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Blue Post Box

Thieves are breaking into blue U.S. Postal Service collection boxes across Philadelphia, stealing mail and checks, costing victims thousands of dollars, law enforcement officials say.

The thieves have been stealing checks, forging signatures, and amassing personal information from the mail to commit identity theft, according to interviews with victims, Philadelphia police, and postal sources. Of the more than a dozen victims The Inquirer has interviewed, the total funds stolen over the last three months amounts to at least $100,000. Multiple individuals had more than $15,000 stolen.

The speed and breadth at which the thieves are compromising the mail, and the lack of any physical damage to the structures, suggests they may have keys to the boxes, law enforcement and postal experts say.

The break-ins call into question the security of the iconic blue boxes, which residents use to mail everything from checks and confidential records to election ballots. (Officials said there is no evidence that any ballots were stolen or affected.)

The ongoing vulnerability points to a systemic failure by the Postal Service to oversee the keys that open up the boxes. Union leaders say short-staffed post offices are failing to consistently follow fundamental accountability protocols, and a recent audit report called the agency's oversight 'irresponsible.'

'If you look at each case individually, it doesn't seem like such a big crime or such a big deal,' said Miriam Rocah, district attorney for New York's Westchester County, which saw a similar outbreak of mail theft and check fraud in 2018. 'But when you start putting them all together across a geographical region … you all of the sudden have something that's having a really widespread impact on communities, and the case itself becomes more serious.'

Still waiting for packages that were mailed in December? It could be a while.The Postal Inspection Service, though acknowledging the recent theft, encouraged residents to be proactive with checking their bank accounts, and not deposit mail into the boxes after it's been collected for the day.

'Over the last several months, the Postal Inspection Service has received a number of complaints of mail theft from residents of several West Philadelphia neighborhoods,' said George Clark, public information officer for the Postal Inspection Service, in a statement. 'Inspectors are currently developing leads from those complaints with the goal of identifying the individual or individuals who are apparently targeting the mail.'

Clark initially declined to say how many theft complaints have been filed, and then said he did not have access to the data. In December, The Inquirer submitted a Freedom of Information Act request on theft complaints, but the agency has yet to fulfill it. An NBC News investigation found that the Postal Inspection Service also does not have a reliable system to track mail theft. Many Philly residents who reported theft to the Postal Inspection Service never heard back.

‘Who does this kind of thing?'

Since November, the thieves have particularly targeted West Philadelphia mailboxes, on the hunt for checks. They often dip them in acetone to wash off the ink, then change the name and increase the amount, an investigator said. They go to banks or ATMs and withdraw cash, or deposit them into a burner account.

A Southwest Philadelphia detective, who asked not to be named, said more than 20 people — from City Line Avenue to the Schuylkill — have filed complaints about their checks being stolen and forged in the last two months. The common thread, he said, was that the victims had all put their check into a mailbox.

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Three people were arrested, but only one person has been charged in connection with the check fraud, Philadelphia police said. It's unclear what the person's role was in the scheme, but the theft continued after her arrest. Previous investigations show it's likely there are many different groups working across the area.

The Inquirer identified at least 10 people who said they had checks stolen from a mailbox at 46th and Larchwood Streets, in West Philadelphia. Bryant Simon, 59, had $6,900 stolen from two separate bank accounts. Al Filreis, 64, lost $10,686.

The thieves withdrew more than $15,000 from Michael Parisi's account after they used the check's bank account information to create a fake driver's license and bank card in Parisi's name.

Ian Abrams, 65, almost lost more than $15,000 after the thieves duplicated a check he dropped into the box at 51st Street and Chester Avenue. The bank stopped payment before it went through.

'I know that it's hard times out here for everybody. But who does this kind of thing?' said Maryann Muhammad, 75, of Kingsessing, whose $25 charity donation became a $1,800 withdrawal.

In most cases, banks have quickly refunded customers' lost money. But the thievery is upending lives and further fraying residents' trust in an agency plagued by mail delays and cutbacks.

Plus, the ease with which criminals are able to fraudulently cash checks has called bank security measures into question. In some cases, thieves cash checks made out to someone else.

