Gerda Christian

Gerda Christian ( born December 13, 1913 as Gerda Daranowski in Berlin, † April 14, 1997 in Dusseldorf ) was from 1937 to 1945 in addition to Traudl Junge, Christa Schroeder and Johanna Wolf one of the four secretaries of Adolf Hitler. She was the only secretary who remained until after the death of Hitler in the Führerbunker in Berlin ..

Career in the Nazi era

Prior to her time in the personal adjutant of the Fuehrer Daranowski worked as a clerk for the U.S. cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden.

Hitler stopped the young woman in 1937, after his two older secretaries Johanna Wolf and Christa Schroeder had long complained about the heavy workload, could do the two women alone impossible. Hitler cut short their Polish family names and called them Dara. They quickly became Hitler's closest confidant among the secretaries, he often praised for their attractive appearance. The end of 1942 Daranowski went on vacation for a long time, since they had the Air Force major Eckhard Christian met, who worked as an aide of the Chief of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff at Hitler's headquarters. On February 2, 1943 Daranowski and Eckhard Christian.Die married marriage remained childless and ended in divorce in 1945. To fill the resulting gap in the personal adjutant of the leader, the young Traudl Humps Münchnerin (later Young ) set in December 1942. In the summer of 1943 Dara returned to the delight of Hitler in the service as a leader secretary back. She was now on every trip to the leaders of headquarters and in the Berghof.

The Downfall

As Hitler's last personal adjutant Otto Günsche held in occupied by Soviet troops in Berlin Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery to last from. She left on the evening of April 30, 1945, together with the then 27 -year-old Günsche the Führerbunker. After describing Günsche were both out of the bombed Reich Chancellery underground penetrated under fire in Berlin fighting Soviet soldiers, by underground tunnel to the Friedrichstrasse station.

There the way of long -time associate of Hitler's team parted. Günsche got into perennial Russian captivity, they, however, fled to Bavaria. There she was arrested and interrogated by the U.S. military police. Both later found in the Rhineland in business enterprises work.

In fixed fidelity

After years of hardship Christian found a job with a German bank in the Rhineland. Günsche became manager in a pharmaceutical company. Both stayed in touch, " In Treue fest " after the motto. They used the Duzfreundschaft once begun in the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin with the sculptor Arno Breker, who by now had moved with his wife Mimina from Bavaria to Dusseldorf. Its spacious studio has been a meeting place for " friends of earlier ". Gerda Christian was for decades until the death of Arno Breker in 1991 the honorary secretary. Gerda Christian died on 14 April 1997 in a hospital in Dusseldorf from cancer. On their previous arrangement, she was cremated. It was - as in the case of his friend with her until death Günsche - a burial at sea in German waters. On the occasion of the 100th birthday on December 13, 2013 former acquaintances of the deceased have passed a bouquet of red roses the Baltic Sea.