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DW
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- DW
Hitler's food tasters inspire new film – DW – 05/27/2025
Italian filmmaker Silvio Soldini's "The Tasters" is a fictional version of the story of a woman who worked as Hitler's food taster. But how much of it is true? The first scene of the film "The Tasters" is set in November 1943, in the East Prussian village of Gross-Partsch (present-day Parcz, Poland). A young woman called Rosa Sauer (Elisa Schlott) is fleeing her bombed-out apartment in Berlin by moving in with her in-laws who live there. Her husband, a German soldier, is fighting in Ukraine. Just a couple of kilometers away from the village, hiding in a thick forest surrounded by barbed wire, is the "Wolf's Lair" — Adolf Hitler's Eastern Front military headquarters. Shortly after her arrival, Rosa lands among a group of women who are forcibly recruited by the SS. The women are driven every day to Hitler's secret complex to serve as his food tasters. Without ever seeing him, the women know that the Nazi "Führer" has many enemies and that his meals — and thereby theirs — could be poisoned. Even though so many Europeans at the time are desperate for food amid the war, the elaborate meals are a source of terror for the women. A scene from 'The Tasters': Even in times of food scarcity, the women can't enjoy the meals they are required to eat Image: Luca Zontini/Busch Media Group Amid the tension, Rosa develops a secret relationship with SS lieutenant Ziegler (Max Riemelt) and becomes friends with a shy woman in the group, Elfriede (Alma Hasun), who has good reasons to be discrete. The German-language film, directed by Italian filmmaker Silvio Soldini ("Breads and Tulips," 2000), is based on Rosella Postorino's bestselling novel, "Le assaggiatrici" (2018), which was translated into more than 30 languages, including in English as "At the Wolf's Table." Postorino's 2018 novel won the 56th Campiello Prize The filmmaker, who worked with German actors without speaking the language himself, had previously avoided directing period pieces, but one of the reasons that motivated him to adapt the novel was that it focuses on women, which is unusual for a World War II story. Soldini told DW that he also liked the fact that the story isn't judgemental about the two main characters, Rosa Sauer and Albert Ziegler, who are "simply human, despite being caught in the gears of a horrific system." Based on Margot Wölk's story Postorino's novel was inspired by the testimony of a woman called Margot Wölk. She had never talked about her World War II experiences, but at the age of 95 in December 2012, she started giving interviews to the press. She recalled how, for about two and half years starting in 1942, she was among the 15 young women who were required to taste food prepared for the Wolf's Lair. Margot Wölk only revealed her story to the world at the age of 95, and died shortly afterwards, in 2014 Image: Markus Schreiber/AP Photo/picture alliance The film's portrayal reflects the tasters' recruitment and the daily schedule, as described by Wölk. Wölk also said she survived thanks to a lieutenant who put her on a train to Berlin in 1944; he knew that the Soviet army was just a few kilometres away from reaching the Wolf's Lair. After the war, she met the lieutenant again, and he told her that all the other food tasters in her group had been shot by Soviet soldiers. Wölk's escape inspired Postorino to include the love affair in her novel; the author speculated that Wölk was saved because she had developed a privileged relationship with one of the SS guards. If anything did ever happen between the taster and the lieutenant, Wölk didn't mention it in her interviews. Photos of Margot Wölk as a young woman Image: Markus Schreiber/AP Photo/picture alliance In an interview with Der Spiegel in 2013, she did however mention being raped by one of the SS officers while she was working as a taster. She was also raped repeatedly by Soviet soldiers after she returned to Berlin. More than a year after the end of the war, she was reunited with her husband, who was also traumatized by his wartime experiences. Postorino tried to reach Wölk to interview her for the novel, but the elderly woman died in 2014 before they could talk. Lacking historical evidence After a documentary featuring Margot Wölk came out in 2014, German historian Sven-Felix Kellerhoff pointed out that the story was unlikely to be true. In his piece for the daily Welt, he points out that in the final years of his life, Hitler had digestive problems, and that instead of eating the meals prepared for his inner circle, he hired a dietician who prepared special meals for him in a separate kitchen close to his bunker, within "Sperrkreis 1" (Security Zone 1). It therefore wouldn't have made much sense to have had the food transported outside of this highly