Rochus Misch

Rochus Misch (born July 29, 1917) is a former Oberscharführer in the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler who worked as a courier, bodyguard and telephone operator for Adolf Hitler from 1940 to 1945.

Biography

Early life

Misch was born in Oppeln in the Province of Silesia. He became an orphan at the age of two and grew up with his grandparents. He worked as a painter.

Nazi career

In 1937, Misch joined the Verfügungstruppe, the predecessor to Hitler's SS-Leibstandarte. He was badly wounded in Poland when negotiating the surrender of Polish troops. As the last living member of a Lower Silesian family, his company leader recommended him for the Führerbegleitkommando rather than front service.

As a junior member of Hitler's permanent staff, Misch travelled with Hitler from bunker to bunker throughout the Second World War. On January 16, 1945, following the German defeat in the Battle of the Bulge, Misch and the rest of Hitler's personal staff moved into the Führerbunker in Berlin. He was not to leave it for any significant period of time until the end of the war. Misch handled all of the direct communication from the bunker.

Following the suicides of Hitler and Joseph Goebbels on April 30 and May 1 respectively, 1945, Misch and mechanic Johannes Hentschel, two of the last people remaining in the bunker, exchanged letters to their wives if anything were to happen to one of them. Misch fled the bunker on May 2 only hours before the Red Army seized it; he was captured shortly thereafter by Soviet forces and claimed he was tortured as they tried to extract information regarding Hitler's exact fate from him. [http://www.hinduonnet.com/2000/05/21/stories/1321135d.htm Hindu Newspaper report]

Later life

After his release from captivity in 1954, Misch returned to Berlin where he lived two miles from the "Führerbunker". Following the rediscovery of the bunker in the 1990s, Misch stated publicly that the bunker should not be completely destroyed, being an important part of world history.

In May 2005, Misch appeared in the news when he was accused of tainting the memories of Holocaust victims after calling for a plaque in memory of the Goebbels children, who were killed by Magda Goebbels, shortly before her own suicide on May 1, 1945.

With the death of Bernd von Freytag-Loringhoven on February 27, 2007, Misch is one of the last survivors of the "Führerbunker". The other is Hitler Youth courier Armin Lehmann.

On the occasion of the release of the "Der Untergang" German movie in France, a French journalist (Nicolas Bourcier) interviewed Rochus Misch multiple times during the second part of 2005. The resulting biography was published in French as "J'étais garde du corps d'Hitler 1940–1945" ("I was Hitler's bodyguard 1940-1945") in March 2006. Translations are planned to be released in South America, Japan, Spain, Poland, Turkey, and Germany in autumn 2007.

It has been announced that the English-language edition of his book will be released by the end of 2008.

Portrayal in the media

Rochus Misch has been portrayed by the following actors in film and television productions.cite web | url = http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0059821/ | title = Rochus Misch (Character)| accessdate = May 8 | accessdaymonth = | accessmonthday = | accessyear = 2008 | author = | last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | date = | year = | month = | format = | work = | publisher = IMDb.com | pages = | language = English | doi = | archiveurl = | archivedate = | quote = ]
* Michael Kitchen in the 1981 United States television production "The Bunker".
* Heinrich Schneider in the 2004 German film ""Downfall" ("Der Untergang").
*Florian Lukas in the 2005 German television production "Die Letzte Schlacht" ("The Bunker").

References

* Burns, Chris. (October 15, 1999). " [http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9910/15/hitler.bunker.02/ Berliners debate what to do with Hitler's bunker] ". "CNN"
* Hall, Allan. (May 3, 2005). "Hitler, the Tragic Goebbels Children and Me: 60 Years on, Fuhrer's Nurse Tells Her Story". "The Daily Mail", p. 13
*Der Spiegel online, 29 July 2007, DES TEUFELS LEIBWÄCHTER - Die Geheimnisse des letzten lebenden Hitler-Vertrauten [http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/zeitgeschichte/0,1518,496950-2,00.html]
*2005 Salon.com [http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/feature/2005/02/21/nazi/index.html interview]
*Hindu Newspaper Report [http://www.hinduonnet.com/2000/05/21/stories/1321135d.htm 'I heard Hitler shoot himself']