The Work I Did

by Brunhilde Pomsel

  The truly important things, and some secret orders, were always stored in safes. Only the advisors had keys to those. There were lots of things that I couldn’t have looked at on the way to the safe, given that it was only a few steps away. The whole thing took only a couple of minutes. I can only vaguely remember which files I held in my hand – lots from the People’s Court. I didn’t write a word about them myself, or take any dictation about them, and neither did the other ladies. No one knew anything. And we were under obligation, I had to take an oath.13 When I joined I’d been given a book about the rules of behaviour and also about correct practices. For example, that you couldn’t work with a red pen or a green one. Strictly forbidden. You had to know all sorts of things like that. I had to study everything; it was all very strict. It was the only thing we knew. Sometimes we found out when a famous writer had written a letter with a disparaging remark about Hitler or Goebbels. He was arrested and executed straight away. You knew about things like that.

  Goebbels also wrote his speeches himself and only dictated them to Richard Otte,14 a very nice man – he took shorthand, and was constantly following him around. Goebbels dictated everything to him. A huge article by Goebbels appeared every Sunday. It was just as new to us when it came out on Sunday as it was to everybody else. Otte recorded it: he had a special office, and of course a secretary. Goebbels dictated it, then it was sent to the Völkischer Beobachter – that was the main newspaper – and they published it. But we had nothing to do with that either. As I say, we were highly paid shorthand typists and secretaries, who could also relax from time to time. But we always had to be there, on the dot. And that time when I was bombed out, people were very generous. You had to run around to an awful lot of offices – to do this and that. I was very generously allowed to do all that.

  One day something really happened – and to my regret I wasn’t there, because it was my day off. We had days off now and again. I spent mine in Neu-Babelsberg [near Potsdam], where a colleague of mine lived. At about midday I suddenly heard something about the attempt on Hitler’s life on the radio. I rang the office straight away – the Promi – and said, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘For God’s sake, just be glad you didn’t come into the office today! We have no idea what’s going on. We’re just looking out of the window. The whole of Wilhelmplatz is full of soldiers, with rifles. It’s not a parade, they’re ready to shoot. There’s supposed to have been an attempt on the Führer’s life. We’re all surrounded; no one’s allowed to leave the building. We have no idea – we know nothing, and Minister Goebbels isn’t here either. We have no idea how we’re going to get home; we can’t leave.’ They were totally desperate.

  Now I had my ear pressed to the radio, and there were constant reports about it, about everything that was happening. It turned out very quickly that Hitler was still alive. In the Promi they were just scared for their lives when they saw they were surrounded. I was very unhappy not to be there when something was happening. I wasn’t glad to be in Potsdam. And then all I know is what everyone knew. The whole story; I found out all about it. And those discussions with the officers in the People’s Court. It’s all well known. So I just know all of that as an onlooker.

  We found out other things from day to day. I know that actors sometimes visited Goebbels. But we didn’t find out what happened between them. It was about that one film, Jud Süss.15 There were some films about the historical Jewish question. About 200 years ago. Ferdinand Marian16 was a very good actor. He had to play that Jew. He played him wonderfully well, and the whole film was great. But he hadn’t wanted to play him; he was forced. They probably said, ‘If you don’t play the part you’ll end up in a camp.’ He resisted, but he had to do it. The film was a great success, but I’m sure he wasn’t proud of it.

  Goebbels was involved in every film that promised to be a great success. Not in every film, but films that were promising had to be shown to him first, and he himself had to make corrections to the cast. I know that. I didn’t see it, but you knew. That was his relaxation, his plaything; he probably needed that to counteract all the unpleasant jobs he had to do. He enjoyed that, and he wouldn’t let anyone take it away from him.

