Constanze Manziarly

Constanze Manziarly
Manziarly in 1943
Born	(1920-04-14)14 April 1920 Innsbruck, Austria
Disappeared	2 May 1945(1945-05-02) (aged 25) Berlin, Germany
Status	Missing for 80 years, 6 months and 5 days
Occupation(s)	cook, dietitian
Employer	Adolf Hitler
Notes
*Her death was never confirmed.

Constanze Manziarly (14 April 1920 – disappeared 2 May 1945) was born in Innsbruck, Austria. After studying to become a nutrition teacher, she began serving as Adolf Hitler's cook and dietitian in 1944. She wrote a number of letters to her family describing her dismal conditions, even as she was brought closer into Hitler's orbit. She was with him until his final days in the Führerbunker in 1945, after which she went missing; according to Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge, Manziarly was taken by Soviet soldiers.

Early life and career

Manziarly's parents were from both from around Vienna, Austria. She was born in Innsbruck, Tyrol, on 14 April 1920 and was raised in the Greek Orthodox Church. In 1929, Manziarly's father bought a villa in Innsbruck. In 1937, her mother died of cancer. Although Manziarly was apolitical, after the annexation of Austria in 1938, she was forced to join the League of German Girls and then the National Socialist Women's League. She was drafted into the Reich Labour Service in 1939, completed this assigment the next year in Mieming. From 1940 to 1942, she completed a college-level education in nutrition. She then trained for a year as a teacher, for the last semester serving as a substitute teacher, earning her teaching certificate in July 1943.

In mid-September 1943, Manziarly began a six-month internship at a sanatorium in Bischofswiesen, Bavaria, to earn a dietetics qualification, which she completed in early 1944. She had planned to start working as a teacher in Innsbruck later in the year when she was asked to cook for Hitler.

Hitler's chef

After Hitler dismissed his previous chef (over alleged Jewish ancestry) in early 1944, the director of the Bavarian sanatorium ordered Manziarly to prepare Hitler's meals, which were driven to the nearby Berghof on a daily basis. On 3 April 1944, Manziarly confided to her father and sister that the job made her uneasy, but she hoped it would last no longer than six months or it would prevent her from starting her career as a full-time teacher. She observed that "Any resistance would only lead to be me taken to court," comparing her situation to having "one foot in the grave". Hitler was pleased with Manziarly's service and she was recruited to his staff. In mid-July 1944, she travelled with Hitler to the Wolf's Lair, his East Prussian headquarters, where she was present during the 20 July plot. There, she started attending Hitler's "tea parties", late-night soirees in which the dictator delivered monologues.

The long and irregular hours on her feet contributed to poor circulation to Manziarly's lower extremities as well as gum recession, which was treated by Hitler's dentist, Hugo Blaschke. Hitler refused to hire assistant chefs to avoid an appearance of excess. Manziarly asked her family to send several basic clothing items and ration cards for darning thread, as she was not generally otherwise provided for. In September 1944, the female staff was amused when Hitler gifted them all thick gray stockings, which they found unfashionable. As of November 1944, Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge regarded Manziarly as too new to be part of Hitler's "inner circle". The next month, Manziarly accompanied Hitler to Bad Nauheim, where he led an unsuccessful offensive (the Battle of the Bulge).

Berlin, 1945

The Führerbunker's rear exit (1947)

On 16 January 1945, Hitler began residing in the Führerbunker, the newer and lower air-raid shelter of the Reich Chancellery bunker complex. Manziarly prepared his meals in the kitchen of the Vorbunker, the older upper bunker where she also slept. Manziarly also prepared sandwiches to be set out on a tea wagon for high-ranking Nazi Party personnel and generals reporting to Hitler. No letters from her are known from 1945, with her last known phone contact with her father taking place that March. From 21 April on, Manziarly accompanied Eva Braun and Hitler's secretaries Junge and Gerda Christian to his downsized tea parties. Despite the gloomy atmosphere, some in the bunker nicknamed Manziarly "Miss Marzipani".

