Traudl Junge, the never ending story.

[Gianni Lepri]

One of the recurring threads regarding the fate of the women escaping the bunker after May 1st 1945 (together wit the fate of Constanze Manzialy) is about Traudl Junge being raped and subsequently being held captive, property of Russian high brasses. I have browsed back and forth between wikipedias, from Rumania to Argentina (blessed Google Translate), checked up any reference, cross checked quoted accounts, always to end up with the book “The Bunker” by James P. O’Donnel as the first peer originating the fact.

I read O’Donnel’s book once again lately. My impression is not changed since my first reading years ago, when I neglected it as historical source due to the lack of references. Maybe unfair of me, O’Donnel was a (brilliant) Newsweek journalist, however he never claimed to be an historian. He widely used hearsay and maintained that his process produced even more reliable accounts than direct interview of the person involved. Good enough to sell newspapers by the heading, a bit dangerous to play with to revisit history, I guess.

The truth is, that O’Donnel was specifically frustrated by disagreement and unwillingness of some of AH secretaries (Traudl and Johanna) and had to fill the gaps namely by the use of thirs parties. For instance, the alleged rape and fracture are not accounted by Traudl but are a sentence (from whom?) appearing in the midst of the account of another female fugitive, Elisabeth D., a telegraphist from the Chancellery whom identity has never been disclosed. To make confusion greater, according to O’Donnel, Elisabeth carried the very bag of diamonds that Gerda Christian had had entrusted by general Mohnke (are Gerda and Elisabeth the same woman?). As for the rape of the women, together with Traudl’s scull fracture, O’Donnel “got it indirectly” to use his words without telling us from whom. So we are left with the writer hearsaying an unidentified person and describing an episode obtained “indirectly” from just as much identified sources.

Traudl gave a witnessed declaration to Musmanno on January 1948 where, among other things, she considered herself lucky not to have been raped. Fifty years later the book Until the Final Hour changed nothing of it, neither did her interviews, to quote a few, given to Gitta Sereny, David Irving, not to mention the one published in Till Bastian’s book “Niemandszeit – Deutche Portraits zwischen Kriegsende un Neubeginn”, only german language available, I’m afraid.

[Grisu]

Interesting issue you raise here, mauvered. From what you seem to have carefully looked into, would it be wrong, then, to deduce that the "never ending story" has in fact ended? You refer to various different sourced information saying absolutely nothing about the atrocities the single one non-sourced information claims to have happened. Even more, the sourced information partly contradicts the non-sourced one. As it seems to me, the "facts" are thus pointing definitely to one direction that appears to be far more plausible - or don't they?

[Wordsworth]

I know this is an old thread, but I, too, have been reading Traudl's accounts and have never found anything in her published words that stated she was raped, either. I've not read O'Donnel's book, but I found a review of a book/movie on another site that claimed Traudl had been raped several times. I was surprised as I'd not seen that anywhere else...and it does seem that it may not have happened at all.

[DavidFrankenberg]

That is a great question. Was Traudl Junge raped or not by russian troops ?
O'Donnell claims it in his 1968 book :

In O'Donnell's account they were all raped by Russian soldiers, Traudl Junge suffering a fractured skull as a result of her resistance. While Junge was later held for several months as the "personal prisoner" of a high-ranking Russian officer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bunke ... ite_note-3

But when you look at the note, wiki does not indicate O'Donnell's book but

The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared For Stalin From The Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides, New York, 2005

> the Uhl-Eberle's book published in 2005, being the NKVD file about Hitler from the testimonies of Linge and Günsche.
That means that Linge and/or Günsche witnessed the secretaries' rapes ? Wiki seems weaky : they dont give the page of the book. I'll try to check it later.

Of course, it seems quiet impossible for a group of womens taken prisoners by the Red Army soldiers not to have been raped, since almost all german women were supposed to have been raped at the time...

