This book is neither a retrospective justification nor a self-indictment. I do not want it to be read as a confession either. Instead, it is my attempt to be reconciled not so much to the world around me as to myself. It does not ask my readers for understanding, but it will help them to understand.

I was Hitler's secretary for two and a half years. Apart from that my life has always been unspectacular. In 1947-48 I put down on paper my memories, then still very vivid, of the time I had spent close to Adolf Hitler. At this period we were all looking to the future and trying - with remarkable success, incidentally - to repress and play down our past experiences. I set about writing my memoirs objectively, trying to record the outstanding events and episodes of the immediate past before details that might later be of interest faded or were forgotten entirely.

When I read my manuscript again several decades later, I was horrified by my uncritical failure to distance myself from my subject at the time, and ashamed of it. How could I have been so naive and unthinking? But that is only one of the reasons why, until now, I have been reluctant to let the manuscript be published in my own country. Another reason is that in view of the huge amount of literature about Adolf Hitler and his "Thousand-Year Reich", my own history and observations did not strike me as important enough for publication. I also feared avid sensationalism and approval from the wrong quarters.

I have never kept my past a secret, but the people around me made it very easy for me to repress the thought of it after the war: they said I had been too young and inexperienced to see through my boss, a man whose honourable facade hid a criminal lust for power. By "they" I mean not just the denazification commission which exonerated me as a "youthful fellow traveller", but all the acquaintances with whom I discussed my experiences. Some of them were people suspected of complicity with the Nazis themselves, but others were victims of persecution by the regime. I was only too ready to accept the excuses they made for me. After all, I was only twenty-five years old when Nazi Germany fell, and more than anything else I wanted to get on with my life.

Not until the middle of the 1960s did I gradually and seriously begin to confront my past and my growing sense of guilt. Over the last thirty-five years that confrontation has become an increasingly painful process: an exhausting attempt to understand myself and my motivation at the time. I have learned to admit that in 1942, when I was twenty-two and eager for adventure, I was fascinated by Adolf Hitler, thought him an agreeable employer, paternal and friendly, and deliberately ignored the warning voice inside me, although I heard it clearly enough. I have learned to admit that I enjoyed working for him almost to the bitter end. After the revelation of his crimes, I shall always live with a sense that I must share the guilt.

Traudl is five years old when her father leaves. Even before that he was not, admittedlv, the traditional father-figure, but on the few occasions when he did come home she found him a delightful companion and an inventive playmate.
She begins school in 1926. She goes to the Simultanschule in Munich's Luisenstrasse, an establishment which admits children of all religious persuasions, probably not so much as the result of any broad-minded attitude of her mother's as because it was close to her grandparents' apartment in Sophienstrasse, near the Old Botanical Garden. Traudl was baptized an Evangelical, but has grown up without strong ties to the church and often plays truant from the Sunday children's services.

Traudl's grandfather Maximilian Zottmann, born in 1852, rules over the five-roomed apartment in Sophienstrasse, which is quite a grand place. She finds her grandfather a stern and pedantic autocrat who regulates the course of his day to the minute, thinks a great deal of discipline and order, and doesn't understand a joke. He is no substitute for her father. He regularly tells her mother, "Kindly bring your brats up better", when Traudl and Inge laugh just a childish decibel too loud. But little Traudi's world is still all right as long as her grandmother is alive. Agathe Zottmann makes peace between everyone in the apartment, and Traudl adores her. Agathe is a native of Leipzig and met her husband when she was visiting the spa resort of Bad Reichenhall; Traudl later describes her grandmother as a very affectionate, understanding woman. The little girl loves to hear Agathe's stories of Leipzig in her young days, and when Traudl has to write a composition at school on "My Dream Holiday" she chooses not Hawaii or the Himalayas like her school friends, but Leipzig.

Agathe dies in 1928, and her loss hits eight-year-old Traudl hard. After his wife's death Traudl's grandfather becomes meaner with money and more of a domestic tyrant than ever. He likes his new-found bachelor freedom and plays sugar daddy to a young dancer called Thea, and although his daughter is running his household he misses no opportunity to point out that she and the children are a financial burden on him. In 1930, when Traudl begins secondary school at the Luisenlyzeum for girls, her mother applies for reduced fees because she cannot pay the full amount out of her housekeeping money - only 4.50 marks a day to feed four mouths. Traudl often has to report sick when there is a school outing because her mother can't scrape up the 2.70 marks for expenses. However, she does not feel that her childhood and early youth are unhappy. Difficult as their situation is for both mother and children, it brings the three of them closer together. Hildegard Humps is not a particularly demonstrative woman - not the kind of mother you kiss and cuddle - but her children feel that she loves them and understands them. She provides them with security. Her educational ideals are those of her time: they must grow up to be "decent people", truthful, helpful, honourable, modest and considerate, they must make allowances and they mustn't poke their noses into what is none of their business.