Michael Hallman dropped a $6,290 check for his new landlord into the mailbox at 21st and Walnut Streets on Nov. 2. Two days later, a person endorsing the check with a scribble, but changing nothing else, cashed it at a Santander Bank. Nearly three months later, Chase Bank has yet to reimburse Hallman, 43.

'It's been an absolute nightmare,' he said.

Banks across the city have had customers impacted by the theft, but most declined to provide information on their security procedures or investigations, citing security and privacy concerns.

A few USPS plants are reinstalling mail sorting machines. But in Philly, more changes that could cause delays are happening. (from October)The scheme

While rare, mail theft has been an issue since the creation of the USPS, and counties across the country have reported similar check fraud schemes.

Sometimes the thieves attach glue traps to the ends of string to 'fish' letters out of the boxes' small opening. Now, as the Postal Service has made the openings smaller, thieves have prioritized obtaining keys.

One key, formally called an arrow key, opens up every corner collection box and apartment mailbox for a zip code, postal workers said.

'It is a master key that's good for a specific area or region. It has some universality to it, so you'd see the attraction to thieves,' said Philip Rubio, a history professor at North Carolina A&T State University, who worked as a letter carrier for 20 years.

Carriers must sign their keys out and in each day. The agency's use of universal collection box locks and keys dates back to the 1870s and has been 'surprisingly secure and successful over the years as long as there is a system of accountability,' Rubio said.

But that system has deteriorated as short-staffed employees, to save time, don't always follow the protocol for tracking a key, said Nick Casselli, president of APWU Local 89. Zelda awakening face shrine.

Casselli said that in spring 2020, an employee at the Bustleton post office stole a key and gave it to her boyfriend, who began stealing from mailboxes. He said the postal inspectors caught her shortly after and she was fired.

'I thought that was an isolated incident,' he said.

The Postal Service's Office of the Inspector General, which conducts internal audits and investigations, called the agency's oversight of arrow keys 'ineffective' in an August report.

'The number of arrow keys in circulation is unknown, and local units did not adequately report lost, stolen, or broken keys or maintain key inventories,' the report said. 'Ineffective controls over arrow keys increases the risk that these items will be lost or stolen and not detected.'

Blue Post Box In India

Some postal workers have taken advantage of the lack of oversight. In Westchester, N.Y., the mail theft investigation found that some carriers were selling arrow keys for upward of $1,000, said Stefanie DeNise, assistant district attorney of Westchester County's Identity Theft Unit.

Indesign plug in. Once people have the keys, they make and sell copies. Thieves also target carriers and rob them of their keys, DeNise said.

In Westchester, once the Postal Inspection Service replaced the county's mailboxes in early 2019, 'we saw a complete stop in mail theft from the blue boxes,' DeNise said.

DeNise's office charged about 25 people in connection to the cases, she said.

Christa Schroeder, the daughter of a single parent, was born in Hannoversch Münden, Germany, on 19th March 1908. After the death of her mother she moved to Nagold where she worked as a secretary. In 1930 she moved to Munich. After answering an advertisement she found work with the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). She later recalled in her autobiography, He Was My Chief: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Secretary (1985): 'Later I learned that I had been the last of 87 applicants. That the post was awarded to me, someone who was neither a member of the NSDAP nor interested in politics nor aware of whom Adolf Hitler might be, must have resulted purely from my being a 22-year-old with proven shorthand/typing experience who could furnish good references.' Schroeder argued that she was never a Nazi: 'I was told I had to join the Party since only NSDAP members could be employees. I suppose I went a few times to the big assemblies, but I felt nothing in common with the speakers or the masses and I must have appeared terribly stupid.'

Adolf Hitler become Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and Schroeder joined his Liaison Staff in Berlin. Hitler installed himself in the Radziwill Palace. According to Schroeder: 'His study, the library, his bedroom and later, alongside it, Eva Braun's apartment were all on the first floor. Directly opposite the door to Hitler's study a couple of steps led to a long corridor, beyond which was the so-called adjutancy wing with the rooms for Hitler's aides. The first room was the Staircase Room (Treppenzimmer), where at least one of us would be permanently on standby, regardless of the hour, should Hitler need to give a dictation. Then came the rooms of Julius Schaub, Hitler's rather unprepossessing factotum, Dr Dietrich (Reich press officer), Sepp Dietrich (commander of SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Hitler's personal bodyguard unit) and Hitler's chief adjutant, Wilhelm Brückner.'

