Last Bodyguard who saw Hitler has passed away

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B-17engineer

Colonel
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Dec 9, 2007
Revis Island.
He was Adolf Hitler's devoted bodyguard for most of World War II and the last remaining witness to the Nazi leader's final hours in his Berlin bunker. To the very end, SS Staff Sgt. Rochus Misch was proud of it all.

For years, he accompanied Hitler nearly everywhere he went, sticking by the man he affectionately called "boss" until the dictator and his wife, Eva Braun, killed themselves as defeat at the hands of the Allies drew nearer. The loyal SS officer remained in what he called the "coffin of concrete" for days after Hitler's death, finally escaping as Berlin crumbled around him and the Soviets swarmed the city.

Even in his later years, during a 2005 interview with The Associated Press in which he recounted Hitler's claustrophobic, chaotic final days, Misch still cut the image of an SS man. He had a rigid posture, broad shoulders, neatly combed white hair — and no apologies for his close relationship with the most reviled man of the 20th century.

"He was no brute. He was no monster. He was no superman," Misch said.

The 96-year-old Misch died Thursday, one of the last of a generation that bears direct responsibility for German brutality during World War II. In his interview with the AP, he stayed away from the central questions of guilt and responsibility, saying he knew nothing of the murder of 6 million Jews and that Hitler never brought up the Final Solution in his presence.

"That was never a topic," he said emphatically. "Never."

In the forward to the English-language version of his book, "The Last Witness" — due for publication in October — he wrote that it was a different "reality" then and he never asked questions during what he considered just his "regular day at work."

In the AP interview, he appeared to have little empathy for those he did not directly know, and even for some he did.

Misch was moved nearly to tears when talking about Joseph and Magda Goebbels' decision to kill their six children in the Berlin bunker before committing suicide themselves. But he was also able to guffaw about a family friend, "a real lefty," being thrown into the Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin and noting upon his release that "the paper shirts (at the camp) were uncomfortable."

Born July 29, 1917, in the tiny Silesian town of Alt Schalkowitz, in what today is Poland, Misch was orphaned at an early age.

Against the backdrop of the bloody Russian revolution and the rise of Stalin, combined with the post-World War I popularity of the Communist Party in Germany, Misch said he decided at 20 to join the SS — an organization he saw as a counterweight to the threat from the left.

He signed up for the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, a Berlin-based unit that originally was founded as the Fuehrer's personal bodyguard.

"It was anti-communist, against Stalin — to protect Europe," Misch said, noting that thousands of other Western Europeans served in the Waffen SS. "I signed up in the war against Bolshevism, not for Adolf Hitler."

But when Hitler's armies invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Misch found himself in the vanguard when his SS division was attached to a regular army unit for the blitzkrieg attack. As German forces quickly closed in on Warsaw, Misch, who spoke some Polish, was sent with a party to negotiate the surrender of a fortress and was told by the troops inside that they needed time to think about the offer.

As we were walking away they opened fire," Misch said at his home in Berlin. "A bullet came through here and right out, two centimeters from my heart."

After his evacuation to Germany and convalescence, he was appointed in May 1940 to serve as one of two SS men who would serve as Hitler's bodyguards and general assistants, doing everything from answering the telephones to greeting dignitaries — and once running flowers to one of the Fuehrer's favorite musicians who had just gotten engaged.

Misch and SS comrade Johannes Hentschel accompanied Hitler almost everywhere he went, including his Alpine retreat in Berchtesgaden and his forward "Wolf's Lair" headquarters. He lived between Hitler's apartments in the New Reich Chancellery and the home in a working-class Berlin neighborhood that he kept until his death.

"He was a wonderful boss," Misch said. "I lived with him for five years. We were the closest people who worked with him ... we were always there. Hitler was never without us day and night."

In the last eight to 10 days of Hitler's life, Misch followed him to live underground, protected by the so-called Fuehrerbunker's heavily reinforced concrete ceilings and walls.

"Hentschel ran the lights, air and water and I did the telephones — there was nobody else," he said. "When someone would come downstairs we couldn't even offer them a place to sit. It was far too small — little cells of 10 or 12 square meters. It was no bunker to live in. It was an air-raid bunker."

After the Soviet assault began, Misch remembered generals and Nazi brass coming and going as they tried desperately to cobble together a defense of the capital with the ragtag remains of the German military.

