Hitler's Last Secretary by Traudl Junge Page B

book from this library; none of them were banned. To the right, opposite the window, a heavy velvet curtain separated the living room from the Great Hall. I just took a fleeting glance in and got the same impression as I’d already had from the coloured picture postcards: it was very big and very grand, monumental, like everything the Führer built, but cold, in spite of the thick carpets, the magnificent tapestries and all the precious things adorning the walls and the furnishings. Even later, when I spent many evenings sitting beside the great hearth of the hall by candlelight, that feeling never entirely left me. I think the room was too large and the people in it too small to fill it entirely.
But the winter garden you had to cross to reach the terrace from the living room was very much to my taste. Best of all, there were a great many flowers in it, as well as pale, deep, softly upholstered armchairs and sofas with small round tables. The whole room was at most three by three metres in size, and two of the walls were all glass.
The best thing about the whole Berghof, however, was the terrace. It was a large, square space paved with slabs of Solnhofer stone, and it had a stone balustrade. When the mist lifted you could see Salzburg castle in the distance on the gentle rise of its hill, with the sun shining on it, and down below on the other side lay Berchtesgaden surrounded by the peaks of the Watzmann, the Hoher Göll and the Steinernes Meer. Directly opposite rose the Untersberg. In clear weather you could see the cross on top of it with the naked eye. The terrace ran all round the winter garden up to the living-room window, and then turned into a small paved courtyard going all along the back of the building. The rising rock of the mountainside made a natural wall for it.
I could reach the adjutants’ office through the back door of the Berghof or over the terrace. A little cottage with two storeys nestled against the rock wall right beside the west side of the main building. Its ground floor was a small room for Hewel the liaison officer and for use as a press office, and the upper floor was used by whichever chief adjutant was on duty – either Gruppenführer Bormann or Obergruppenführer Schaub – and was a charming apartment in the rustic style consisting of a living room, bedroom and bathroom. An old wooden outside staircase led up to it. This staircase looked very picturesque, but it could be dangerous in rainy weather or snow. A long, low wooden building stood next to the cottage, and contained various functional rooms. The first of these was our office. It was a plain, ugly room, only sparsely furnished.
I never did find out just why this room had been given such perfunctory treatment. Perhaps because Hitler himself had never set foot in it. In addition, it was rather dark inside, because an open gallery covered by a wooden roof ran all the way along the building. It was a pretty sight, with its columns and brightly coloured flower containers, but it didn’t let a single ray of sunlight into the rooms. Next to the office was the dental surgery. When necessary, Professor Blaschke 32 from Berlin practised his trade here with his assistants and a dental nurse. The little room was equipped with the most modern dental tools and equipment, because while he was staying in the mountains Hitler generally took the chance to get his teeth seen to. The barber had a room in this building too, but he had to put up with very makeshift equipment. Finally, there was a fairly large dormitory for the soldiers of the guard, and then came the garden wall with the gate up to the guesthouse. A guard was posted here, and he insisted on seeing your pass whenever you wanted to come in or go out.
A broad paved road passed right at the foot of the Berghof, winding up out of the valley in sinuous curves and going on to the Türken, 33 the Platterhof, 34 Bormann’s house and the barracks. On the other side of the road a magical