Schroeder gradually got to know Hitler: 'One day Hitler happened to pass the Staircase Room at teatime, saw us sitting there and asked if he might join us. This hour of easy chatter was so much to his liking that he later came to tea almost daily. The Staircase Room was a place where he felt unburdened and I always had the impression that what he said there came from a secret memory box which at all other times he kept locked shut. He would often recall pranks played in late childhood, for example, the time as a 12 year-old when he wagered his classmates that he could make the girls laugh during a religious service. He won the bet by intently brushing his non-existent moustache whenever they glanced at him.'

Adolf Hitler also told Schroeder about his relationship with his parents: 'I never loved my father, 'but feared him. He was prone to rages and would resort to violence. My poor mother would then always be afraid for me. When I read Karl May once that it was a sign of bravery to hide one's pain, I decided that when he beat me the next time I would make no sound. When it happened – I knew my mother was standing anxiously at the door – I counted every stroke out loud. Mother thought I had gone mad when I reported to her with a beaming smile, 'Thirty-two strokes father gave me!' From that day I never needed to repeat the experiment, for my father never beat me again.'

Schroeder became fairly close to Hitler: 'I found Hitler's eyes expressive. They could look friendly and warm-hearted, or express indignation, indifference and disgust. In the last months of the war they lost expressiveness and became a more watery, pale light blue, and rather bulging. One could always tell his mood from his voice. It could be unusually calm, clear and convincing, but also excited, increasing in volume and becoming overwhelmingly aggressive. Often it would be ice-cold.. Hitler's nose was very large and fairly pointed.. His teeth were yellow and he had bad breath. He should have grown a beard to hide his mouth.' Hitler told her: 'My nose is much too big. I need the moustache to relieve the effect!'

Christa Schroeder knew about Hitler's love affairs with Geli Raubal and Eva Braun. She claims that the only woman Hitler ever loved was Geli. 'After the death of his niece Geli, Christmas was really a torture for him, and not pleasant for us either. It's true that he allowed a Christmas tree to be put in the corner of the hall, but Christmas carols were not sung.' Geli's room was kept like it was at the time of her death and Anni Winter, the housekeeper, was the only one allowed into the room. Schroeder regarded Eva as a schemer: 'When he no longer had much time for her because of the electioneering, she pursued him cunningly with suicide attempts. And of course she succeeded, because as a politician Hitler couldn't have survived a second suicide from someone close to him. I say it again: the only woman he loved and would certainly have married later was his step-niece Geli Raubal.'

Schroeder was a heavy smoker and Adolf Hitler constantly scold her about her habit: 'He would start out with special reference to narrowing of the arteries caused by smoking. How awful a smoker's stomach must look. Smokers lacked consideration for others, forcing them to breathe in polluted air. He had really toyed with the idea of outlawing smoking anywhere in Germany. The campaign would begin by having a death's head printed on every cigarette pack.' However, he seemed to be unaware that Eva Braun smoked: 'If I should ever discover that Eva were secretly smoking, then that would be grounds for me to separate from her immediately and for ever.' However, Reinhard Spitzy claims that Hitler knew Eva Braun smoked and that she had some privileges that enabled her to do what was forbidden to others: 'She was allowed to sing, to dance, to paint her nails with red paint, and she was allowed to smoke a cigarette outside. Meanwhile, we had to go to the loo to smoke.. Hitler had a very good nose, and it was forbidden to smoke. But Eva Braun was allowed everything.'

Hitler became very dependant on Christa Schroeder. In 1938, she became engaged to Yugoslav diplomat Lav Alkonic. When Hitler refused to give his blessing to the liaison, Schroeder raised the possibility of leaving his employment. Hitler replied: 'I would know how to prevent that.' To protect Alkonic she broke off he engagement. A friend later commented: 'In 1939 she requested Hitler's blessing for the impending marriage, this was sadly denied her by him. So to please him or perhaps there were other reasons she broke off the engagement, and this I suspect would cause her emotional stress, for the rest of her life.'

