According to detectives, when Rosemarie found out her daughter had not run away to live with a sect – the lie her husband concocted to explain her disappearance – but had been imprisoned downstairs, she had a nervous breakdown.

Elisabeth was also reunited with the children who were taken away from her while she was forced to live in the tiny dungeon with her three other children.

“My babies. You are so beautiful,” said Elisabeth as she held them close and stroked their faces.

Her sister Gabriele Helm, speaking for the first time, revealed Elisabeth’s dramatic first words after being freed from the basement at the family home in Amstetten, Austria.

Gabriele, 36, who is undergoing therapy along with the rest of the family to cope with the trauma, said: “None of us can believe how normal Elisabeth seems.

“She is healthy and very chatty and doing very well. Every day she gets a bit stronger. I can’t say what the family is going through. It is more than anyone can believe. It has devastated us.”

Elisabeth is being cared for in a darkened room with five of her children and her mother. Daughter Kerstin, 19, is still critically ill in hospital in an induced coma.

The family spend their time watching Disney DVDs and reading letters of support from around the world. Elisabeth and her youngest son Felix have to wear dark glasses because their eyes are so sensitive to light.

Their lawyer Christoph Herbst revealed that the cellar children will soon be given official birth certificates and proof of Austrian citizenship.

Until now Kerstin, Stefan, 18, and five-year-old Felix were not registered because they were born in secret in the cellar, but Elisabeth managed to record the dates of their births.

Doctors say that of the Fritzl family, Rosemarie and Stefan are the worst affected.

Stefan spends much of the day sitting in front of his aquarium watching the fish – much as he did in the cellar.

Rosemarie, 68, has severe heart problems which doctors believe were caused by the years of stress from her life with her dictatorial husband, now 73.

Mr Herbst added: “This week Felix saw rain for the first time, but was unable to go outside. He didn’t know what rain was and was fascinated by it.”

Elisabeth is also being comforted in hospital by her doting big brother Harald, 44, who left home when his sister vanished, believing his father’s lie that she had joined a religious cult.

Family friend Elfriede Hoera, 69, has revealed how Fritzl liked only three of his “above-ground” children – son Josef and daughters Gabriele and Ulrike.

The other four – Doris, Rosemarie jnr, Elisabeth and Harald – routinely had to suffer the full fury of his sickening rages.