4:3 Hitler bodyguard Rochus Misch, last witness to Fuehrer's final hours, dies
104.8 هزار بار بازدید -
9 سال پیش
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(6 Sep 2013) Adolf Hitler's
(6 Sep 2013) 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, SS Staff Sergeant Rochus Misch has died, at the age of 96.
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 offered no apologies for his close relationship with the most reviled man of the 20th century. And he stayed away from the central questions of guilt and responsibility, saying he knew nothing of the murder of six (m) million Jews and that Hitler never brought up the Final Solution in his presence.
Misch died Thursday, one of the last of a generation that bears direct responsibility for German brutality during World War II.
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 organisation 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.
He was shot when Hitler's armies invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
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.
Following the German surrender May 7, Misch was taken to the Soviet Union, where he spent the next nine years in prisoner of war camps before being allowed to return to Berlin in 1954.
He reunited with his wife Gerda, whom he had married in 1942 and who died in 1997, and opened up a shop.
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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 offered no apologies for his close relationship with the most reviled man of the 20th century. And he stayed away from the central questions of guilt and responsibility, saying he knew nothing of the murder of six (m) million Jews and that Hitler never brought up the Final Solution in his presence.
Misch died Thursday, one of the last of a generation that bears direct responsibility for German brutality during World War II.
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 organisation 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.
He was shot when Hitler's armies invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
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.
Following the German surrender May 7, Misch was taken to the Soviet Union, where he spent the next nine years in prisoner of war camps before being allowed to return to Berlin in 1954.
He reunited with his wife Gerda, whom he had married in 1942 and who died in 1997, and opened up a shop.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: Twitter: AP_Archive
Facebook: Facebook: APArchives
Instagram: Instagram: APNews
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
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