One of her responsibilities was taking dictation: 'As a rule Hitler would be standing at or bent over his desk, working on the punch lines for a speech, for example. Often he would appear not to notice my presence. Before the dictation I would not exist for him, and I doubt whether he saw me as a person when I was at my typist's desk. A while would pass in silence. Then he would close in on the typewriter and begin to dictate calmly and with expansive gestures. Gradually, getting into his stride, he would speak faster. Without pause one sentence would then follow another while he strolled around the room. Occasionally he would halt, lost in thought, before Lenbach's portrait of Bismarck, gathering himself as it were before resuming his wandering. His face would become florid and the anger would shine in his eyes. He would stand rooted to the spot as though confronting the particular enemy he was imagining. It would certainly have been easier to have taken this dictation in shorthand but Hitler did not want this. Apparently he felt himself as if on wings when he heard the rhythmic chatter of the typewriter keys.'

After the outbreak of the Second World War Hitler changed his approach to making speeches. He told Schroeder: 'I prefer to speak, and I speak best, from the top of my head, but now we are at war I must weigh carefully every word, for the world is watching and listening. Were I to use the wrong word in a spontaneous moment of passion, that could have severe implications!' Hitler used to ask her opinion of his speeches. He once told her: 'You are the only person I allow to correct me!'

'If you look at each case individually, it doesn't seem like such a big crime or such a big deal,' said Miriam Rocah, district attorney for New York's Westchester County, which saw a similar outbreak of mail theft and check fraud in 2018. 'But when you start putting them all together across a geographical region … you all of the sudden have something that's having a really widespread impact on communities, and the case itself becomes more serious.'

Still waiting for packages that were mailed in December? It could be a while.The Postal Inspection Service, though acknowledging the recent theft, encouraged residents to be proactive with checking their bank accounts, and not deposit mail into the boxes after it's been collected for the day.

'Over the last several months, the Postal Inspection Service has received a number of complaints of mail theft from residents of several West Philadelphia neighborhoods,' said George Clark, public information officer for the Postal Inspection Service, in a statement. 'Inspectors are currently developing leads from those complaints with the goal of identifying the individual or individuals who are apparently targeting the mail.'

Clark initially declined to say how many theft complaints have been filed, and then said he did not have access to the data. In December, The Inquirer submitted a Freedom of Information Act request on theft complaints, but the agency has yet to fulfill it. An NBC News investigation found that the Postal Inspection Service also does not have a reliable system to track mail theft. Many Philly residents who reported theft to the Postal Inspection Service never heard back.

‘Who does this kind of thing?'

Since November, the thieves have particularly targeted West Philadelphia mailboxes, on the hunt for checks. They often dip them in acetone to wash off the ink, then change the name and increase the amount, an investigator said. They go to banks or ATMs and withdraw cash, or deposit them into a burner account.

A Southwest Philadelphia detective, who asked not to be named, said more than 20 people — from City Line Avenue to the Schuylkill — have filed complaints about their checks being stolen and forged in the last two months. The common thread, he said, was that the victims had all put their check into a mailbox.

GoodTask shows your iOS Reminders and Calendars data on a clean simple interface. Check what's on your schedule today and the day after. Also you can see everything on week or month basis. See what you've done last week and check what you're going to do next month! GoodTask Review: Best Task Manager Based-on Reminders & Calendar July 5, 2019 iOS and macOS users will find the Apple has provided a few applications such as Reminders and Calendar for getting things done. However, these two applications work separately, making it difficult to focus. Goodtask review macstories. It uses Apple's built-in 'Reminders' framework, which makes syncing across devices seamless and easy. This also makes the system robust, and insures against platform lock-in. GoodTask then adds a significant set of thoughtful features on top of that base. The app interface is well designed, elegant, and highly configurable.

Three people were arrested, but only one person has been charged in connection with the check fraud, Philadelphia police said. It's unclear what the person's role was in the scheme, but the theft continued after her arrest. Previous investigations show it's likely there are many different groups working across the area.

The Inquirer identified at least 10 people who said they had checks stolen from a mailbox at 46th and Larchwood Streets, in West Philadelphia. Bryant Simon, 59, had $6,900 stolen from two separate bank accounts. Al Filreis, 64, lost $10,686.

The thieves withdrew more than $15,000 from Michael Parisi's account after they used the check's bank account information to create a fake driver's license and bank card in Parisi's name.

Ian Abrams, 65, almost lost more than $15,000 after the thieves duplicated a check he dropped into the box at 51st Street and Chester Avenue. The bank stopped payment before it went through.