At this time Hitler had three secretaries. The youngest of them, Frau Christian, had now married and left her job with Ilitler. The other two, Fraulein Wolf and Fraulein Schroeder, had been his secretaries and constant companions for over ten years. All the stress and strain of such an irregular life had already affected their ability to perform well, and so had their increasing age. One day Hitler wanted to dictate a document. Fraulein Wolf was unwell; Fraulein Schroeder was out at the theatre in Berlin. He was furious to find that there was no one available when he happened to need secretarial help, hauled his adjutant Bormann over the coals and told him to make sure such a thing never happened again. Younger secretaries must be recruited to take some of the burden off the shoulders of the two veterans. And so it was that at the end of November 1942 we ten girls, all of us still quite young, were summoned to the Supreme Commander.

The big storerooms stocked with provisions by the household manager are emptied. There are scarcely enough takers for all the canned food, bottles of wine, champagne and schnapps, chocolate. These things have lost their value. But everyone gets weapons from the leader of the escort commando. We women are each given a pistol too. We are not to fire it, we are told, except in the utmost need. Then we get practical clothing. We have to go over to the camp at the very back of the bunker, on Vossstrasse. It means passing through the operating theatre. I've never seen a dead body before, and I've always run away from the sight of blood. Now, empty-eyed, I see two dead soldiers in a terrible condition lying on stretchers. Professor Haase doesn't even look up as we come in. Sweating and concentrating hard, he is working on a leg amputation. There are buckets full of blood and human limbs everywhere. The saw grates as it works its way through bone. I see and hear nothing, the pictures don't penetrate my conscious mind. Automatically, I let someone hand me a steel helmet, long trousers and a short jacket in the room next door, try on boots and go back to the other bunker.

The new clothes feel odd hanging on my body. Now the men arc in full marching gear too. Many of them have removed their epaulettes and decorations. Captain Baur has taken the oil painting of Frederick the Great out of its frame and rolled it up. He wants it as a souvenir. Hewel can't make up his mind what to do. He always was an indecisive character. Now he doesn't know where to die - should he take his poison or join our fighting group? He decides on the latter, and so does Admiral Voss. And so do Bormann, Naumann, Kempka, Baur, Schwagermann, Stumpfegger, they all want to get out.

I suddenly remember the children. There's no sign of Frau Goebbels. She has shut herself in her room. Are the children still with her? Some girl from the kitchen, or maybe it was a chambermaid, had offered to take the six children out with her. The Russians might not harm them. But I don't know if Frau Goebbels accepted this offer.

We sit around and wait for evening. Only Schadle, the wounded leader of the escort commando, has shot himself. Suddenly the door of the room occupied by the Goebbels family opens. A nurse and a man in a white coat are carrying out a huge, heavy crate. A second crate follows. My heart stands still for a moment. I can't help thinking of the children. The size of the crate would be about right. So my dulled heart can still feel something after all, and there's a huge lump in my throat.

Krebs and Burgdorf stand up, smooth down their uniform tunics, and shake hands with everyone in farewell. They are not leaving, they're going to shoot themselves here. Then they go out, parting from those who mean to wait longer. We must wait for darkness to fall. Goebbels walks restlessly up and down, smoking, like a hotel proprietor waiting discreetly and in silence for the last guests to leave the bar. He has stopped complaining and ranting. So the time has come. We all shake hands with him in farewell. He wishes me good luck, with a twisted smile. "You may get through," he says softly, in heartfelt tones. But I shake my head doubtfully. We are completely surrounded by the enemy, and there are Russian tanks in the Potsdamer Platz...

One by one we leave these scenes of horror. I pass Hitler's door for the last time. His plain grey overcoat is hanging from the iron coat-stand as usual, and above it I see his big cap with the golden national emblem on it and his pale suede gloves. The dog's leash is dangling beside them. It looks like a gallows. I'd like to take the gloves as a memento, or at least one of them. But my outstretched hand falls again, I don't know why. My silver fox coat is hanging in the wardrobe in Eva's room. Its lining bears the golden monogram E.B. I don't need it now, I don't need anything but the pistol and the poison.

