<i>'I was Hitler's food taster'</i>

(left)Margot Woelk

This is the woman tasked with tasting Adolf Hitler's meals to ensure the Fuhrer's food was not poisoned.
For more than two years Margot Woelk risked her life by sampling food prepared for Hitler at his Eastern front HQ dubbed the Wolf's Lair.
The now 95-year-old was picked up by the SS in 1942 after being evacuated from Berlin to the East Prussian village of Gross Partsch - in modern-day Poland - where she was set to work tasting fresh produce to be served up to the paranoid Nazi leader.
Woelk was one of 15 women forced to test Hitler's food before it passed his lips at the Rastenburg base.
As her fellow Germans were existing on rations, Woelk feasted on fresh fruit and vegetables, including asparagus, peppers and peas.
But the now elderly woman has revealed the fear she felt at sampling the leader's meals during the Second World War, saying: 'We had no choice'.
Woelk's mother-in-law had offered her a place to stay in the countryside when her husband Karl left to join the fighting and a bomb tore the roof from her Berlin apartment, leaving the secretary homeless.
But shortly after she arrived she was earmarked by the SS to perform the bizarre role alongside 14 other unwilling female food tasters.
Woelk told the Times: 'Of course I was afraid. If it [the food] had been poisoned I would not be here today. We were forced to eat it, we had no choice.'
Hitler would only deign to touch his food after all 15 women had sampled it and at least an hour had elapsed, she explained.
'Between 11 and 12 o'clock, we had to taste the food, and only after all 15 of us had tried it was it driven to the headquarters by the SS,' Woelk said.
'It was all vegetarian, the most delicious fresh things, from asparagus to peppers and peas, served with rice, and salads. It was all arranged on one plate, just as it was served to him.'
Woelk, who was not required to taste meat or fish as the leader was a vegetarian, had to report every day, but was only used when Hitler's personal train was in the station. She said she had been rounded up by the SS because the Nazi leader wanted only 'good German stock' testing his food.
There was always an hour's delay before Hitler tucked into his meal so that any effects of the food on the women could be seen, she said.