Joseph Goebbels's secretary who ‘knew nothing’ about the Holocaust, dies aged 106

Brunhilde Pomsel claimed she did not learn of the atrocity until after the war ended

Brunhilde Pomsel, former secretary of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, sits on a cinema chair in front of posters for the movie 'A German life' (Getty images )

The secretary of Joseph Goebbels who claimed to have known nothing about the Holocaust has died at the age of 106.

Brunhilde Pomsel was the secretary to Nazi propaganda minister for three years during the Second World War.

She died on Holocaust Remembrance Day in a care home in Munich, according to a documentary maker who had been filming Ms Pomsel, The Local reported.

The secretary had previously spoken of the experience last days in Hitler’s bunker, in which Nazi officials “numbed themselves” by drinking a lot of alcohol.

After Hitler was defeated, Ms Pomsel spent five years in Russian detention camps. She later worked for a German broadcaster for 20 years.

Ms Pomsel insisted she was not aware of the Holocaust that killed six million Jews under Hitler’s orders when it was happening. In a 2011 interview with German newspaper Bild she claimed she only learned of the atrocity after she was released from the Russian detention camps.

“I was a stupid and politically disinterested nobody from a simple background,” she said at the time.

She lived her life in relative obscurity until the interview, prompting a flurry of interest in one of the last surviving people who had access to the Nazi leadership's inner circle.

Later, in a 2016 documentary called “A German Life,” by Christian Kroenes, she said, “We knew nothing,” about the Holocaust.

She described Goebbels as a vain man, whose hate-filled public speeches were difficult to reconcile with what she said was his considerable charm when not in the spotlight.

Kroenes said Ms Pomsel had been lucid when he last spoke to her on her birthday on 11 January.

"What she recounted in the film is a warning to the current and future generations," he said.

Additional reporting by Associated Press