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Title details for He Was My Chief by Christa Schroeder - Available

He Was My Chief

The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Secretary

by Christa Schroeder
Roger Moorhouse
ebook
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"A rare and fascinating insight into Hitler's inner circle." —Roger Moorhouse, author of Killing Hitler

As secretary to the Führer throughout the time of the Third Reich, Christa Schroeder was perfectly placed to observe the actions and behavior of Hitler, along with the most important figures surrounding him. Schroeder's memoir delivers fascinating insights: she notes his bourgeois manners, his vehement abstemiousness, and his mood swings. Indeed, she was ostracized by Hitler for a number of months after she made the mistake of publicly contradicting him once too often.

In addition to her portrayal of Hitler, there are illuminating anecdotes about Hitler's closest colleagues. She recalls, for instance, that the relationship between Martin Bormann and his brother Albert, who was on Hitler's personal staff, was so bad that the two would only communicate with one another via their respective adjutants, even if they were in the same room. There is also light shed on the peculiar personal life and insanity of Reichsminister Walther Darré. Schroeder claims to have known nothing of the horrors of the Nazi regime. There is nothing of the sense of perspective or the mea culpa that one finds in the memoirs of Hitler's other secretary, Traudl Junge, who concluded "we should have known." Rather, the tone that pervades Schroeder's memoir is one of bitterness. This is, without any doubt, one of the most important primary sources from the prewar and wartime period.

  • Creators

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  • Release date

    January 24, 2020

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

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      • ISBN: 9781783030644

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781783030644
      • File size: 1258 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      September 1, 2009
      There is something creepy yet fascinating about these two memoirs by individuals who spent years working daily with Adolf Hitler. Schroeder began her association with Hitler in 1933, serving as one of his personal secretaries, while Linge became Hitler's valet in 1939. Nearly every day for years, they saw Hitler up close and personal, observing his quirks, charms, rages, brooding silences, unpredictability, and very strange work habits, which usually consisted of staying up most of the night and then sleeping into the late morning and not being functional until later in the day. Neither seems to have known much about the darkest side of Hitler's ambitions as he set about killing millions and destroying much of EuropeSchroeder declares no interest in politics. Instead, the reader is hooked into Hitler's seeming ordinariness, as the Fhrer takes his daily afternoon tea while chatting with his secretaries about art, language, and movies. Linge, who was with Hitler to the very end, supposedly helping to burn his body, also provides accounts of those who surrounded Hitler (he seems to have liked Goebbels quite a bit). For German-reading scholars of Hitler and Nazism, this is all old news, since Linge's memoirs were originally published in 1980 and Schroeder's in 1985. The rest of us can now contemplate the remarkable picture that these books offer. VERDICT The scariest thing about these books is their showing that Hitler could be quite charminga seemingly regular guy, or at least as regular as anyone who killed millions could ever be. Of interest to anyone seeking more insight into the everyday life of one of history's monsters.Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

      Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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Languages

  • English

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