Traudl Junge,Melissa Muller, Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary Review

Overall Rating

A haunting account forcing empathy to stir in every reader.

It finishes rather abruptly.

Traudl Junge,Melissa Muller's book, Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary, from start to finish is addictive to read, I for one could not put it down. Although this is a factual account of events leading to the death of the Fuehrer and the Germany he created there is a strong sense of the real human emotion throughout. I am well aquainted with the cold accounts usually given with a biased outlook, and constant references to all nazis as heartless monsters who all thrived and even laughed together at the deaths of the jews, and no real attempt at understanding them as people. However Traudl's memoirs are frought with touching and tear-jerking moments. I was especially moved by descriptions of the Goebbles children asking for 'uncle Hitler and auntie Eva'. Also the discription of a distraught Dr Goebbles sobbing and begging to stay with his leader was both unnerving and fascinating at the same time.
I would recommend that anyone with a quest for truth and understanding read this book, they will not be dissapointed.