  I remember the last big film17 that Goebbels was involved with. It was already coming to an end. It was deliberately staged in such a way that the people would bear witness to the unconditional will to victory. That was the plan, and in the weekly newsreels we were always the victors, of course. He re-edited that one furiously. He got very involved in everything, even art. Art, particularly Teutonic art, was fostered a lot even in school. Particularly the heroic sagas from the old days. There were also a lot of Austrian films. I can still see many of them in my mind’s eye. I even got to meet actors like Attila Hörbiger, and Heinrich George, the father of Götz George – he was a great actor. But a lot of Jewish actors got away in time and went to America. We had previously had some good Jewish actors at UFA.18 Good people who all got away in time.

  I didn’t always have the money, particularly when the first films were on, before I started at the Corporation. But in those days that was the chief entertainment, because theatre was more expensive, and the opera was quite out of the question. In wartime, of course, culture was very restricted, because first of all you had to eat. In the meantime there was radio as well – radio was an important form of entertainment too, of course. By now there was only the Reichsender Berlin; especially in the evening, at about eleven o’clock. Broadcasts came from the exclusive hotels – Adlon, Excelsior, Kaiserhof and Bristol Unter den Linden. There were really good hotels and bars, and the bar music was broadcast by the Corporation, with the latest popular songs. I spent nights on our chaise-longue when everyone was in bed and asleep. I knew all the songs, I could sing along with everything. Oh, it was wonderful! Sometimes Mama found me when I’d gone to sleep like that. That was lovely. That was all the culture we had!

  I felt a bit as if I had died inside. I’d often been frightened in my life before. But now I was icy cold – unfeeling. I’m trying to say: all my feelings were gone. There wasn’t even any room for fear. Just this feeling: it’s all over. Nothing more than that. Over. It’s all over.

  Brunhilde Pomsel

  ‘LOYAL TO THE END’: THE LAST DAYS IN THE PROPAGANDA MINISTRY

  Shortly before the downfall, Brunhilde Pomsel made a serious decision that forced her to stay in the air-raid shelter of the Propaganda Ministry next to the Führer’s bunker containing the last faithful followers. She only found out in dribs and drabs what was happening in the bunker from the last members of Hitler’s retinue, who included Hans Fritzsche,1 one of the senior officials in Goebbels’s Ministry and a well-known radio commentator, and Goebbels’s adjutant Günther Schwägermann,2 who burned the bodies of Magda and Joseph Goebbels at the end. After Goebbels had refused to surrender, Hans Fritzsche decided to offer to surrender in his own right. Before Fritzsche crossed over to the Soviet side with two of his officials, Brunhilde prepared the white flag for the surrender. After brief negotiations Fritzsche is supposed to have announced, on behalf of the German government, that the Soviet side had accepted the surrender. On the evening of 1 May 1945, General Helmuth Weidling, Commander in the Battle of Berlin, ordered his troops to abandon fighting.

  I still remember our air-raid shelter in the Propaganda Ministry, when Dr Naumann was over with the Führer, in the Führer’s bunker. I have a dim memory of an iron plate or something somewhere. That was very much at the end of the war, when they were already flying over the cities in broad daylight. There was a morning raid over Berlin – not a large raid, but they flew so that you could see the planes, and they were enemy planes. Dr Naumann sat at his desk and dictated, and I wrote, but I was so frightened I couldn’t keep writing. He laughed his head off, and said, ‘Good God, I’ll tell you when things get dangerous!’

  At last he stood up, quite calmly, and said, ‘Now come with me.’ And then he walked with me across the square to the door. I remember the planes were no
longer in the sky; I think by then they had gone. Suddenly I saw that there was a flight of steps leading down. He left me on my own, shook hands with one of the SS men, then led me back to the Ministry. I’d never seen that before. And later, when I was among the people again, I heard about it. The Führer had a bunker under Wilhelmsplatz. I’d never heard of it before.

  I was very scared during the war, I remember that, when there were air raids, and some women, mostly hysterical women, said, ‘Oh, if only a bomb would hit us and everything would be over!’ Then I could shout, ‘No, no, we need to live! I want to live! I don’t want to be killed by a bomb!’ I had an incredible will to live. I have no idea what for. I wanted to stay alive. I didn’t want to be killed by the war.

