2pm lie-ins and a daily Fuhrer Cake... Hitler's former maid at his mountain retreat reveals all as she break her silence after 71 years

Elisabeth Kalhammer, 89, responded to newspaper advert in 1943

She did not know her employer at Berghof, Germany, would be Hitler

Reveals dictator pretended to be healthy but had insatiable sweet tooth

As far as his closest aides were aware, he kept to a strict healthy diet and drank only lukewarm water.

But Adolf Hitler would regularly stave off attacks of midnight munchies by tucking into specially made ‘Fuhrer Cake’ and other gooey treats.

He would raid the kitchen after staying up late talking to guests and rarely get up before 2pm, according to a maid who worked at his mountain retreat in Bavaria.

Sweet tooth: Adolf Hitler, pictured dining at the Berghof with a friend, loved cakes, his former maid reveals

Elisabeth Kalhammer has broken her silence after 71 years to reveal what life was like at the Berghof when the Nazi dictator was in residence.



Mrs Kalhammer, 89, says that Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun – whom staff greeted with a ‘Heil M’lady’ – ran the house.

All the maids knew Hitler had trouble with his spleen and kept to a strict diet devised by a personal cook.

But the famously sweet-toothed dictator secretly feasted on chocolate biscuits and cream scones, Mrs Kalhammer says.



A ‘Fuhrer Cake’ – an apple cake strewn with nuts and raisins – had to be baked each day and left out every night for him to raid like a naughty schoolboy as the rest of the household slept.

‘He loved sweet things,’ she said, ‘and Eva Braun was our best friend.’

Elisabeth Kahlammer, 89, has opened up about the dictator 71 years after she answered an advert to be his maid

Secrets: She worked with 22 other girls at his Bavarian lair, which she says was run by his mistress Eva Braun

Austrian Mrs Kalhammer – then Elisabeth Marchtrenkerin – went to work at the Fuhrer’s retreat near Berchtesgaden in 1943 after answering an advert in her local paper: ‘Maid wanted. Location: The Berghof on the Obersalzberg.’

She did not know that her employer would be Hitler.



Her mother had asked her not to take the job but the teenage Elisabeth felt she could not turn it down and the Reich’s employment office told her she should be grateful for the work.





He loved sweet things. And Eva Braun was our best friend

‘I felt queasy when I arrived,’ Mrs Kalhammer told the Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper.

On her first day she passed through three SS guard posts.

‘The house was full of guests and the Fuhrer was just suddenly there,’ she said.



She soon realised that ‘I was allowed to think but not to speak’ while in his presence, nor was she or the others to gossip about him – although naturally they did.



From the beginning, Elisabeth was warned that anyone revealing details about the Berghof would face strict punishment.

She was one of 22 girls in service and was often in Hitler’s presence although she never talked to him – he allowed only long-serving staff to approach him and to enter his private rooms.



She worked in the laundry and sewing rooms, did the cleaning and made the tea which Hitler liked to drink from a Nymphenburg porcelain cup.

Mrs Kalhammer worked at the retreat from 1943 until they were evacuated in 1945. She worked in the laundry and sewing rooms, and made tea which Hitler liked to drink from a Nymphenburg porcelain cup

Once she broke a cup and was punished by losing several of her days off. Conditions at the Berghof were in stark contrast to those faced by ordinary Germans and Austrians.



While Elisabeth’s family had little to eat, the maids enjoyed freshly pressed apple juice and had plenty of food.

She said Eva Braun ‘was always good to me. She behaved like the lady of the house, even though she was not married. She designed our uniforms. For Christmas she presented me with wool, to knit socks for the men on the front.’

Hitler was obsessed with movies and had a private cinema at the Berghof. The maids were allowed to use the cinema when a propaganda film starring actress Marika Roekk was shown. Braun was ‘spellbound’ by Roekk, she said.