But for one woman, the name Adolf Hitler evokes a
smile not a shudder. She is Rosa Mitterer, who worked as a maid for the Fuhrer
at his mountain retreat in Bavaria in the 1930s.
Rosa is 91 and until now has
kept a vow of silence about her experiences. She has chosen to break it after
realizing she is the last survivor of the circle who served the “tyrant” in the
years before he launched the Second World War.
91-year-old Rosa Mitterer is the sole survivor
of those who served Adolf Hitler in the years before the Second World War and
her verdict on her former master:
“He was a charming man, someone who was only ever nice to me, a great boss
to work for. You can say what you like, but he was a good man to us.”
Rosa went into Hitler's
service at the age of 15 in 1932 when she was Rosa Krautenbacher. Her sister
Anni had worked as a cook at Hitler's Berchtesgaden retreat since the late
1920s.
“She said he needed a housemaid and I would fit the bill,' Rosa recalled.
'I remember so clearly the first day I spoke to him in the kitchen. I said I
was Anni's sister and that made him smile, because Anni was his favourite. I
only ever knew Hitler as a kindly man who was good to me.”
“My sister and I shared a room that was directly over Hitler's. We could
hear him crying.” For a long time she and Anni were the only servants in the home, known as
Berghof.
Recalling her first direct request
from her master, she said she was drying some porcelain cups when he came down
the stairs. 'Hello,' he said softly. 'Sorry to trouble you, but could you make
me some coffee and bring some gingerbread biscuits to my study?' Coming into
such close proximity to Hitler made her feel faint, she said, but she soon
became accustomed to life at Berghof.
'I rose at 6am every day and put on a red-green dirndl with a white apron.
My first task was to feed his dogs - he had three German shepherds at the beginning
called Wolf, Muck and Blondi.
His bedroom was modestly furnished; beside the bed hung a picture of his
mother.”
She added: “I didn't have to be a Nazi party member or anything. After a while I
relaxed a bit. Apparently it was Hitler's orders that Anni and I be taken to
church every Sunday because he thought this would be "good for us".
“Another time he came into the kitchen, saw me and said, "Ahh, I see
our little one has grown a little plumper!".”
Part of her duties involved
sorting out the fan letters and presents that were delivered in their thousands
to the house.
“There were cigars, jars of jam, flowers, pictures,' she recalled. 'We gave
most of them away to poorer peasant families nearby on Hitler's orders.”
Her time in service also
allowed her to see at close quarters the woman Hitler kept secret from his
people throughout his rule - Eva Braun. “She
was not so pretty close up,” Rosa recalled.
“Himmler was always there too, thinner than what he looked like in the
photos and Goebbels.
“And Bormann, I didn't like him at all. He was a dirty pig.” By the end of
1934, the house was surrounded by minefields and SS checkpoints. Rosa said. “I
felt like a prisoner instead of an employee.”
In 1935 she fell in love with
local businessman Josef Amorts and handed in her notice. She was told she could
leave immediately. “I only met Hitler once more, on December 10, 1936, when
Anni married Herbert Döhring, manager of the Berghof. He came to the wedding
and was nice to me, saying he missed me.”
Rosa married in 1939 and had
three daughters. She later remarried. A great-grandmother, she now lives in
Munich.
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