Constanze Manziarly

Manziarly in 1943

Constanze Manziarly (14 April 1920 – disappeared 2 May 1945) was born in Innsbruck, Austria. She served as a cook/dietitian to Adolf Hitler until his final days in Berlin in 1945.

Early life

Manziarly was born in Innsbruck, Austria, on 14 April 1920.

Career

She began working as cook and dietitian for Hitler from his 1943 stays at the Berghof until his death in Berlin on 30 April 1945. Hitler took up residence in the Führerbunker on 16 January 1945. The Reich Chancellery bunker complex in Berlin was made up of two bunkers, the lower Führerbunker and the older upper bunker, known as the Vorbunker.[1] Two rooms in the Vorbunker were used for food supply. Another room was made up of the kitchen which had a refrigerator and a wine store. Manziarly used the kitchen to prepare Hitler's meals while he stayed in the Führerbunker.[2]

Together with Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge, Manziarly was personally requested to leave the bunker complex by Hitler on 22 April.[3] However, all three women decided to stay with Hitler until his death.

Manziarly left the bunker complex on 1 May. Her group was led by SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, and awkwardly made its way north to a German army hold-out at the Schultheiss-Patzenhofer brewery on the Prinzenallee. The group included Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck and the female secretaries, Gerda Christian, Else Krüger and Traudl Junge.[4]

Disappearance

Despite claims that she took a cyanide capsule to kill herself on 2 May, the day after the majority of staff abandoned the Berlin stronghold to avoid impending Soviet capture, Junge recounts Manziarly leaving with her group, "dressed too much like a soldier". In 1989, Junge recalled the last time Manziarly was seen was when the group of four women who had been given the task of delivering a report to Karl Dönitz split up, and Manziarly tried to blend in with a group of local women.[3] In her 2002 autobiography Until the Final Hour, Junge alluded to seeing Manziarly, "the ideal image of Russian femininity, well built and plump-cheeked", being taken into a U-Bahn subway tunnel by two Soviet soldiers, reassuring the group that "[T]hey want to see my papers." She was never seen again[5] and is presumed dead.

Portrayal in the media

Constanze Manziarly has been portrayed by the following actresses in film and television productions:

References

  1. ↑ Mollo, Andrew & Ramsey, Winston, ed. After the Battle, Number 61, Seymour Press Ltd., London, 1988, pp. 28, 30.
  2. ↑ Stavropoulos, D. Berlin 1945: The collapse of the 'Thousand Year' Reich, Periscopio Publications, 2009, p. 82.
  3. 1 2 Junge, Traudl. Voices from the Bunker, 1989.
  4. ↑ O'Donnell, James (2001) [1978]. The Bunker, New York: Da Capo Press, pp. 271, 274, 283, ISBN 0-306-80958-3.
  5. ↑ Junge,Traudl (2004). Until the Final Hour, Hitler's Last Secretary, p. 219, ISBN 1-55970-728-3.
  6. ↑ Hitler: The Last Ten Days at the Internet Movie Database
  7. ↑ The Death of Adolf Hitler at the Internet Movie Database
  8. ↑ Der Untergang at the Internet Movie Database
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