Nazi propagandist Goebbels' wartime secretary dies at 106
- 7 years ago
One of the last people to know members of Germany’s Nazi leadership in person has died in Munich at the age of 106.
Brunhilde Pomsel was a former secretary to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister.
In a documentary produced last year she talked about the three years she spent working for one of the 20th century’s worst war criminals.
Goebbels committed suicide with his wife towards the end of World War II after poisoning their six children.
“To experience him directly at a distance of 10-15 metres, someone whom you saw almost every day, who came into the office all smart and elegant, with a kind of noble elegance – and then to see him there like a raging midget. Well, you couldn’t imagine a greater contrast,” she said in the documentary.
Pomsel said she knew nothing of the Nazis’ atrocities during the war, including the murder of six million Jews.
She reportedly lost a Jewish friend in the Holocaust.
Held by the Soviet authorities for five years after the war ended, she lived in obscurity until her story was unearthed in an interview in 2011.
Former secretary to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels dead at 106. https://t.co/TdYGaSNlOh pic.twitter.com/xSHXsQCeVM— dwnews (@dwnews) January 30, 2017
Brunhilde Pomsel was a former secretary to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister.
In a documentary produced last year she talked about the three years she spent working for one of the 20th century’s worst war criminals.
Goebbels committed suicide with his wife towards the end of World War II after poisoning their six children.
“To experience him directly at a distance of 10-15 metres, someone whom you saw almost every day, who came into the office all smart and elegant, with a kind of noble elegance – and then to see him there like a raging midget. Well, you couldn’t imagine a greater contrast,” she said in the documentary.
Pomsel said she knew nothing of the Nazis’ atrocities during the war, including the murder of six million Jews.
She reportedly lost a Jewish friend in the Holocaust.
Held by the Soviet authorities for five years after the war ended, she lived in obscurity until her story was unearthed in an interview in 2011.
Former secretary to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels dead at 106. https://t.co/TdYGaSNlOh pic.twitter.com/xSHXsQCeVM— dwnews (@dwnews) January 30, 2017