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TheJournal.ie supports the work of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman, and our staff operate within the Code of Practice. Kroenes said that, in view of the rise of right-wing populism in the Western world, it was intended “as a warning to current and future generations.” Read: Confusion and outrage over Trump migrant ban as UK secures exemption Read: Explainer: Who are the far-right Citizens of the Reich in Germany? He said a book on Pomsel’s reminiscences, based on the interviews, is set to be published this year. Mentally there was no change, she was still alert.” There were some ups and downs owing to her advanced age.
“She was still full of energy, full of hope for the future. “We were in contact, I last spoke to her on the occasion of her birthday on 11 January,” he said. She described Goebbels as well groomed and polite, and “an excellent actor,” who during public speeches turned into a “raging dwarf … unrecognisable”īut she also labelled him “a very cold person” who showed no interest in the lives of those who worked for him.Īsked about rising right-wing populism in Europe now, she said she found it “horrific, just horrific”.įilmmaker Kroenes confirmed to AFP that she died on 27 January in the old people’s home but had remained mentally alert until her death. She said the point of the film was “for future generations to be informed about all these things. She told AFP in an interview that “since I have a clear conscience for myself, I do not see why I should not talk about it”. “I wouldn’t see myself as guilty,” she said, “unless you end up blaming the entire German population”. In the black-and-white film, extreme close-up shots of Pomsel recalling her time with Goebbels are interspersed with archival footage of Nazi horror, including of naked Jewish corpses and mass graves. She opened up at great length in the 2016 film, which its makers said aimed to force viewers to ask themselves what they would have done, and whether they would have had the courage to resist the Nazi machine. When Soviet troops marched into Berlin at the end of World War II, Pomsel was captured and would spend five years in Russian detention camps.įrom 1950 she worked for a German public broadcaster, for 20 years, but kept silent about her war-time job until she gave a newspaper interview in 2011. She spoke of the final days in Hitler’s bunker, saying a lot of alcohol was drunk because the Nazi chiefs had to “numb themselves”. She told AFP in an interview last year that she had once cheered on Hitler, in 1933, adding that “we didn’t know then what lay ahead”. In A German Life, she insisted she felt no guilt and also said: “I could not put up resistance – I was too much of a coward.” As one of half a dozen secretaries in Goebbels’ office, Pomsel was among the last eyewitnesses to the inner circle of top Nazis.