Yrys
Army.ca Veteran
- Reaction score
- 11
- Points
- 430
I was in Hitler's suicide bunker
At his living room table, 92-year-old Rochus Misch shows me some of
his old photo albums. Private pictures he had taken more than 60 years
ago. There are colour images of Mr Misch in an SS uniform at Adolf Hitler's
home in the Alps, snapshots of Hitler staring at rabbits, and photos of
Hitler's mistress and future wife Eva Braun.
For five years, SS Oberscharfuehrer Rochus Misch had been part of Adolf
Hitler's inner circle, as a bodyguard, a courier and telephone operator to
the Fuehrer. "My first meeting with Hitler was rather strange," Mr Misch
recalls. "I'd been in the job 12 days when Hitler's chief adjutant, a man
called Bruckner, started asking me questions about my grandmother,
about my childhood. "Then he got up and walked towards the door.
Being an obedient soldier, I flung myself forward to open it, and there
was Hitler standing right behind the door. I felt cold. Then I felt hot.
I felt every emotion standing there opposite Hitler.
"In the Fuehrer's entourage, strictly speaking, we were bodyguards," says
Mr Misch. "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."
Last survivor
With the Allies advancing and Germany on the brink of defeat, Hitler
retreated to his Berlin bunker. Rochus Misch was the telephone operator
there.
"I worked in a small room with a telephone and teletype machine with
outside lines," he remembers. "There was only enough room to shelter
one extra person in my room in the event of an air raid. The bunker really
wasn't that big. It contained small rooms of only 10 to 12 square metres."
Rochus Misch is the last survivor of the Hitler bunker. He is the final
witness of the drama that took place there on 30 April 1945. It was
the day Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide.
"Suddenly I heard somebody shouting to Hitler's attendant: 'Linge, Linge,
I think it's happened.' They'd heard a gunshot, but I hadn't. At that
moment Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, ordered everyone
to be silent. Everyone began whispering. I was speaking on the telephone
and I made sure I talked louder on purpose because I wanted to hear
something. I didn't want it to feel like we were in a death bunker.
Deaths
"Then Bormann ordered Hitler's door to be opened. I saw Hitler slumped
with his head on the table. Eva Braun was lying on the sofa, with her
head towards him. Her knees were drawn tightly up to her chest. She
was wearing a dark blue dress with white frills. I will never forget it.
"I watched as they wrapped Hitler up. His legs were sticking out as they
carried him past me. Someone shouted to me: 'Hurry upstairs, they're
burning the boss!' I decided not to go because I had noticed that Mueller
from the Gestapo was there - and he was never usually around. I said
to my comrade Hentschel, the mechanic: 'Maybe we will be killed for
being the last witnesses.'"
The next day the drama continued. Down in the bunker, the six children
of Germany's new leader - Joseph Goebbels - were drugged and
murdered. It was their own mother Magda who killed them. "Straight after
Hitler's death, Mrs Goebbels came down to the bunker with her children,"
Mr Misch recalls. "She started preparing to kill them. She couldn't have
done that above ground - there were other people there who would have
stopped her. That's why she came downstairs - because no-one else was
allowed in the bunker. She came down on purpose to kill them.
"The kids were right next to me and behind me. We all knew what was
going to happen. It was clear. I saw Hitler's doctor, Dr Stumpfegger give
the children something to drink. Some kind of sugary drink. Then
Stumpfegger went and helped to kill them. 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."
Crimes
Mr Misch fled Hitler's bunker just hours before it was seized by the Red
Army. But he was quickly captured and spent the next nine years in
Soviet labour camps. The captured "Fuehrerbunker" became a symbol of
the Allies' victory in World War II.
Two months after the end of the war, Winston Churchill visited it. He
posed for photos outside, sitting on a chair recovered from the shelter.
In later years, the bunker was blown up to stop it becoming a Nazi shrine.
At the end of our conversation, I ask Rochus Misch whether he knew of
the horrors that Adolf Hitler had unleashed across Europe. Did he know
about the Holocaust?
"I knew about Dachau camp and about concentration camps in general,"
he tells me. "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."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Britain declared war on Nazi Germany exactly 70 years ago today. What
are your memories of the day? What did you or your relatives do in the
war? Do you or your family have any inspirational wartime stories? Are
you doing anything to mark the anniversary? Tell us your experiences here .