'I know that it's hard times out here for everybody. But who does this kind of thing?' said Maryann Muhammad, 75, of Kingsessing, whose $25 charity donation became a $1,800 withdrawal.

In most cases, banks have quickly refunded customers' lost money. But the thievery is upending lives and further fraying residents' trust in an agency plagued by mail delays and cutbacks.

Plus, the ease with which criminals are able to fraudulently cash checks has called bank security measures into question. In some cases, thieves cash checks made out to someone else.

Michael Hallman dropped a $6,290 check for his new landlord into the mailbox at 21st and Walnut Streets on Nov. 2. Two days later, a person endorsing the check with a scribble, but changing nothing else, cashed it at a Santander Bank. Nearly three months later, Chase Bank has yet to reimburse Hallman, 43.

'It's been an absolute nightmare,' he said.

Banks across the city have had customers impacted by the theft, but most declined to provide information on their security procedures or investigations, citing security and privacy concerns.

A few USPS plants are reinstalling mail sorting machines. But in Philly, more changes that could cause delays are happening. (from October)The scheme

While rare, mail theft has been an issue since the creation of the USPS, and counties across the country have reported similar check fraud schemes.

Sometimes the thieves attach glue traps to the ends of string to 'fish' letters out of the boxes' small opening. Now, as the Postal Service has made the openings smaller, thieves have prioritized obtaining keys.

One key, formally called an arrow key, opens up every corner collection box and apartment mailbox for a zip code, postal workers said.

'It is a master key that's good for a specific area or region. It has some universality to it, so you'd see the attraction to thieves,' said Philip Rubio, a history professor at North Carolina A&T State University, who worked as a letter carrier for 20 years.

Carriers must sign their keys out and in each day. The agency's use of universal collection box locks and keys dates back to the 1870s and has been 'surprisingly secure and successful over the years as long as there is a system of accountability,' Rubio said.

But that system has deteriorated as short-staffed employees, to save time, don't always follow the protocol for tracking a key, said Nick Casselli, president of APWU Local 89. Zelda awakening face shrine.

Casselli said that in spring 2020, an employee at the Bustleton post office stole a key and gave it to her boyfriend, who began stealing from mailboxes. He said the postal inspectors caught her shortly after and she was fired.

'I thought that was an isolated incident,' he said.

The Postal Service's Office of the Inspector General, which conducts internal audits and investigations, called the agency's oversight of arrow keys 'ineffective' in an August report.

'The number of arrow keys in circulation is unknown, and local units did not adequately report lost, stolen, or broken keys or maintain key inventories,' the report said. 'Ineffective controls over arrow keys increases the risk that these items will be lost or stolen and not detected.'

Blue Post Box In India

Some postal workers have taken advantage of the lack of oversight. In Westchester, N.Y., the mail theft investigation found that some carriers were selling arrow keys for upward of $1,000, said Stefanie DeNise, assistant district attorney of Westchester County's Identity Theft Unit.

Indesign plug in. Once people have the keys, they make and sell copies. Thieves also target carriers and rob them of their keys, DeNise said.

In Westchester, once the Postal Inspection Service replaced the county's mailboxes in early 2019, 'we saw a complete stop in mail theft from the blue boxes,' DeNise said.

DeNise's office charged about 25 people in connection to the cases, she said.

Christa Schroeder, the daughter of a single parent, was born in Hannoversch Münden, Germany, on 19th March 1908. After the death of her mother she moved to Nagold where she worked as a secretary. In 1930 she moved to Munich. After answering an advertisement she found work with the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). She later recalled in her autobiography, He Was My Chief: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Secretary (1985): 'Later I learned that I had been the last of 87 applicants. That the post was awarded to me, someone who was neither a member of the NSDAP nor interested in politics nor aware of whom Adolf Hitler might be, must have resulted purely from my being a 22-year-old with proven shorthand/typing experience who could furnish good references.' Schroeder argued that she was never a Nazi: 'I was told I had to join the Party since only NSDAP members could be employees. I suppose I went a few times to the big assemblies, but I felt nothing in common with the speakers or the masses and I must have appeared terribly stupid.'

