In 2012, at the age of 95, shortly before her death, a woman named Margot Wölk revealed that she had been one of the young German women forced to taste Hitler's meals while he was hiding in the Wolf’s Lair. No one had ever known about the existence of the food tasters. Margot Wölk was the only one among them to survive the end of the war. Her story inspired both the novel and the film.