restricted area to have it tasted by a group of women before Hitler's meals. In this new book, Felix Bohr looks into how the Wolf's Lair was organized According to Felix Bohr in his new book "Before the Downfall: Hitler's Years in the 'Wolf's Lair'," the first dietician to cook separately for Hitler, Helene von Exner, was hired in July 1943. Before that, a cook called Otto Günther prepared meals in large pots for the Nazi leaders based at the Wolf's Lair. Beyond Hitler's inner circle, up to 2,000 people were working in the Wolf's Lair. Were the women perhaps required to taste other food, being told it was Hitler's meals? In his book detailing the organization of daily life at the Wolf's Lair, Bohr only mentions Wölk's testimony in a footnote, noting that no other historical sources back her claims. As he confirmed to DW, throughout his intensive research into the Wolf's Lair structures, he "found no sources that confirm Margot Wölk's story," but, he adds, "neither did I find any documents that prove the opposite." Soldini is unfazed by any potential historical inaccuracies: After all, he points out, "the film is based on the novel, it's not from the true story." The story that is told remains relevant, he adds, because the movie portrays parallels with current developments in the world. Like the tasters, we can all feel today's political violence — even if we have the privilege of eating good meals. For filmmaker Silvio Soldini, the story reflects today's political violence Image: Elizabeth Grenier/DW Surviving an assassination attempt as a sign of providence One thing that historians have definitely well documented are the various attempts to kill Hitler. At least 42 plots have been uncovered. The best-known one is Operation Valkyrie, in which Wehrmacht officers, led by Claus von Stauffenberg, tried to kill Hitler at the Wolf's Lair by detonating an explosive hidden in a briefcase. This failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 is also referred to in the film through Hitler's actual radio broadcast, in which he describes the attack that killed four people and injured 20 more. "I myself am completely unhurt except for very small skin abrasions, bruises or burns," stated the leader of Nazi Germany at the time. Like Trump following his assassination attempt in July 2024, Hitler saw the fact that he survived the attack practically unharmed as a sign of destiny: "I take it as a confirmation of the mission of providence to continue to pursue my life purpose, as I have done so far." Edited by: Brenda Haas
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
No meat, no beer and hopefully no poison: the curious tale of Hitler's food tasters
The story is almost too compelling to be true: a group of war-weary young women, long deprived of sufficient food, are herded together to dine on abundant vegetarian delicacies three times a day. The only price: risking their lives with each bite as they may have consumed deadly poison intended for Adolf Hitler. The extraordinary account by then 95-year-old Margot Wölk created a sensation when it first appeared in a Berlin tabloid more than a decade ago. Her decision to break what she called decades of silence about her wartime experiences captured the imagination of German reporters, then global media, finally inspiring a documentary, two novels and a play. This month, a movie 'based on a true story', will be released in German cinemas, reviving fascination with the curious tale of Wölk and her 'colleagues', as she called them. The Tasters is based on a 2018 Italian historical fiction novel by Rosella Postorino, translated into English as At the Wolf's Table. Italian director Silvio Soldini said he approached the material as rooted in fact and liked that it turned a spotlight on to a rare women-centred narrative in the still booming market for films about the second world war and the Holocaust. 'It was quite unusual – telling for once a story about war and violence, without focusing on the man at war,' Soldini said. 'Instead we show how these women are affected, in this 'small' world in which they are forced to do something awful: constantly play Russian roulette for more than one year.' In Soldini's film, the protagonist Rosa traces the rough outlines of Wölk's stranger-than-fiction story, in which Hitler is never seen but whose shadow looms large. The secretary in her mid-20s flees her war-damaged flat in Berlin for her in-laws' modest house in East Prussia, in today's Poland – a refuge that happens to be just down the road from Hitler's heavily guarded Wolf's Lair military headquarters. With her soldier husband missing on the eastern front, Rosa and the elderly couple scrape by on the meagre bounty from their small garden until one day SS officers arrive and bundle her off in a bus. Suddenly she is surrounded by a group of 'healthy' young German women – all single or widowed – who are presented with an opulent meat-free feast prepared by a chef in a starched white uniform. But they soon learn there's a terrifying catch. 