Meet Hitler’s ‘food taster’
When the Nazi leader dined in his Wolf ’s Lair, it was ladies first with an extra helping of fear, writes KIRSTEN GRIESHABER.
They were feasts of sublime asparagus — laced with fear. And for more than half a century, Margot Woelk kept her secret hidden from the world, even from her husband. Then, a few months after her 95th birthday, she revealed the truth about her wartime role: Adolf Hitler’s food taster.
Woelk, then in her midtwenties, spent 21/2 years as one of 15 young women who sampled Hitler’s food to make sure it wasn’t poisoned before it was served to the Nazi leader in his “Wolf ’s Lair,” the heavily guarded command centre in what is now Poland, where he spent much of his time in the final years of the Second World War.
“He was a vegetarian. He never ate any meat during the entire time I was there,” Woelk said of the Nazi leader. “And Hitler was so paranoid that the British would poison him — that’s why he had 15 girls taste the food before he ate it himself.”
With many Germans contending with food shortages and a bland diet as the war dragged on, sampling Hitler’s food had its advantages.
“The food was delicious, only the best vegetables, asparagus, bell peppers, everything you can imagine. And always with a side of rice or pasta,” she recalled. “But this constant fear — we knew of all those poisoning rumours and could never enjoy the food. Every day we feared it was going to be our last meal.”
The petite widow’s story is a tale of the horror, pain and dislocation endured by people of all sides who survived the war.
Only now in the sunset of her life has she been willing to relate her experiences, which she had buried because of shame and the fear of prosecution for having worked with the Nazis, although she insists she was never a party member.
Woelk says her association with Hitler began after she fled Berlin to escape Allied air attacks. With her husband serving in the German army, she moved in with relatives about 700 kilometres to the east in Rastenburg, then part of Germany; now it is Ketrzyn, in what became Poland after the war.
There, she was drafted into civilian service and assigned as a food taster and kitchen bookkeeper at the Wolf’s Lair complex, located a few kilometres outside the town. Hitler was secretive, even in the relative safety of his headquarters, and she never saw him in person.
Hitler’s security fears were not unfounded. On July 20, 1944, a trusted colonel detonated a bomb in the Wolf ’s Lair in an attempt to kill Hitler. He survived, but nearly 5,000 people were executed following the assassination attempt.
With the Soviet army on the offensive and the war going badly for Germany, one of her SS friends advised her to leave the Wolf’s Lair.
She said she returned by train to Berlin and went into hiding.
Woelk said the other women remained in Rastenburg since their families were all there and it was their home.
“Later, I found out that the Russians shot all of the 14 other girls,” she said. It was after Soviet troops overran the headquarters in January 1945.
Now at the end of her life, she feels the need to purge the memories by talking about her story. “For decades, I tried to shake off those memories,” she said. “But they always came back to haunt me at night.”