So we go over to the big coal-cellar of the New Reich Chancellery. Otto Günsche leads us through the crowds; his broad shoulders forcing a way for us four women (Frau Christian, Fraulein Kruger, Fraulein Manziarly and me) through the soldiers waiting here ready to march. Among them I see the familiar faces of Bormann, Baur, Stumpfegger, Kempka, Rattenhuber and Linge, all now wearing steel helmets. We nod to each other. Most of them I've never seen again.

Then we wait in our bunker room to be fetched. We have all destroyed our papers. I take no money with me, no provisions, no clothes, just a great many cigarettes and a few pictures I can't part with. The other women pack small bags. They are going to try to find their way out through this hell too. Only the nurses stay behind.

It could be about eight-thirty in the evening. We are to be the first group leaving the bunker. A few soldiers I don't know from the guards battalion, we four women, Otto Günsche, Mohnke, Hewel and Admiral Voss make our way through the many waiting people and go down underground passages. We clamber over half-wrecked staircases, through holes in walls and rubble, always going further up and out. At last the Wilhelmsplatz stretches ahead, shining in the moonlight. The dead horse still lies there on the paving stones, but only the remains of it now. Hungry people have come out of the U-Bahn tunnels to slice off pieces of meat ...

Soundlessly, we cross the square. Sporadic shots are fired, but the gunfire is stronger further away. Then we have reached the U-Bahn tunnel outside the ruins of the Kaiserhof. We climb down and work our way on in the darkness, over the wounded and the homeless, past soldiers resting, until we reach Friedrichstrasse Station. Here the tunnel ends and hell begins. We have to get through, and we succeed. The whole fighting group gets across the U-Bahn bend uninjured. But an inferno breaks out behind us. Hundreds of snipers are shooting at those who follow us.

For hours we crawl through cavernous cellars, burning buildings, strange, dark streets! Somewhere in an abandoned cellar we rest and sleep for a couple of hours. Then we go on, until Russian tanks bar our way. None of us has a heavy weapon. We are carrying nothing but pistols. So the night passes, and in the morning it is quiet. The gunfire has stopped. We still haven't seen any Russian soldiers. Finally we end up in the old beer cellar of a brewery now being used as a bunker. This is our last stop. There are Russian tanks out here, and it's full daylight. We still get into the bunker unseen. Down there Mohnke and Günsche sit in a corner and begin to write. Hewel lies on one of the plank beds, stares at the ceiling and says nothing. He doesn't want to go on. Two soldiers bring in the wounded Rattenhuber. He has taken a shot in the leg, he is feverish and hallucinating. A doctor treats him and puts him on a camp bed. Rattenhuber gets out his pistol, takes off the safety catch and puts it down beside him.

A general comes into the bunker, finds the defending commander Mohnke and speaks to him. We discover that we are in the last bastion of resistance in the capital of the Reich. The Russians have now surrounded the brewery and are calling on everyone to surrender. Mohnke writes a last report. There is still an hour to go. The rest of us sit there smoking. Suddenly he raises his head, looks at us women and says, "You must help us now. We're all wearing uniform, none of us will get out of here. But you can try to get through, make your way to Donitz and give him this last report."

I don't want to go on any more, but Frau Christian and the other two urge me to; they shake me until I finally follow them. We leave our steel helmets and pistols there. We take our military jackets off too. Then we shake hands with the men and go.

An SS company is standing by its vehicles in the brewery yard, stony-faced and motionless, waiting for the order for the last attack. The Volkssturm, the OT men and the soldiers are throwing their weapons down in a heap and going out to the Russians. At the far end of the yard Russian soldiers are already handing out schnapps and cigarettes to German soldiers, telling them to surrender, celebrating fraternization. We pass through them as if we were invisible. Then we are outside the encircling ring, among wild hordes of Russian victors, and at last I can weep.

Where were we to turn? If I'd never seen dead people before, I saw them now everywhere. No one was taking any notice of them. A little sporadic firing was still going on. Sometimes the Russians set buildings on fire and searched for soldiers in hiding. We were threatened on every corner. I lost track of my colleagues that same day. I went on alone for a long time, hopelessly, until at last I ended up in a Russian prison. When the cell door closed behind me I didn't even have my poison any more, it had all happened so fast. Yet I was still alive. And now began a dreadful, terrible time, but I didn't want to die any more; I was curious to find out what else a human being can experience. And fate was kind to me. As if by a miracle, I escaped being transported to the East. The unselfish human kindness of one man preserved me from that. After many long months, I was at last able to go home and back to a new life.

