Obituary: Brunhilde Pomsel, Joseph Goebbels's secretary

THERE was only one time she felt afraid of him. But well into her 11th decade, when she remembered it, Brunhilde Pomsel would tremble and the hairs would start to lift on her arms. The day was February 18th 1943, when she had gone with a colleague to the Berlin Sportpalast to hear her boss give a speech. Everyone at the Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda was meant to go; as a junior, one of six secretaries in her office, she hadn't known how to get out of it. So there they were, in the huge sports stadium, among the party high-ups in the reserved seats.She knew Joseph Goebbels as soon as he appeared, of course: small, frail and tense, with his exquisitely neat hair and hands and the dragging club foot, which always made her feel sorry for him. What she did not recognise was what he became as he spoke: a raving, ranting midget, foaming and roaring about the need for total war, and making the crowd roar back its approval. She and her colleague gripped hands in terror, forgetting to applaud, until an SS man poked their shoulders to remind them. They clapped then, bewildered.As for the speech itself, she didn't take it in. She...Continue reading
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