Constanze Manziarly

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

Constanze Manziarly
Manziarly in 1943
Born(1920-04-14)14 April 1920
Innsbruck, Austria
DisappearedMay 2, 1945 (aged 25)
Berlin, Nazi Germany
StatusMissing for 75 years, 9 months and 6 days
Occupationcook, dietitian
EmployerAdolf Hitler
Notes
*death never confirmed. The date of death provided is the date in which Constanze Manziarly disappeared.

Early life

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

Career

Manziarly 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 volunteered to stay with the dictator until his death, and he apparently gave each of them a cyanide capsule to take should they decide to end their own lives.[4]

Manziarly left the bunker complex on 1 May with a group led by SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke. Evading the Soviet invasion, they made their way north to a German army hold-out in the cellar of the Schultheiss-Patzenhofer Brewery on the Prinzenallee. The group included Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck, Gerda Christian, Else Krüger, and Traudl Junge.[5] Early on 2 May, the group was captured by the Red Army.[5] Mohnke tasked the four women with trying to deliver a report to Hitler's successor, Karl Dönitz. As they made their way into the Soviet occupation, the group split up.[3][6]

In her 2002 autobiography, Until the Final Hour, Junge alludes 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."[7] Junge was subsequently arrested.[6] Manziarly was never heard from again.

Portrayal in the media

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

See also

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. Junge, Traudl. Voices from the Bunker, 1989.
  4. Beevor, Antony (2002). Berlin: The Downfall 1945, p. 278.
  5. O'Donnell, James (2001) [1978]. The Bunker, New York: Da Capo Press, pp. 271, 274, 283, 291.ISBN 0-306-80958-3.
  6. Junge, Traudl (2011). Hitler's Last Secretary: A Firsthand Account of Life with Hitler. Arcade.
  7. Junge, Traudl (2004). Until the Final Hour, Hitler's Last Secretary, p. 219, ISBN 1-55970-728-3.
  8. Hitler: The Last Ten Days at IMDb
  9. The Death of Adolf Hitler at IMDb
  10. Der Untergang at IMDb
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