Bully forced daughter to take points
SPELL
Pomsel said she had never been political but joined the Nazi Party when it took power in 1933, to get a Government job with German national radio.
By 1942, her skill as a typist landed her a role as Goebbels’ secretary, when he was minister of “public enlightenment and propaganda”.
Pomsel, who died in Munich on January 27, described how “the whole country was under a kind of a spell” and was like “a vast concentration camp”.
She said: “I could open myself up to the accusations that I was not interested in politics. But the truth is, the idealism of youth might easily have led to you having your neck broken.
“I was not the kind of person to resist. I’m one of the cowards.”
She worked for Goebbels until May 1, 1945 – when he poisoned his six children in Hitler’s Berlin bunker before dying alongside wife Magda in a suicide pact. Pomsel described her boss as “good-looking but a bit short”, vain, impeccably dressed and arrogant.
She stressed the contrast between his “noble elegance” in the office and the “raging midget” who killed his own family.
She said in A German Life: “I’ll never forgive him for what he did to the world, or for the fact he murdered his innocent children.” The film’s director, Florian
I’ll never forgive him for what he did to the world, or murdering his innocent children
Weigensamer, believes Pomsel was in denial, even after five years in prisoner of war camps in and around her native Berlin until 1950.
He said yesterday: “She was very intelligent, quick-witted, funny even. She was just incredible for her age. What made her life so interesting was BRUNHILDE POMSEL ON CRIMES OF HER FORMER BOSS JOSEPH GOEBBELS that she was not one of the Nazis but one of their millions of followers. Her memory was very selective.”
Pomsel said she thought it was important that she “left something behind” to be shown in schools and she told of how she lost her best friend, a Jewish girl called Eva Lowenthal, in 1943.
Only in 2005 did she discover that she had been murdered in Auschwitz – and even then, she said she did not feel any sense of guilt for the acts of the murderous Nazi regime. Mr Weigensamer added: “All of a sudden, her friend was not there. But she did not look for her.”
The gate of Dachau concentration camp bearing the notorious slogan “Arbeit macht frei” (Work sets you free), stolen two years ago, will be returned after it was found in a remote Norwegian village. It has been insured for £426,000 for the trip. A DAD who bullied his learner-driver daughter to take his speeding points was caught when police spotted the car had no L-plates.
Shaun Turberfield, 52, got Shauna, 20, to take the rap after he was clocked doing 36mph in a 30mph area.
But when police looked at the image they told her she would be prosecuted for driving without L-plates too – so she came clean.
After his arrest, former doorman Turberfield told officers: “Maybe I come across as loud and aggressive. It’s just the way I am.”
At Swansea crown court Turberfield, of Aberystwyth, was sentenced to eight months’ jail, suspended 18 months, and banned from driving for three months.
Judge Keith Thomas said he bullied his daughter until “the whole pack of cards came down, as it should”.