Hitler's bodyguard Rochus Misch dies in Berlin

Rochus Misch
1917-2013

Rochus Misch, who served as Adolf Hitler's devoted bodyguard for most of the second world war and was the last remaining witness to the Nazi leader's final hours in his Berlin bunker, has died. He was 96.

Misch died on Thursday in Berlin after a short illness, Burkhard Nachtigall, who helped him write his 2008 memoir, said.

Misch remained proud to the end about his years with Hitler, whom he affectionately called "boss." In a 2005 interview, Misch recalled Hitler as "a very normal man" and gave a riveting account of the German dictator's last days before he and his wife Eva Braun killed themselves as the Soviet Red Army closed in around their bunker in Berlin.

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

Born July 29, 1917, in the tiny Silesian town of Alt Schalkowitz, in what today is Poland, Misch was orphaned at an early age. At age 20, he decided to join the SS, an organisation that he saw as a counterweight to a rising threat from the left. He signed up for the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, a unit that was founded to serve as Hitler's personal protection.

"It was anti-communist, against Stalin - to protect Europe," Misch said. "I signed up in the war against Bolshevism, not for Adolf Hitler."