Ingeburg Gertrud Werlemann (alsoIngeburg Gertrud Wagner[1]) (* 28 April 1919 inBerlin-Altglienicke; † 12 September 2010[2]) was a German secretary and photographer. During theSecond World War, she was a secretary toAdolf Eichmann and noted down the results of the talks at theWannsee Conference in Berlin on 20 January 1942.
After training as a secretary andstenographer, she worked for various state institutions. She had been a member of theNSDAP since September 1938. At the beginning of March 1940, she joined theReich Security Main Office, where she eventually worked for Eichmann. In June 1944, she married Heinz Wagner, an officer in theWehrmacht. She was interned in theSoviet occupation zone from 1945 to 1948. Soon after, she divorced her husband.
From April 1951, Ingeburg Wagner lived inBonn, where she worked as a businesswoman and photographer. Later she moved toGarmisch-Partenkirchen. Already during her internment inSoviet Special Camp No. 7, she met Käte Werth and formed a relationship with her that lasted until her death. After theBundestag passed the Civil Partnership Act in 2001, she entered into an officially registered partnership with Werth.[3]
At the conference, high-ranking representatives of the party and the state coordinated the persecution and murder of the European Jews. In addition to them, a typist was also present, asEichmann later stated in his trial. On the basis of her notes, Eichmann later wrote the minutes of the results in consultation withHeydrich. By fortunate circumstances, a copy of this has been preserved and is today considered an important source on theHolocaust.
Among other things, it can be concluded from awitness statement by Wagner (Werlemann) in 1962 that she took notes at that conference. She was neither charged nor convicted, according to historian Marcus Gryglewski. He sees Wagner as an example of how German post-war society was hardly interested in dealing withnational socialist crimes, legally or otherwise. On top of that, there was a lack of awareness of female perpetrators anddesk-top perpetrators. But according to a later decision of the GermanFederal Court of Justice, one could also support a killing machine without having killed directly.[4]
The identity of the secretary is not totally undisputed. The 2001 British-American filmConspiracy features a male stenographer, played by Simon Markey.Alex J.Kay in 2019 defended this choice because Eichmann at his trial had "expressly stated that the stenographer had been male."[5]
Christian Mentel on the other hand follows the theory that Werlemann was the note taking secretary,[6] and on the website of thepresent day museum of the Wannsee conference house,Wolfgang Benz briefly mentions an "unknown female secretary"(einer unbekannten Sekretärin) that helped Eichmann with the notes.[7]
The secretary was portrayed by Anita Mally (credited as "secretary") in a1984 German TV film and by Lilli Fichtner in the2022 version (credited as "Ingeburg Werlemann"). In both versions, the secretary takes notes by hand.