As exits go, that of Traudl Junge was timed to exquisite perfection. Her life was largely one in which infamy was overlaid by obscurity. Then, for a brief few days, she was accorded something approaching global fame. And, in the midst of it, at the age of 81, she died.

Junge was one of Adolf Hitler's secretaries. She took down his last will and testament. She was in his bunker when he committed suicide in 1945. She has just published her book, Through The Final Hours, which was based on notes she compiled in 1946. She herself died in the night of Sunday to Monday, hours after a long-awaited and widely publicised documentary on her life was given its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

She had been suffering from cancer. She spent her last days in a Munich hospital.

With masterly ambiguity, the documentary, by the multi-talented André Heller, was called Blind Spot - a title that did justice both to Junge's claims to have been kept in the dark and the belief of many historians that she and others close to the Führer suffered from an entirely self-induced amnesia.

Junge insisted that Hitler and other Nazi leaders "practically never mentioned the word Jew" in her presence, even though it was while she was working for the Führer that his regime killed most of the 6m Jews who died in the Holocaust. She said she only found out about the Holocaust after the war, and then felt wracked with guilt for having liked "the greatest criminal who ever lived".

Among those who scorned her claims were staff at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. After Heller's film was screened in Berlin, Efraim Zuroff, director of the centre's office in Israel, said: "Her story reflects the blind loyalty of far too many Germans whose allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi party enabled the implementation of the final solution."

Junge was born Gertraud Humps in Munich. She had wanted to be a ballet dancer, but when she heard of a vacancy in the Chancellery, she played up her typing and shorthand skills to land the job. "I thought I would be at the source of all information. But I was really in a blind spot," she said in the documentary.

In December 1942, she became the youngest of the Nazi dictator's personal secretaries. "He was a pleasant older man who welcomed us with real friendliness," she said of their first meeting. Among her recollections of the Führer was that he did not like cut flowers because, he said, he did not want to be "surrounded by corpses".

In 1943, she married one of Hitler's aides, Hans Junge. He was killed a year later when a British plane strafed his company in Normandy.

The young widow joined Hitler and his staff when they moved into an underground bunker in Berlin in January 1945. She recalled Hitler sitting for long periods of time, just staring into the distance. Meals were no longer served regularly, and people even began to smoke in the Führer's presence.

"It was a terrible time. I can't really remember my feelings. We were all in a state of shock, like machines," she said.

After the war, Junge was taken into custody by the Red Army, then the Americans. After being interrogated and spending about six months in prison, she was released. She continued to work in Germany as a secretary, and later as a science reporter.

Othmar Schmiderer, the producer of the documentary, was among the last people to speak to her. He quoted her as saying: "Now that I've let go of my story, I can let go of my life."

Junge had no children, but is survived by a sister who lives in Australia.

Born Gertraud Humps in Munich in 1920, her first ambition was to become a dancer; but, when she failed to be accepted by a dance school, she trained as a secretary, gaining the highest marks in her class for her typing ability.
Through a contact who knew Martin Bormann - Hitler's private secretary - she heard that there was a vacancy on the Fuhrer's staff at the Wolfsschanze....

Traudl Junge apparently never encountered the "second" Hitler, claiming that it was only after the war ended that she fully understood the evil perpetrated under the Third Reich: "We never saw him as the statesman, we didn't attend any of the conferences. We were summoned only when he wanted to dictate, and he was as considerate then as he was in private."

After Stalingrad, Hitler's two older secretaries would eat lunch with him, while the two younger ones - including Traudl Junge - would share his supper.

"My colleagues told me," she said, "that in the earlier years he talked incessantly, about the past and the future, but after Stalingrad, well, I don't remember many monologues. We all tried to distract him, with talk about films, or gossip, anything that would take his mind off the war. He loved gossip. That was part of that other side of him, which was basically the only one we saw."

After the war she was to express her remorse: "I have the feeling from year to year that I have less and less ability to forgive the young thing that I was."

When the end came, in the Berlin bunker, Traudl Junge witnessed Hitler poisoning his dog to verify that the potassium cyanide given him by Himmler as a means of committing suicide was genuine.

The Führer offered one of the capsules to his young secretary - but she made her escape from the bunker, to the echo of the shot that killed Hitler.

Two days earlier, Hitler had dictated his will to Traudl Junge: "I wrote as fast as I could," she remembered. "My fingers worked mechanically and I was surprised that I hardly made any typing mistakes."

Traudl Junge was captured, and imprisoned for six months by the Russians. She later became a journalist, first as a writer for Quick magazine, then as a freelance.