So, Traudl Junge saying she was not raped may seem incredible. But, look at what Erna Flegel, nurse in the Bunker, said about the russians :

The Russians treated us very humanely. They came to the entrance and we negotiated with them. First of all they sent someone to talk to us and to have a look round. By this stage there were only six or seven of us left, not more. They looked here and there. They (the Russians) were selected personnel and they behaved quite decently.

Mrs Flegel added that when the Soviet troops arrived, they were well-behaved and advised her to lock her door.

viewtopic.php?f=77&t=76788&p=2097358
Maybe they were both raped and denied it. Maybe they were spared, but this seems unprobable in the context. This is hard to say.

[seaburn]

The claim in the 'Hitler Book' Is on page 295 and obviously was not in the report made for Stalin, but is mentioned in passing in the end section 'authors afterword'. The authors have not cited this and so it seems as per the original poster, that all published claims seem to lead back to the same source.

[Balrog]

I remember reading that the Soviet troops who entered the bunker were hand picked specialists: highly disciplined and well trained. Their priority was to locate Hitler and his inner circle or at least find out what had happened to them. These soldiers were better behaved.

I also read the interview with the nurse you refer to (well, at least one of the interviews). She said she was still down in the bunker after the surrender when a Soviet soldier walked down into the bunker and said something to the effect: 'Is anyone still down here?" The nurse was sent to a Soviet hospital and told to tend to the wounded. She was lucky.

[DavidFrankenberg]

The claim in the 'Hitler Book' Is on page 295 and obviously was not in the report made for Stalin, but is mentioned in passing in the end section 'authors afterword'. The authors have not cited this and so it seems as per the original poster, that all published claims seem to lead back to the same source.

Thanks for the reference, i have not checked it yet.
So Uhl Eberle 's source should be O'Donnell who dont give a source for his claim. We can say following O'Donnell, that one (or more) of the surviving secretaries have told him so. We have to guess that Traundl Junge didnt tell him so, since in her later testimonies she denied having been raped. But, there is another possibility : Traudl Junge did tell O'Donnell that they were raped under the cover of anonimity ; and publicly she stated the contrary.

Does anyone have a clue about other secretaries' account ? Christa Schroeder and Johanna Wolf were taken prisoners by US forces. So they are not concerned. But, what about Gerda Christian and Else Krüger who were taken prisoners with Traudl Junge ?
Else Krüger remained silent forever, she never published anything and refused all contacts with the press (http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/in-your- ... s-10757448). It seems improbable that she was the one who talked to O'Donnell...
Gerda Christian never published a book, so like Krüger she is not the most probable girl to have spoken to O'Donnell... But Gerda's case seems more complicated : viewtopic.php?t=48471#p1343717 She is supposed to have written her memoirs, but they are unpublished and kept somewhere under lock. viewtopic.php?t=48471#p1410105

So, if Krüger and Christian never talked about what happened, only Traudl i supposed to have spoken to O'Donnell. She asked for anonymity in O'Donnell's book ; but it was published, the shame of the rape's tale surely led her to reconsider her intention not to speak publicly. So she published her book stating that she was not raped at all. Traudl was the only one who talked to the press :

Following the war, Junge appeared in two episodes (No. 16, "Inside the Reich" (1940–1944) and No. 21, "Nemesis: Germany (February – May 1945)") of the Thames Television (ITV) 1973 television documentary series The World at War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traudl_Junge#Later_life
Does anyone know what she said in those interviews ?

[DavidFrankenberg]

I have forgotten one of the women of the bunker : Constanz Manziarly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constanze_Manziarly. She was in the group of Traudl and others... Traudl said that she decided to wear a coat from the german army... that cost her her life : 2 soviet soldiers took her away , and are supposed to rape her and kill her.. nobody saw her again after that...
But Gerda Christian said Constanz suicided herself with a cyanid pill in the bunker. Is this a way for Gerda Christian to save the honor of Manziarly ? Why
Traudl said that Manziarly looked russian (she was half greek) and was wearing a Wehrmacht's coat, Soviet soldiers thought she was a traitor and so she deserved death.
In a context of so much burtality, it seems improbable that Junge and other women didnt suffer any violence.