In 1942, a 22-year-old woman named Gertraud Junge, known as Traudl, was living in Munich, working as a secretary. She was good at it. Fast, sharp, and capable, but what she really wanted more than anything was to be a dancer. She had passed her dance exams and was ready to trade in her typewriter for toe shoes. But this was Nazi Germany, and war wasn't interested in dreams. It needed secretaries, not dancers.
Frustrated, Traudl followed her older sister to Berlin in search of something different, something new. That’s when she heard a rumor: Adolf Hitler himself was looking for secretaries. By January of 1943, Traudl Junge founder herself at the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s military headquarters, standing in front of the Führer himself. He offered her the job personally, and she said yes. Years later, she reflected, “I couldn't resist the temptation. I was twenty-two. I had no idea of politics, and I just thought it was wonderfully exciting to be offered such a special position.”
At first, it was ordinary secretarial work, transcribing correspondence, assisting with fan mail, managing communication. But as the war dragged on and Hitler’s inner circle grew smaller, something shifted. He began inviting Traudl and the other secretaries to dine with him daily. These meals, on the surface, seemed warm, even familial. But they weren’t random acts of kindness. They were calculated. Hitler understood power, and he knew that one of its strongest tools was proximity. As his broader influence began to fray, he used charm to keep control of what he could. Through humor, inclusion, and emotional intimacy, he built loyalty where questions should have lived. Traudl and other staff recalled that he joked, told entertaining stories and teased during meal time, in an effort to humanize himself with those he needed to influence.
He even involved himself in the personal lives of those around him, subtly encouraging romantic relationships within his inner circle. He created emotional bonds that kept people tethered to him, reinforcing their dependence and loyalty. Traudl’s fellow secretary, Gretl Braun, for example, married an officer with Hitler’s full support. The marriage was short-lived, ending in betrayal and Fegelein’s execution, but it revealed something chilling: in Hitler’s world, even intimate relationships served a political purpose.
To those in his orbit, including Traudl, this closeness felt like trust. Like inclusion. Like being chosen. And his strategy worked. “I admit, I was fascinated by Adolf Hitler,” Traudl later confessed. “He was a pleasant boss and a fatherly friend. I deliberately ignored all the warning voices inside me and enjoyed the time by his side, almost until the bitter end. It wasn’t what he said, but the way he said things and how he did things.”
By 1943, Traudl was Hitler’s closest secretary. She traveled with him across Nazi-occupied territory and eventually joined him in the Führerbunker in the final days of the war. There, underground, as the Allies closed in, she typed Hitler’s last will and political testament. The air was thick with despair. The sound of artillery thundered above. The bunker was suffocating. Still, she stayed, even when she was told she could leave. There until the very end when on April 30, 1945, Hitler killed himself. Traudl escaped the bunker the next day. She was arrested in July, interrogated, and eventually released.
But Traudl's real reckoning came later. Not from a courtroom, but from within. In the 1960s, she began to process the weight of her choices. She didn’t defend her actions, but she tried to understand them. Only in her later years did she fully speak about her guilt, and the internal conflict of having admired the man the world now recognizes as one of history’s greatest criminals.
“Not until the middle of the 60s did I gradually and seriously begin to confront my past... I have learned to admit that I enjoyed working for him almost to the bitter end,” she wrote in her 2002 memoir, Until the Final Hour. That same year, in the final months of her life, she participated in the documentary Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary. She shared her memories not to excuse herself, but to warn others. “I felt great guilt for liking the greatest criminal ever to have lived.”
This is not a story about a villain. It is a story about the cost of silence, the seduction of proximity, and the danger of mistaking charisma for integrity, charm for competence, and inclusion for purpose. Because power doesn’t always look dangerous. Sometimes it feels safe. Familiar. Fatherly. Sometimes it looks like the best opportunity you’ve ever been offered. And that is exactly what makes it so dangerous.
As I think about Traudl’s story, it's impossible not to see its relevance in the world today. A world still shaped by performance and personality. By leaders at the helm of departments, companies and countries - executives, entrepreneurs, and world leaders who promise vision and certainty. They command rooms with ease. They intoxicate us with their charisma and likeability. Dazzling us with vision and confidence. Sometimes they offer belonging. And in the midst of it all, we forget to ask the harder questions - not because we don’t care, but because we’re drawn to the people who make us feel like we matter. The people that see us.
Traudl Junge’s story is a reminder that proximity is not neutrality. When we're close to power, we're not just watching history unfold. We're involved in shaping it.
And for Administrative Professionals, that truth carries even more weight. In the confidential meetings, on email chains, inside the rooms where both small and seismic decisions are being made. You're not there to document decisions, you're there to influence them. To speak truth to power. To be the conscience in the room. To ask the hard questions. Because if you're not willing to stand up when it counts, you're leaving that responsibility to someone who may never take it.