Adolf Hitler become Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and Schroeder joined his Liaison Staff in Berlin. Hitler installed himself in the Radziwill Palace. According to Schroeder: 'His study, the library, his bedroom and later, alongside it, Eva Braun's apartment were all on the first floor. Directly opposite the door to Hitler's study a couple of steps led to a long corridor, beyond which was the so-called adjutancy wing with the rooms for Hitler's aides. The first room was the Staircase Room (Treppenzimmer), where at least one of us would be permanently on standby, regardless of the hour, should Hitler need to give a dictation. Then came the rooms of Julius Schaub, Hitler's rather unprepossessing factotum, Dr Dietrich (Reich press officer), Sepp Dietrich (commander of SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Hitler's personal bodyguard unit) and Hitler's chief adjutant, Wilhelm Brückner.'

Schroeder gradually got to know Hitler: 'One day Hitler happened to pass the Staircase Room at teatime, saw us sitting there and asked if he might join us. This hour of easy chatter was so much to his liking that he later came to tea almost daily. The Staircase Room was a place where he felt unburdened and I always had the impression that what he said there came from a secret memory box which at all other times he kept locked shut. He would often recall pranks played in late childhood, for example, the time as a 12 year-old when he wagered his classmates that he could make the girls laugh during a religious service. He won the bet by intently brushing his non-existent moustache whenever they glanced at him.'

Adolf Hitler also told Schroeder about his relationship with his parents: 'I never loved my father, 'but feared him. He was prone to rages and would resort to violence. My poor mother would then always be afraid for me. When I read Karl May once that it was a sign of bravery to hide one's pain, I decided that when he beat me the next time I would make no sound. When it happened – I knew my mother was standing anxiously at the door – I counted every stroke out loud. Mother thought I had gone mad when I reported to her with a beaming smile, 'Thirty-two strokes father gave me!' From that day I never needed to repeat the experiment, for my father never beat me again.'

Schroeder became fairly close to Hitler: 'I found Hitler's eyes expressive. They could look friendly and warm-hearted, or express indignation, indifference and disgust. In the last months of the war they lost expressiveness and became a more watery, pale light blue, and rather bulging. One could always tell his mood from his voice. It could be unusually calm, clear and convincing, but also excited, increasing in volume and becoming overwhelmingly aggressive. Often it would be ice-cold.. Hitler's nose was very large and fairly pointed.. His teeth were yellow and he had bad breath. He should have grown a beard to hide his mouth.' Hitler told her: 'My nose is much too big. I need the moustache to relieve the effect!'

Christa Schroeder knew about Hitler's love affairs with Geli Raubal and Eva Braun. She claims that the only woman Hitler ever loved was Geli. 'After the death of his niece Geli, Christmas was really a torture for him, and not pleasant for us either. It's true that he allowed a Christmas tree to be put in the corner of the hall, but Christmas carols were not sung.' Geli's room was kept like it was at the time of her death and Anni Winter, the housekeeper, was the only one allowed into the room. Schroeder regarded Eva as a schemer: 'When he no longer had much time for her because of the electioneering, she pursued him cunningly with suicide attempts. And of course she succeeded, because as a politician Hitler couldn't have survived a second suicide from someone close to him. I say it again: the only woman he loved and would certainly have married later was his step-niece Geli Raubal.'

Schroeder was a heavy smoker and Adolf Hitler constantly scold her about her habit: 'He would start out with special reference to narrowing of the arteries caused by smoking. How awful a smoker's stomach must look. Smokers lacked consideration for others, forcing them to breathe in polluted air. He had really toyed with the idea of outlawing smoking anywhere in Germany. The campaign would begin by having a death's head printed on every cigarette pack.' However, he seemed to be unaware that Eva Braun smoked: 'If I should ever discover that Eva were secretly smoking, then that would be grounds for me to separate from her immediately and for ever.' However, Reinhard Spitzy claims that Hitler knew Eva Braun smoked and that she had some privileges that enabled her to do what was forbidden to others: 'She was allowed to sing, to dance, to paint her nails with red paint, and she was allowed to smoke a cigarette outside. Meanwhile, we had to go to the loo to smoke.. Hitler had a very good nose, and it was forbidden to smoke. But Eva Braun was allowed everything.'