'There was never meat because Hitler was a vegetarian,' Wölk told German media in 2013. 'The food was good – very good. But we couldn't enjoy it.' Wölk said she and 14 other women – in the film the group is half that size – spent more than two years forced to work as food tasters for Hitler, forming a tightknit sisterhood in circumstances beyond their control. During that time, fears for the Führer's life in his inner circle hurtled between the risk of a poisoning attempt by the allies and the paranoia touched off by the narrowly failed 20 July 1944 German officers' bombing plot at the Wolf's Lair. When the Soviet army finally came closing in, Wölk said she escaped with the help of a Nazi officer on a train to Berlin – scenes suspensefully dramatised in the film. She made it back to the devastated capital alive but later heard that all 14 of her 'colleagues' were shot by the Red Army troops. Postorino's novel, which has not been translated into German, and Soldini's film largely adhere to Wölk's spectacular story, while adding flourishes including an affair with a Nazi officer. Scholars have produced detailed accounts of Hitler's 800 days at the Wolf's Lair including his legume-heavy diet sweetened by plentiful fruit-topped cakes. As he was teetotal, alcohol was verboten in favour of mineral water and the occasional cup of coffee. Journalist and historian Felix Bohr, who has just published Vor dem Untergang: Hitlers Jahre in der Wolfsschanze (Before the Downfall: Hitler's Years in the Wolf's Lair), says that as gripping as Wölk's story is, there is 'no evidence' beyond her interviews that it is true. 'I spent three years in the archives researching Hitler's time there and none of the accounts of secretaries, cooks, servants, military staff or other people who were there – up to 2,000 at a given time – mentioned a team of women food tasters,' he said. 'The Wolf's Lair was the most high-security place in all of the so-called Third Reich and so what you did have was an elaborate system to protect the food supply including strict rules for shipping and storage as well as inspections of everything allowed in the restricted zone.' Bohr is at pains to stress that he found no concrete proof that Wölk's account was untrue, nor did he believe she had wilfully lied in her last years until her death in 2014. 'Of course memories 70 years after the war can be deceptive – we're all marked by the stories we've read and seen on television. It's very possible she was bussed for work duty, something the Nazis did with women all the time. But I think scepticism is called for with the rest of the story.' As for the lavish meals, Bohr said his research had turned up frequent complaints by visitors to Hitler's hidden enclave about the 'bland' menu often consisting of bean soup, boiled vegetables and potatoes. Fellow journalist and author Sven Felix Kellerhoff first raised doubts about Wölk's story in 2014, noting that Hitler employed two dedicated cooks, both women, who sampled the food for taste and would have been stricken had any fast-acting poison been slipped in. Actor Elisa Schlott, 31, who plays Rosa in the film, says she wasn't troubled by doubts about the specific veracity of Wölk's account because her story of suffering and survival remains powerful, especially as younger Germans today help lift the far-right AfD to record heights in the polls. She says she was 'shocked' to learn about the strong support for the Nazis among women at the time 'although it was a misogynistic party. It reminded me of today's 'tradwives' on social media who do everything for their husbands – maybe a similar kind of backlash against progress.' She speculates that Wölk's wartime ordeal might have distorted her memories in old age. 'I see no reason why she would have made it up,' she says. 'On the other hand, traumatic experiences in war have an impact on the brain, which is why we can't be 100% sure. 'But this isn't a film about Hitler,' Schlott says. 'It's about these women and the community they built under the dark cloud of the Nazi period.' Soldini, 66, said nearly half a million people had seen the film in Italy since its release in late March – respectable for an arthouse picture in German with a little-known cast. It also did brisk business at the Berlin film festival's European Film Market in February, selling in several international territories. People are still drawn to war dramas, Soldini says, particularly now in a fraught age 'in which the world seems nearer to this story than it was even two or three years ago'. The director chooses to believe Wölk's story is true. 'But if it wasn't, it doesn't make much difference to me. The film and the book say something important about power, dictatorship, violence and their impact on women.'
