Thursday, April 03, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary records the testimony of a duped underling

By Mike Prevatt

In 1942, at age 22, Traudl Junge gave up her dreams of becoming a dancer and took a job as a private secretary. Her boss, a high-ranking German officer, needed someone to take his dictation and handle his personal correspondence. For three years, she dutifully obliged, smitten by his gentility and paternal aura, and completely unaware of the genocidal atrocities he became infamous for.

Junge refers to herself as the "blind spot," a symbol for the illusion her superior, Adolf Hitler, created to inspire worker loyalty and conceal the true realities of the war he waged against Europe and the Jews. It wasn't until the collapse of the Nazi regime that she finally learned of the Holocaust and Hitler's campaign of terror. She has kept silent about her years under the dictator--save the occasional confirmation of facts for scholars--for 56 years. In 2001, writer-director Andre Heller convinced her to share her story, for the record. The result is Blind Spot, an engrossing 90-minute documentary made up exclusively of footage from three interviews Heller conducted with Junge before she died in February 2002.

Junge holds back nothing as she reveals the human side of a man the rest of the world saw as demonic, and the burdensome guilt she has carried since 1945, when she discovered Hitler had "tried to manipulate the consciences of the Germans." Her perspective is captivating; she discusses aspects of Hitler's life few were ever privy to. For instance, Hitler was often unhealthy, suffering from stomach ailments. He rejected human affection, preferring the company of his creepily named dog, Blondie. And yet Junge describes the Fuhrer as "friendly."

An hour and a half is a long time to watch just one person talk onscreen. Heller and his co-director, Othmar Schmiderer, might've edited down some of Junge's more mundane testimony. However, the mental picture you get of Hitler's final years--thanks to Junge's enduring memory and illuminating accounts--is as vivid as any archival footage the best historian might provide. Though it sometimes seems as if documentarians have covered every aspect of Holocaust history, Blind Spot is a useful addition to the documentary canon, if only to help us understand the dynamics of evil and exploitation.