Gerda Christian
Gerda Christian (née Daranowski; 13 December 1913 – 14 April 1997), nicknamed "Dara", was a German secretary who served as one of Adolf Hitler's private secretaries during the final years of World War II.[1] Born in Berlin, she began working in Hitler's office in the late 1930s and became a key administrative figure handling his correspondence and documents.[2] Christian remained loyal to Hitler, accompanying him to the Führerbunker in Berlin during the Soviet encirclement of the city in 1945, where she assisted with clerical duties and cared for the Goebbels children amid the regime's collapse.[3] She escaped the bunker shortly after Hitler's suicide, navigating the chaos of defeated Berlin to survive the war's end.[1] Postwar, Christian married Luftwaffe officer Eckhard Christian and lived quietly in West Germany, avoiding public scrutiny until her death from cancer in Düsseldorf at age 83.[1]