UNTIL THE FALL – Memoirs of Hitler's Butler

The last great firsthand account of Hitler in private.

SS Commander Heinz Linge (1913–1980) served for ten years as Adolf Hitler's butler. This former bricklayer joined the military ranks in 1933, initially becoming a bodyguard. He gradually entered his master's inner circle, becoming one of his most loyal attendants.

Here at last is the French translation of his Memoirs (With Hitler to the End), which specialists regard as a first-rate account for its portrait of the Führer's private life — a narrow window onto momentous events, filtered through the banalities of domestic routine.
Page by page, politics and war are revealed; government and leisure; close associates and well-fed dignitaries; headquarters and the Chancellery; ceremony and informality; and finally, travels and stays at the Berghof.

Linge remained at Hitler's side until the very end, and after his suicide oversaw the operation to dispose of his remains, carrying the body out of the bunker to set it alight.
He then attempted to save his own skin, with rather less success: he was captured by the Soviets. Thus began the second great adventure of his life, this one considerably less pleasant and comfortable. He remained in detention until 1955. The Moscow documentation reveals that he was one of the key witnesses used by the security services and Interior Minister Beria to compile a voluminous "Hitler dossier" for Stalin's attention.
Introduced and annotated by Thierry Lentz, this exceptional document will rapidly find its place on the shelves of all those fascinated by the secrets of the Third Reich.