her extraordinary memories, as well as her doubts and personal reflections. Working with Othmar Schmiederer, Heller made a 90-minute film from ten hours of footage, dispensing with all filler and placing complete trust in the impact of the narrator’s personality. Fifty-six years after the end of the war, an eyewitness and earwitness speaks out. Traudl Junge’s own experience led her to become a staunch opponent of National Socialism, while at the same time she seems to suffer deeply from her inability ever to forgive the young woman she had been for her naivety and ignorance at the time. On the eve of the film’s premiere at the 2002 Berlinale, she spoke to the director on the phone and told him, “You know, I’m slowly beginning to forgive myself.” The screening goes ahead, and the next day Traudl Junge passes away, leaving the world this exceptional testimony.