Age catching up with Hitler’s last bodyguard
01/28/2011
Adolf Hitler’s last surviving bodyguard has stopped responding to the flood of fan mail the 93-year-old receives, citing old age.
Rochus Misch, who uses a walking frame to move around his apartment, told the Berliner Kurier that with the deluge of letters he receives asking for autographs, it was “no longer possible” to reply because of his age.
“They (letters) come from Korea, from Knoxville, Tennessee, from Finland and Iceland – and not one has a bad word to say,” said Misch, who is believed to be the last man alive to have seen Hitler and other top-ranking Nazis in the flesh.
In the past Misch used to send fans autographed copies of wartime photos of himself in a neatly pressed SS uniform, according to Reuters. Now the incoming fan mail, including letters and packages, piles up in his flat in south Berlin’s leafy Rudow neighborhood.
Misch joined the a predecessor of the Waffen-SS in 1937. After the outbreak of World War II, Misch was badly wounded in Poland. As the last surviving member of his family, his company leader recommended him for service in the Führerbegleitkommando, the bodyguard unit that protected Hitler, rather than a return to frontline service.
Misch served as a junior member of Hitler’s permanent bodyguard, traveling with the Nazi leader throughout World War II. When not serving as a bodyguard, Misch and others in the unit served as telephone operators or couriers.
On Jan. 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 did not 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 near the war’s end, Misch was one of the last people remaining in the bunker. He had witnessed the discovery of the bodies of Eva Braun and Hitler after their suicide, and was present in the bunker complex during the time the Goebbels and his wife poisoned their six children.
Misch fled the bunker on May 2, only hours before the Red Army seized it, but was captured a short time later by Soviet forces. Misch was then tortured as the Soviets attempted to extract information regarding Hitler’s exact fate.
Misch then spent nine years in Soviet labor camps.
His memoirs, “The Last Witness,” were published in 2008 in Germany and are in the works to become a feature film.
01/28/2011 at 7:15 am
Do people like this deserve publicity? Can we look forward to a “Leni Rifenstahl was just a film director” post in future?
01/28/2011 at 9:30 am
Good question.
While I certainly don’t understand the barrage of “fan mail” he’s received over the years, I think that as someone who had close access to Hitler for much of World War II and was a witness to the final days in the bunker in Berlin, including witnessing the discovery of the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun, there’s certainly some historical value to his remembrances.
Just as importantly, there are still many living links to the horrors of the recent past and perhaps by writing occasionally about them, today’s generation will realize that what happened 70 years ago isn’t “ancient history.”
08/09/2011 at 2:52 pm
Come on, he is the last one who knew Hitler and the other top dogs in Nazi Germany, so of course as a witness he is extremly valuable, and because of that people send fan post to him. A lot of people (Im not gonna judge if it is good or bad) are fascinated with hitler and that sort of stuff may thats why.
and besides that, I dont know why you wonder if he is “deserving” publicity. Did he do anything wrong? he could not have stopped the war if thats your point, if he had not become hitlers bodyguard somebody else would have done that job. and he did not commit any war crimes either, in the contrary that poor guy was tortured (they wanted to know if hitler was really dead or just escaped after the war) and held captive in labor camps for almost 10 years. do you have any idea what that must have been like? I think he has been trough enough pain and trouble for one lifetime. I think he could say that he is not proud of having served as SS guy, but I dont think he should apologize for it (thats a thing they always demand in the German media when reporting something about misch) because like I said, I do not think he did anything wrong.
cheers