He remembered that on April 22, two days before two Soviet armies completed their encirclement of the city, Hitler said, "That's it. The war is lost. Everybody can go."

"Everyone except those who still had jobs to do like us — we had to stay," Misch said. "The lights, water, telephone ... those had to be kept going, but everybody else was allowed to go and almost all were gone immediately."

But that same day, Hitler clung to hope given by what turned out to be a false report that the Western Allies had called upon Germany to hold Berlin for two more weeks against the Soviets so that they could battle communism together.

"He still believed in a union between West and East," Misch said. "Hitler liked England — except for (then-Prime Minister Winston) Churchill — and didn't think that a people like the English would bind themselves with the communists to crush Germany."

On April 28, Misch saw the familiar figures of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Hitler confidant Martin Bormann enter the bunker with a man he had never seen before.

"I asked who it was, and they said that's the civil magistrate who has come to perform Hitler's marriage," Misch said.

That night, Hitler and longtime mistress Eva Braun were married in a short ceremony in which they both pledged they were of pure Aryan descent before taking their vows and signing a registry book.

Two days later, Misch saw Goebbels and Bormann again, this time talking with Hitler and his adjutant, SS Maj. Otto Guensche, in the bunker's corridor outside the telephone operator's room.

"I saw him go into his room ... and someone, Guensche, said that he shouldn't be disturbed. And that meant 'Now it's happening,'" Misch said. "We all knew that it was happening. He said he wasn't going to leave Berlin, he would stay here."

"We heard no shot, we heard nothing, but one of those who was in the hallway, I don't remember if it was Guensche or Bormann, said 'Linge, Linge, I think it's done,'" Misch said, referring to Hitler's valet Heinz Linge.

"Then everything was really quiet, everything was still ... who opened the door I don't remember, Guensche or Linge. They opened the door, and I naturally looked, and then there was a short pause and the second door was opened... and I saw Hitler lying on the table like so," Misch said, putting his head down on his hands on his living-room table.

"And Eva lay like so on the sofa with knees up, her head to him. I don't remember now if Hitler sat on the sofa or on a chair next to it." Eva Braun had died of poisoning and Hitler had shot himself.

The silence and anticipation then gave way to chaos, when Misch ran up to the chancellery to tell his superior the news and then back downstairs, where Hitler's corpse had been put on the floor with a blanket over it.

"Then they bundled Hitler up and said 'What do we do now?'" Misch said. "As they took Hitler out ... they walked by me about three or four meters away, I saw his shoes sticking outside the sack."

After the bodies were carried outside, an SS guard ran down the stairs and tried to get Misch to join the spectacle outside as the two were covered in gasoline and set alight.

"He said 'The boss is being burned. Come on out,'" Misch recalled. But instead Misch hastily retreated deeper into the bunker to talk with comrade Hentschel.

"I said 'Do you think we're going to be killed?' and he said 'Why do you think that?'" Misch said. "I said 'I saw the Gestapo upstairs in the ... chancellery and it could be that they'll want to kill us as witnesses.'"

But Misch stuck to his post — taking and directing telephone calls with Goebbels as his new boss until May 2, when he was given permission to flee.

"Everybody was upstairs in the ... chancellery, there were things to eat and drink there, downstairs in the bunker there was nothing. It was a coffin of concrete," he said. "Then Goebbels finally came down and said, 'You have a chance to live. You don't have to stay here and die.'"

Misch grabbed the rucksack he had packed and fled with a few others into the rubble of Berlin. Working his way through cellars and subways, Misch bumped into a large group of civilians seeking shelter in one tunnel.
Page 3: Hitler Bodyguard Rochus Misch Dies at 96 - ABC News
 
Bloody hell, best learn some more German sharpish then.
I hope if a translated version is released that its not like reading Mein Kampf.

Translation aside, I couldn't read past one third if it. Utter rubbish and not well written at all in my opinion.

Cheers Chris
 
Putting the personality of Misch to one side for a moment. This man was 96 when he died and just think of how many changes he had seen in his life time, his memories must have ranged from the horse drawn 1920's, through Hitler's bunker and into the modern world as we know it today, you couldn't make up a story like that.
 
I should have mentioned that it took me six months and lot of travelling to get that far.
 
