Profile of afrrs

1982 Lebanon War , Part 1 of 3

Soviet–Afghan War

from Luftwaffe Bombers in the Blitz 1940-1941 (Images of War) by Andy Saunders

from British Tanks in North Africa in 1941 - 1942 by bryan perrett

from With Our Backs to Berlin by Tony Le Tessier

"To my
surprise there were a pair of highly polished officer’s jackboots and some passable breeches to go
with them. I had not seen such beautiful boots for years, since my father, a master shoemaker, had
made me such a pair. In one of them was a holster for a small pistol, a 6.35 Walther, and in the other
was a sheath for a stiletto with a needle point and razor-sharp blade. I tried them on and they fitted
perfectly. Then I tried walking a few steps in them, which took me out into the cellar passageway. A
young woman came toward me with an Alsatian puppy. The puppy leant against one of the shining
boots and pissed inside. I kicked him away, which did not please the young woman.
She scolded me and got a sharp response back. Then I noticed that my old company comrade Heinz
Jurkewitz, who was now with the Führer bodyguard, was standing behind her, making violent hand
signals to me that I could not understand.
I shouted at her: ‘Get your dog out of here and leave us alone!’ Whereupon she put the puppy on the
lead and went off with him without a word.
‘For goodness sake, Willi,’ Heinz said to me, ‘what have you done? Do you know who that was?’
‘No, I didn’t know.’
‘That was Fräulein Braun!’
‘It could have been Fräulein Schwarz as far as I am concerned,’ I said. ‘What about it?’
Then he had to tell me confidentially who Fräulein Braun was, and that he had been assigned to her
as her bodyguard.
With this explanation I should make it clear that even I who had been on duty in the Reichs
Chancellery knew nothing of the existence of this woman. It was a taboo subject and no one talked
about it. We were trained to be discreet. Nevertheless, she had been here in the Führerbunker at the
Reichs Chancellery since 15 April and had come, against the Führer’s will, to share his fate. She
usually lived at the Führer’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. The puppy came from Blondi, the
Führer’s Alsatian, and he had given it to Fräulein Braun so that she had something to remind her of
him, since he could not come because of the war. When it was time to die, the pup would die too."