Hitler became very dependant on Christa Schroeder. In 1938, she became engaged to Yugoslav diplomat Lav Alkonic. When Hitler refused to give his blessing to the liaison, Schroeder raised the possibility of leaving his employment. Hitler replied: 'I would know how to prevent that.' To protect Alkonic she broke off he engagement. A friend later commented: 'In 1939 she requested Hitler's blessing for the impending marriage, this was sadly denied her by him. So to please him or perhaps there were other reasons she broke off the engagement, and this I suspect would cause her emotional stress, for the rest of her life.'

One of her responsibilities was taking dictation: 'As a rule Hitler would be standing at or bent over his desk, working on the punch lines for a speech, for example. Often he would appear not to notice my presence. Before the dictation I would not exist for him, and I doubt whether he saw me as a person when I was at my typist's desk. A while would pass in silence. Then he would close in on the typewriter and begin to dictate calmly and with expansive gestures. Gradually, getting into his stride, he would speak faster. Without pause one sentence would then follow another while he strolled around the room. Occasionally he would halt, lost in thought, before Lenbach's portrait of Bismarck, gathering himself as it were before resuming his wandering. His face would become florid and the anger would shine in his eyes. He would stand rooted to the spot as though confronting the particular enemy he was imagining. It would certainly have been easier to have taken this dictation in shorthand but Hitler did not want this. Apparently he felt himself as if on wings when he heard the rhythmic chatter of the typewriter keys.'

After the outbreak of the Second World War Hitler changed his approach to making speeches. He told Schroeder: 'I prefer to speak, and I speak best, from the top of my head, but now we are at war I must weigh carefully every word, for the world is watching and listening. Were I to use the wrong word in a spontaneous moment of passion, that could have severe implications!' Hitler used to ask her opinion of his speeches. He once told her: 'You are the only person I allow to correct me!'

In her autobiography, He Was My Chief: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Secretary (1985) she recalls how in 1943 Henriette von Schirach, the wife of Baldur von Schirach, complained about the treatment of the Jews: Hitler replied: 'Be silent, Frau von Schirach, you understand nothing about it. You are sentimental. What does it matter to you what happens to female Jews? Every day tens of thousands of my most valuable men fall while the inferior survive. In that way the balance in Europe is being undermined.. I am committed by duty to my people alone, to nobody else!' Schroeder commented that on another occasion Hitler said: 'I am totally indifferent to what the future will think of the methods which I have to use.'

Dr Karl Brandt, who was later convicted of war crimes, suggested that Schroeder was one of the few people close to Adolf Hitler who raised questions about Hitler's behaviour: 'Clever, critical and intelligent, she had a turnover of work which no other secretary matched, often spending several days and nights almost without a break taking dictation. She would always express her opinion openly.. and in time became sharply critical of Hitler himself. Her boldness undoubtedly put her life in grave danger.'

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Schroeder argues that Hitler's health deteriorated during the war. 'The knowledge from 1944 onwards that he was no longer master of his own body was a heavy burden. When surprised visitors saw his trembling hand, he would cover it instinctively with the other. Yet to the end he remained master of his emotions. Should bad news arrive during a private conversation the only clue would be a movement of his jaw. I remember him receiving the report about the destruction of the Möhne and Eder dams, which flooded much of the Ruhr. As he read it his face turned to stone, but that was all. Nobody could have gauged how deeply the blow had struck him. It would be hours or days before he would refer to such an event, and then give full vent to his feelings.'

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On 20th April, 1945, Adolf Hitler ordered Schroeder, Dr Theodor Morell, Albert Bormann, Dr. Hugo Blaschke, Johanna Wolf, Admiral Karl-Jesco von Puttkamer and several others to leave Berlin by aircraft. The following month she was arrested by the US Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC). An US Army intelligence report on 22nd May, 1945, stated that: 'Mr Albrecht… interrogated her. She was rather stupid, dumpy and an ardent Nazi.' Schroeder later recalled: 'After the interrogation was over, Lt Albrecht..had a very friendly conversation with me.. I expressed regret that my whole life, all the years, had been for nothing.' She was originally considered to be a war criminal but was later reclassified as a collaborator and released days later, on 12th May 1948.

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After the war she worked as a secretary in Munich. She retired in 1967 and later published her autobiography, He Was My Chief: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Secretary (1985).

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Christa Schroeder, who never married, died aged 76, on 28th June 1984.