I am of two minds about this.
One is, "What a great witness to History" and, (after reading it), "Good riddance".
An unrepentant Nazi that still revered his "Fuhrer".
"They never discussed it in front of me." What nonsense. The mantra of every SS lackey.
I am sure that they didn't. No one did. After all, it didn't happen, those photographs and eyewitness accounts by Allied soldiers, well, they were mistaken.
As with the memoires of Heinz Knoke, and Hans Rudel, this must be taken with a keen eye to a distortion of history that is unique to old men that wish to make their involvement; Shall we say, less than it really was?
 
Unfortunately, Paul, there are people who suffer from the "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome...

They see only what they want to see and tell thier own version based on that perspective. I do find his story (and other's like his) interesting, however take alot of what they say with a grain of salt.

From a historical perspective, it's damn fascinating, like the parts about the bunker and trips to Berchtesgaden and such because it allows a glimpse into an otherwise secret world.
 
From a historical perspective, it's damn fascinating, like the parts about the bunker and trips to Berchtesgaden and such because it allows a glimpse into an otherwise secret world.

Precisley my incentive to read (im no Nazi fan/sympathiser for sure) If Hitler managed to Brainwash a nation I find it hard to believe this guy wasn't the same. Especially given his close proximity to him for a lengthy amount of time.
Also, from reading the extract. Given that they were given the reponsibility of operating the phones etc and given he was a body guard (hence being very close at all times) I find it hard to believe he was not aware of the goings on in the concentration camps. I don't suppose he had any influence or say on the matter but I just don't believe he want aware. Probably sworn to take it to the grave with him or just an attempt to omit responsibility.

I hope it's released in English to enable closer scrutiny.

Cheers Chris
 
Unfortunately, Paul, there are people who suffer from the "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome...

They see only what they want to see and tell thier own version based on that perspective. I do find his story (and other's like his) interesting, however take alot of what they say with a grain of salt.

From a historical perspective, it's damn fascinating, like the parts about the bunker and trips to Berchtesgaden and such because it allows a glimpse into an otherwise secret world.

Exactly, that is how I see it as well.
 
Undoubtedly, many here have read "The Bunker" by James P. O'Donnell which I thought was a great read. Misch was the only person in the book that I liked, if it's possible to like such a person.

Geo
 
Undoubtedly, many here have read "The Bunker" by James P. O'Donnell which I thought was a great read. Misch was the only person in the book that I liked, if it's possible to like such a person.

Geo
Just because someone is charming it is doesn't mean that they are not a complete sh1t, often complete sh1ts get away with being complete sh1ts just by being charming, look at Cameron and Blair for example.
 
As I understand it, the politics section here on WW2.net was eliminated for good reason.
Having said that, I now delve into a bit of it.
(Stay with me here.) The National Socialist Workers Party in Germany was bad. Not to be simplistic, but, it was.
As I understand it, to join the SS, you should be a Nazi. Or at least sympathetic to the Nazi ideas. Now, to get to be a bodyguard to Hitler, one would think that this someone would be a true believer. I am pretty sure that they had a test of some kind. Maybe a trick question or something, I don't know.
The up-shot of all this is that I don't like this guy and I don't trust his report on history.
I heard enough whitewashing crap from my grandmother as a child, I don't trust Nazi's.
 
I can understand how people got sucked up into Der Fuhrer's line of crap. He was charismatic, he said all the right things at the right time...in essence, he was selling "hope" and "change" to the people of Germany who've been living through crushing economic depression, sagging national pride and a dismal future.

We can look back now and see through his BS, but to the people of the time, they really beleived. At first. Then his true colors showed through but for some, they were still star-struck and no matter how much truth you showed them, they still saw Hitler as thier great savior.

There have been many parallels in history, like Chairman Mao, Uncle Joe and other recent political figures. You would think that people would take advantage of history to safeguard thier future, but this never seems to be the case.
 
Meatloaf109 you wrote, The National Socialist Workers Party in Germany was bad. Not to be simplistic, but, it was.
As I understand it, to join the SS, you should be a Nazi. Or at least sympathetic to the Nazi ideas. Now, to get to be a bodyguard to Hitler, one would think that this someone would be a true believer. I am pretty sure that they had a test of some kind. Maybe a trick question or something, I don't know.
The up-shot of all this is that I don't like this guy and I don't trust his report on history.

I think that is a very good point, when you think of how many attempts there were on Hitler's life then his personal bodyguard must have been the most trusted of the trusted.
 

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