Last Hitler bodyguard Rochus
Misch dies 21 minutes ago Rochus Misch controversially
saw Hitler in a positive light
even after the war A former bodyguard of Adolf
Hitler who witnessed the Nazi
dictator's final hours has died
in Germany aged 96. Rochus Misch was the last
survivor from Hitler's bunker in
Berlin. The former SS man had
operated the telephones in the
bunker and had proudly
reminisced about his wartime
duties for the "boss". He had called Hitler "a very
normal man... he was no brute,
he was no monster", according
to the Associated Press news
agency. For five years, Misch was part
of the Fuehrer's inner circle, as
a bodyguard, a courier and
telephone operator. AP said that in his interview he
stayed away from the central
questions of guilt and
responsibility, saying he knew
nothing of the murder of six
million Jews and that Hitler never brought up the Final
Solution in his presence. "I knew about Dachau camp
and about concentration camps
in general," he told the BBC in
2009. "But I had no idea of the scale.
It wasn't part of our
conversations. The Nuremberg
Trial dealt with crimes
committed by the Germans. "But you must remember there
was never a war when crimes
weren't committed, and there
never will be." 'I will never forget it' Born in 1917 in the village of
Alt Schalkowitz in what is
today Poland, Misch was
orphaned at an early age and
grew up with his grandparents. He trained as a painter before
joining the SS at the age of 20.
He first served in Poland in
1939 before being appointed
to Hitler's personal entourage. His first task for the Fuehrer
was to deliver a letter his sister
in Vienna. "In the Fuehrer's entourage,
strictly speaking, we were
bodyguards," Misch told the
BBC. "When Hitler was travelling,
between four and six of us
would accompany him in a
second car. But when we were
at Hitler's apartment in the
Chancellery we also had other duties. "Two of us would always work
as telephone operators. With a
boss like Hitler, there were
always plenty of phone calls." With the Allies advancing and
the Nazis on the brink of
defeat, Hitler retreated to his
Berlin bunker and Misch
became the final witness of
the drama that took place there on 30 April 1945. He said he was on the
telephone when Hitler killed
himself, so did not hear the
gunshots. The six Goebbels children were
murdered in the bunker But others in the bunker did
hear them and Hitler's private
secretary asked everyone to be
silent and ordered that the
door to the Fuehrer's room to
be opened. "I saw Hitler slumped with his
head on the table. [Hitler's
wife] Eva Braun was lying on
the sofa, with her head
towards him," Misch said. "Her knees were drawn tightly
up to her chest. She was
wearing a dark blue dress with
white frills. I will never forget
it." The next day, the six children of
Nazi propaganda minister
Joseph Goebbels were killed in
the bunker, by drugging them
with morphine and
administering cyanide - a plan organised by their mother
Magda. Misch said she came to the
bunker to do it as no-one was
allowed in and she would have
been stopped by others above
ground. Hitler's doctor Ludwig
Stumpfegger helped her, he
said. "All of us knew what was going
on. An hour or two later, Mrs
Goebbels came out crying. She
sat down at a table and began
playing patience." Later that evening she and her
husband died in the Chancellery
gardens. Jewish daughter? On 2 May 1945, Misch fled the
bunker and was captured by
Soviet forces shortly
afterwards. He spent nearly nine years in a
Soviet prisoner of war camp,
returning home to his family in
Berlin on New Year's Eve 1953.

Pix