They were feasts of sublime asparagus – laced with fear. And for more than half a century, Margot Woelk kept her secret hidden from the world, even from her husband. Then, a few months after her 95th birthday, she revealed the truth about her wartime role: Adolf Hitler’s food taster.
There she was drafted into civilian service and assigned for the next two and a half years as a food taster and kitchen bookkeeper at the Wolf’s Lair complex, located a few miles (kilometers) outside the town. Hitler was secretive, even in the relative safety of his headquarters, that she never saw him in person – only his German shepherd Blondie and his SS guards, who chatted with the women.
Following the blast, tension rose around the headquarters. Woelk said the Nazis ordered her to leave her relatives’home and move into an abandoned school closer to the compound.
After about two weeks of heavy fighting, the city surrendered on May 2 – after Hitler, who had abandoned the Wolf’s Lair about five months before, had committed suicide. His successor surrendered a week later, ending the war in Europe.
For many Berlin civilians – their homes destroyed, family members missing or dead and food almost gone – the horror did not end with capitulation.