Brunhilde Pomsel, among the last surviving witnesses to Adolf Hitler’s final moments, died this past Friday.
CHRISTOF STACHE / AFP / Getty ImagesBrunhilde Pomsel , the former escritoire of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels , in Munich on June 29 , 2016 .
One of the last make it data link to the Nazis ’ interior circle , Brunhilde Pomsel , drop dead this past Friday at her home in Munich at the geezerhood of 106 .
Pomsel served as national socialist propaganda pastor Joseph Goebbels ’ personal amanuensis during World War II and was one of the only subsister of Hitler ’s craze , final day inside his Berlin dugout .
CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty ImagesBrunhilde Pomsel, the former secretary of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, in Munich on 8 February 2025.
Joseph Goebbels trusted Pomsel to play as his individual secretaire from 1942 to 1945 , prescribe as Pomsel transcribed his words into employment documents , letters , diary submission , and so on .
Pomsel even sat near the front wrangle , right behind the gaffer ’ wife , during one of Goebbels ’ most famous speeches , at Berlin ’s Sportpalast in 1943 , after the Russians kill the Nazis at Stalingrad .
“ No actor could have been any better at the transformation from a cultivated serious soul into a ranting , raucous man , ” Pomsel once recite theGuardianof Goebbels . “ In the federal agency , he had a kind of stately elegance , and then to see him there like a raging dwarf — you just ca n’t imagine a enceinte contrast . ”
In that 1943 address , Goebbels called for “ total war ” and alluded to the Holocaust . However , Pomsel would by and by say that she did n’t bed about the genocide that was already underway as she worked for Goebbels .
But one thing is for sure : Pomsel did see the street brutality of the Nazis . Even one of Pomsel ’s Jewish friends , Eva Löwenthal , disappeared at the helping hand of the Nazis .
“ The whole country was as if under a kind of spell , ” Pomsel toldThe New York Times . “ I could open myself up to the accusations that I was n’t concerned in political relation , but the truth is that idealism of younker might easily have led you to having your neck break . ”
As the war finally sputtered out , Pomsel was there in the Berlin dugout which at time housed Nazis include Goebbels and Hitler , who both committed felo-de-se . Ultimately , Pomsel said that the bunker staff sow together a jumbo bloodless iris from food sacks in the hopes of surrendering to the Russians .
When the Russians did come , Pomsel admitted that she had worked for the Propaganda Ministry and thus served five years in Russian prison house camps near Berlin . After her release , she worked in receiving set , never wed and living out the rest of her age in Munich .
Next , see how drugs likePervitinfueled the Nazis ’ rise and decrease , before checking out howIBM help the Naziscarry out the Holocaust .