On 22 April, Hitler personally requested Manziarly to leave Berlin, along with Junge and Christian. All three women instead volunteered to stay with the dictator and were each provided a cyanide capsule from SS physician Ludwig Stumpfegger's supply in case they decided to end their own lives. The women learned from Hitler in the early hours of 30 April that he intended to shoot himself that day. Around noon, Hitler confirmed his intent to his private secretary Martin Bormann. Manziarly, Junge and Christian were present for Hitler's last meal at the usual time of 1 p.m. After lunch, Hitler's adjutant SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Günsche told the secretaries that Hitler wanted to bid everyone farewell. According to Junge, Manziarly cooked a posthumous meal for Hitler so others without direct knowledge of his death would not become suspicious.

On 1 May, Manziarly left the bunker in the first of ten breakout groups, which was led by SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke. Evading the Soviet Red Army troops, they made their way north to a German Army holdout in the cellar of the Schultheiss-Patzenhofer Brewery on Prinzenallee. The group included Junge, Christian, Bormann's secretary Else Krüger, and SS surgeon Ernst-Günther Schenck. Early on 2 May, the group was captured by Soviet soldiers.

Mohnke tasked the four women with trying to deliver his written report to Hitler's successor, Karl Dönitz. The women walked out of the brewery courtyard and made their way into the Soviet occupied area of Berlin. Christian and Krüger stayed at a water supply area, while Manziarly left Junge standing by so she could try to replace her Wehrmacht jacket with civilian clothes. At this point, Junge alternatively stated (in a 1947 letter to Manziarly's father) that, having been dogged by Soviet patrols about the jacket, Manziarly went with a man who offered her some clothing or (in an unpublished manuscript) that she "wandered over towards a group of women". Junge wrote that she later saw Manziarly being taken by two Soviet soldiers towards a U-Bahn subway tunnel. She tried to intervene, but the soldiers pushed her back. Manziarly reassured Junge that "They want to see my papers." Shooting broke out, forcing Junge to quickly hide in a house. Junge wrote to Manziarly's father that his daughter had said she would have used her poison capsule before letting a soldier rape her; Junge also stated consolingly that many women (especially those found wearing manlike clothing) were purportedly sent off to Russian work camps and "relatively well off".

Legacy

Probably Manziarly's predecessor (1943)

Manziarly's father contacted a number of individuals about her fate. Hitler's valet Heinz Linge wrote that he had no knowledge of her whereabouts after the breakout from Berlin, as he was with a different group. After spending 10 years in a Siberian penal camp, Hugo Blaschke's assistant Käthe Heusermann wrote that although she was well-acquainted with Manziarly, she had not come across any trace of her since the fall of Berlin. At her father's request, in 1963, Innsbruck officials declared Manziarly dead, stating that she was "taken away by the Russians".

Manziarly achieved fame as a notable missing person. Some fringe theories hold that she might have assumed a new identity – perhaps even using this to escape Germany with Hitler after he ostensibly faked his death using a double – purportedly the chef's assistant.

German author Stefan Dietrich became interested in Manziarly after reading about her in Junge's memoir as he came from the same region. He found Manziarly's sister, Susanne Schiessl (1918–2014), and Schiessl's daughter, who provided 15 letters published (and partially transcribed) in Dietrich's 2020 biography of Manziarly. He was also provided with an authentic photograph from 1943, noting that a picture from the same year by Hitler's photographer Heinrich Hoffman commonly said to show Manziarly (with Arthur Kannenberg) is dated to before her involvement and thus probably depicts her predecessor, Helene von Exner. Additionally, Braun filmed a few seconds of Manziarly (the only known footage of her) at her sister Gretl Braun's wedding in June 1944.

Depictions in film

Constanze Manziarly has been portrayed by the following actresses in film and television productions:

• Phyllida Law in the 1973 British film Hitler: The Last Ten Days
• Carole Boyd in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler
• Pam St. Clement in the 1981 American film The Bunker
• Bettina Redlich in the 2004 German film Downfall (Der Untergang)

See also

• Adolf Hitler and vegetarianism
• List of people who disappeared

References

Sources

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