In the final days of World War II, as Berlin crumbled under the relentless advance of the Red Army, a 22-year-old nurse, Erna Flegel, walked the dark corridors of Hitler’s bunker. For 60 years, she remained silent about what she witnessed at the heart of the collapsing Third Reich.

It wasn’t until 2005, shortly before her death at 94, that Flegel decided to share her account, offering a unique and chilling perspective on the final moments of Adolf Hitler and his entourage. This is the truth she kept hidden, a testimony that unravels the Nazi dictator’s final days through the eyes of someone who was there, just steps from the room where it all ended.

Erna Flegel was not a well-known figure in the annals of Nazi history. There are no known photographs of her from that period, and her name only emerged when, in 2001, a transcript of an interview conducted by American interrogators in 1945 was declassified by the CIA.

However, her account, revealed to the British newspaper The Guardian in 2005, offers an unvarnished view of the final days in the Reich Chancellery bunker. Flegel, who began working as a Red Cross nurse at the Chancellery in January 1943, witnessed an isolated world where reality faded and despair reigned.

In April 1945, Berlin was a battlefield. Allied bombing raids and Soviet troops surrounded the city, reducing the Third Reich to a handful of devastated streets. Flegel was transferred to an emergency station in the basement of the Chancellery, directly above the Vorbunker and the Führerbunker, where Hitler and his inner circle were holed up.

Working alongside Hitler’s physician, Werner Haase, and surgeon Ernst-Günther Schenck, Flegel treated wounded soldiers and civilians arriving at the underground complex. “She was a stoic woman who did not flinch from the gruesome injuries of the wounded,” Schenck wrote in his memoirs, describing her fortitude amid the chaos.

The bunker, a damp, poorly lit concrete labyrinth, housed the last remaining Nazi loyalists, including Joseph Goebbels, his wife Magda, and their six children. Flegel, who became a sort of nanny to the Goebbels children, described the children as “charming” and full of life, despite the oppressive environment.

She recalled how Hitler, despite his physical and mental deterioration, found solace in the children’s presence, sharing hot chocolate with them and allowing them to use his bathtub, the only one in the bunker. “They were a great joy to him, even in his last days,” Flegel told the Guardian. Yet this small glimmer of humanity contrasts sharply with the tragedy that would soon unfold.

As the Soviets approached, Hitler’s paranoia intensified. Flegel described him as a man who had aged drastically: “He had a lot of gray hair and looked at least 15 or 20 years older.” His right hand trembled, and his mobility was limited following the attempt on his life in July 1944.

“In the last few days, Hitler sank into himself,” Flegel recounted. He even doubted the cyanide capsules he planned to use to take his life, fearing that Russian agents had replaced them with a harmless powder. Every meal he ate was tested for poison by two SS men, a reflection of his absolute distrust.

On April 29, 1945, the night before his suicide, Hitler said goodbye to his medical staff, including Flegel. “He came out of a side room, shook everyone’s hand, and said a few kind words. And that was it,” he recalled. The next day, April 30, Hitler shot himself in the head, while Eva Braun, whom he had married hours earlier, ingested cyanide.

Flegel did not see the bodies, but confirmed they were taken to the Chancellery garden and burned. “Suddenly, there were more doctors in the bunker. I knew the Führer was dead,” he said. The absence of his “extraordinary authority” left a palpable void in the bunker.

Flegel also shared harrowing details about the fate of the Goebbels family’s six children. She tried to persuade Magda Goebbels to save them, but Magda’s response was cold: “The children belong to me.” The night after Hitler’s suicide, Magda allowed dentist Helmut Kunz to inject the children with poison, ensuring their deaths. “Not saving the children was madness, a terrible thing,” Flegel lamented, still reeling from the loss of these young children who had nothing to do with their parents’ crimes.

Unlike many in the bunker, Flegel did not attempt to flee when the Soviets arrived on May 2. Along with Haase, Kunz, and another nurse, Liselotte Chervinska, she was captured by the Red Army and taken to the NKGB headquarters. Surprisingly, she described her treatment by the Soviet soldiers as humane. “They treated us well. They allowed us to continue working as nurses,” she said. She remained in the bunker complex for six to ten days before being released, a testament to her secondary role in the regime.

After the war, Flegel lived in obscurity, working as a nurse and social worker, traveling to remote places like Ladakh and Tibet. She never married, and her only relic from those days was a Reich Chancellery tablecloth that she kept in her room at a nursing home in northern Germany. Her decision to speak out in 2005, according to the German tabloid BZ, was motivated by her desire not to take her secret to the grave. “I don’t want my story to die with me,” she stated.

Flegel’s account also sheds light on the secondary figures in the bunker. He despised Eva Braun, whom he described as an “unimportant young girl” who “didn’t stand out in a crowd of secretaries.” In contrast, he admired Magda Goebbels, whom he considered “a brilliant woman, on a much higher level than most.” However, his dislike for Joseph Goebbels was evident: “Nobody liked him,” he said, noting his unpopularity even among regime loyalists.

Flegel’s story, though not without controversy due to her admiration for Hitler, is a stark account of the final days of a crumbling regime. Her perspective, as a nurse who was not part of the Nazi inner circle, offers a unique insight, devoid of the grandiosity of the memoirs of more prominent figures like Hitler’s secretary, Traudl Junge. Her account, described by Richard Helms, former CIA director, as “solid history,” remains a valuable document for understanding the collapse of the Third Reich.

As the world reflects on the horrors of World War II, Erna Flegel’s words resonate as a reminder of the human complexity behind historical events. Her 60-year silence and final decision to speak out reveal not only the details of a ruined bunker, but also the weight of carrying a secret that, even decades later, continues to fascinate and horrify those who hear it.