  At the end of the war we spent almost all our time sitting in that horrible cellar in the Propaganda Ministry, still believing in that stupid Wenck Army,3 which would move round the back of the invading Russians and attack them from behind, and then the decision would have been made and the war won for us. When we went into the cellar, in April, a day after Hitler’s birthday,4 I still believed in it. By then no one talked to anyone any more. But we believed all of that and felt safe. We were informed about some of the things that went on in the Führer’s bunker; someone always appeared to tell us what was happening. Once Herr Naumann came, I remember that. He was checking to see if we had anything to eat. I remember eating asparagus by the pound in those days. Raw, out of tins, tinned asparagus. Someone else often came, but I can’t remember his name any more. Goebbels’s adjutant, Herr Schwägermann, appeared one day – Günther Schwägermann, a fine man, a nice man – and he delivered a bit of a report.

  He told us that Goebbels was with his family in the Führer’s bunker. And the children? The children too, the whole family, they’re living in the bunker now. Well, now we had a clearer idea. The nice flat near the Brandenburg Gate was too dangerous, and the Russians were no longer just bombing from the air: they were already firing rocket launchers. That was why he had taken his family to the bunker.

  In our first few days in the bunker a telephone was still working. I remember that we phoned Hamburg – you could still do that from Berlin. Afterwards it all went dead! We just sat there and looked around the cellar to see what we could find. There was plenty of wine, but we needed something to eat as well. We found preserves, and we ate those. You couldn’t go outside and fetch something back; you couldn’t stick your head out of the shelter at all.

  Then people who had been wounded by the Russians in street battles were brought to us in the cellar. So there was just a very small gang of us waiting. We were slowly coming to understand that the thing about the Wenck Army, which was supposed to come and liberate us, was probably not quite correct. We had two large rooms, some of which were equipped with camp beds. Someone could sleep on one of those for four hours, then he would have to get up and make room for someone else. It went on like that for a good week. We were always aware when orderlies came to the building and brought in more patients. There were noises of some kind, so we closed the doors and locked ourselves away a little. What else were we supposed to do?

  Oh, God. We vegetated! We knew that something had to happen. Every now and again someone came over from the Führer’s bunker, because Naumann was over there, and the SS soldiers kept us up to date with what was going on. So there I was in the cellar, and then Schwägermann came in and said, ‘Hitler’s taken his own life.’ For the first time we were all exposed, standing there. No one said anything; everyone had their own thoughts on the matter – and then he disappeared again. He only wanted to tell us because he knew we had no idea what was going on in the Führer’s bunker. That was the first thing we learned. Everyone knew what it meant: the war was over and lost. The war was over. That was clear to all of us.

  I can’t remember how we found out the details; I think there was a whole day and a whole night in between. In my memory there’s a long time in between, at least a day and a night. Then Schwägermann came again and said, ‘Goebbels has taken his own life. And his wife too.’ ‘And the children?’ ‘The children too!’ After that there was nothing more we could say.

  Oh, God, that certainly wasn’t nice. We probably tried to make sure that the alcohol didn’t run out. We needed it urgently. Maybe not everyone, but certainly people were ‘tippling’ a lot there. You had to numb yourself. We had no work to do. And the mood? There was fear, but there was also a sense of not being able to change anything. There was also a certain apathy. Now the time had come. We didn’t know what had come exactly – but it was all over. I didn’t even think: will they shoot me now, or will the Russians rape me? None of that mattered. I felt a bit as if I had died inside. I’d often been frightened in my life before. But now I was icy cold – unfeeling. I’m trying to say: all my feelings were gone. There wasn’t even any room for fear. Just this feeling: it’s all over. Nothing more than that. Over. It’s all over.

