Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
World
Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith

Joseph Goebbels's secretary who 'knew nothing' about the Holocaust, dies aged 106

The secretary of Joseph Goebbels who claimed to have known nothing about the Holocaust has died at the age of 106.

Brunhilde Pomsel was the secretary to Nazi propaganda minister for three years during the Second World War.

She died on Holocaust Remembrance Day in a care home in Munich, according to a documentary maker who had been filming Ms Pomsel, The Local reported.

The secretary had previously spoken of the experience last days in Hitler’s bunker, in which Nazi officials “numbed themselves” by drinking a lot of alcohol.

After Hitler was defeated, Ms Pomsel spent five years in Russian detention camps. She later worked for a German broadcaster for 20 years.

Ms Pomsel insisted she was not aware of the Holocaust that killed six million Jews under Hitler’s orders when it was happening. In a 2011 interview with German newspaper Bild she claimed she only learned of the atrocity after she was released from the Russian detention camps.

“I was a stupid and politically disinterested nobody from a simple background,” she said at the time. 

She lived her life in relative obscurity until the interview, prompting a flurry of interest in one of the last surviving people who had access to the Nazi leadership's inner circle. 

Later, in a 2016 documentary called “A German Life,” by Christian Kroenes, she said, “We knew nothing,” about the Holocaust.

She described Goebbels as a vain man, whose hate-filled public speeches were difficult to reconcile with what she said was his considerable charm when not in the spotlight. 

Kroenes said Ms Pomsel had been lucid when he last spoke to her on her birthday on 11 January. 

"What she recounted in the film is a warning to the current and future generations," he said. 

Additional reporting by Associated Press 

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.