  There’s one other thing I remember about the previous few days. It was the last day when we still had our typewriters on the terrace at the Goebbels house. Dr Collatz5 came – another of Dr Goebbels’s personal advisors, a very nice man – and he said, ‘Pomseline, my wife and daughter are still in Potsdam and I want to say goodbye to them before things get any worse here. I’ve organised a motorbike.’ There was a transport department, part of the Ministry, and there were motorbikes as well. You weren’t allowed to ride them by then, and you couldn’t, because there was no petrol, but Dr Collatz had managed to borrow a motorbike with petrol for his journey to Potsdam. And then he said, ‘I remember you told me your parents were now in a house in Potsdam.’ Because our flat was uninhabitable again: everything was broken – all the windows, all the doors – because of bombs that had fallen nearby. ‘I can take you along,’ he said. ‘I’m setting off tomorrow morning and then coming back. We can do a quick trip.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’d love to come with you to see my parents again.’ With me on the pillion, he drove me there, said goodbye, and said, ‘I’ll come back at seven in the evening and collect you again.’

  I spent the whole afternoon with my parents. Lunchtime and afternoon. Then it was seven o’clock, and Dr Collatz didn’t come, then it was eight, then nine. I had no idea how to contact him. Of course my parents were still awake as well. But then eventually Mama said, ‘It’s time to go to bed.’ We woke up at seven the next morning – Dr Collatz hadn’t come. Now I was very agitated, because in those days there were lots of people who suddenly didn’t turn up for work. Who didn’t care about anything, and who were suddenly gone. There were lots of people who got wind of what was coming and fled. But I had a job to do and I was part of the team. I had to go into the city; I had to, I had to go back.

  My mother said, ‘So, must you really?’ – ‘Yes, I must!’ I was very dutiful; I was extremely important. I went to the station, which was ridiculous. There were no actual rail connections any more. But in fact a train did come: a local train heading for Friedrichstrasse station. I don’t know why it came! It stopped and picked me up. There were other people in it. Essentially, during those days, everything had collapsed. I went from Friedrichstrasse station straight to the Propaganda Ministry and into the cellar, and then I was in there for about another ten or eleven days.

  Somebody later told me what had happened to Dr Collatz. He went to see his wife. He had a little daughter of about ten or eleven: a disabled child, but her parents were very attached to her. She was their only child. He rode there, took them both to the Wannsee, and shot his wife and child and himself. He extinguished all three lives. So he had never planned to come back, but neither could he tell me what he had planned, and he couldn’t say to me that he wasn’t coming back. He went there with very firm intentions and did it deliberately, because he thought he had no more prospects in his life.

  Did Dr Collatz want to save my life? Certainly. He must have thought, ‘If she’s worked it out somehow, she will use the opportunity to stay in the country.’ In retrospect that
was enormously stupid of me. It really was a time when you knew that the war couldn’t be won. Why did I have to go back? It was stupid of me. But I hadn’t thought about what would happen next. I think by that point I couldn’t feel anything: it was as if I was dead, pale and extinguished. It’s hard for me to talk about things in the past and what state of mind I was in.

  Now of course I’m glad that I always coped with things well. It could have been quite different, but then I wouldn’t have had the chance to think about it, and it would all have been over for me as well. Today I think that for all the things that happened to me, I mean things that weren’t good – particularly bad things – well, I dealt with them reasonably well. I’m glad about that, and I’m also content with myself. And I have every reason to be.

  Everything was nice so much of the time. In between times I was very, very happy. It was never actually completely boring. But sometimes it was a bit boring. My God, a life like that can’t just consist of highs and lows. There were long periods of resting in between. I had those, but so does everybody. There was no miracle weapon and no Wenck Army to come and save us. We stopped thinking, full stop. We put our hands in our laps and thought, ‘How’s it going to end?’ There were a few real idiots – I was one of them – who thought the Wenck Army, the one that was going to attack the Russians from behind, would make it, and that would be the climax of the war. Now the Wenck Army is killing the Russian soldiers, and we’ve come up smiling. There weren’t very many of us in the hard core of the Propaganda Ministry. I didn’t believe it by pure faith; I just thought there was no other possibility, just that one. The army exists, it will come and make a clean sweep and then everything will be fine.