At his living room table, 92-year-old Rochus Misch shows me some of
his old photo albums. Private pictures he had taken more than 60 years
ago. There are colour images of Mr Misch in an SS uniform at Adolf Hitler's
home in the Alps, snapshots of Hitler staring at rabbits, and photos of
Hitler's mistress and future wife Eva Braun.
For five years, SS Oberscharfuehrer Rochus Misch had been part of Adolf
Hitler's inner circle, as a bodyguard, a courier and telephone operator to
the Fuehrer. "My first meeting with Hitler was rather strange," Mr Misch
recalls. "I'd been in the job 12 days when Hitler's chief adjutant, a man
called Bruckner, started asking me questions about my grandmother,
about my childhood. "Then he got up and walked towards the door.
Being an obedient soldier, I flung myself forward to open it, and there
was Hitler standing right behind the door. I felt cold. Then I felt hot.
I felt every emotion standing there opposite Hitler.
"In the Fuehrer's entourage, strictly speaking, we were bodyguards," says
Mr Misch. "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."
Last survivor
With the Allies advancing and Germany on the brink of defeat, Hitler
retreated to his Berlin bunker. Rochus Misch was the telephone operator
there.
"I worked in a small room with a telephone and teletype machine with
outside lines," he remembers. "There was only enough room to shelter
one extra person in my room in the event of an air raid. The bunker really
wasn't that big. It contained small rooms of only 10 to 12 square metres."
Rochus Misch is the last survivor of the Hitler bunker. He is the final
witness of the drama that took place there on 30 April 1945. It was
the day Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide.
"Suddenly I heard somebody shouting to Hitler's attendant: 'Linge, Linge,
I think it's happened.' They'd heard a gunshot, but I hadn't. At that
moment Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, ordered everyone
to be silent. Everyone began whispering. I was speaking on the telephone
and I made sure I talked louder on purpose because I wanted to hear
something. I didn't want it to feel like we were in a death bunker.
Deaths
"Then Bormann ordered Hitler's door to be opened. I saw Hitler slumped
with his head on the table. Eva Braun was lying on the sofa, with her
head towards him. Her knees were drawn tightly up to her chest. She
was wearing a dark blue dress with white frills. I will never forget it.
"I watched as they wrapped Hitler up. His legs were sticking out as they
carried him past me. Someone shouted to me: 'Hurry upstairs, they're
burning the boss!' I decided not to go because I had noticed that Mueller
from the Gestapo was there - and he was never usually around. I said
to my comrade Hentschel, the mechanic: 'Maybe we will be killed for
being the last witnesses.'"
The next day the drama continued. Down in the bunker, the six children
of Germany's new leader - Joseph Goebbels - were drugged and
murdered. It was their own mother Magda who killed them. "Straight after
Hitler's death, Mrs Goebbels came down to the bunker with her children,"
Mr Misch recalls. "She started preparing to kill them. She couldn't have
done that above ground - there were other people there who would have
stopped her. That's why she came downstairs - because no-one else was
allowed in the bunker. She came down on purpose to kill them.
"The kids were right next to me and behind me. We all knew what was
going to happen. It was clear. I saw Hitler's doctor, Dr Stumpfegger give
the children something to drink. Some kind of sugary drink. Then
Stumpfegger went and helped to kill them. 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."
Crimes
Mr Misch fled Hitler's bunker just hours before it was seized by the Red
Army. But he was quickly captured and spent the next nine years in
Soviet labour camps. The captured "Fuehrerbunker" became a symbol of
the Allies' victory in World War II.
Two months after the end of the war, Winston Churchill visited it. He
posed for photos outside, sitting on a chair recovered from the shelter.
In later years, the bunker was blown up to stop it becoming a Nazi shrine.
At the end of our conversation, I ask Rochus Misch whether he knew of
the horrors that Adolf Hitler had unleashed across Europe. Did he know
about the Holocaust?
"I knew about Dachau camp and about concentration camps in general,"
he tells me. "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."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Britain declared war on Nazi Germany exactly 70 years ago today. What
are your memories of the day? What did you or your relatives do in the
war? Do you or your family have any inspirational wartime stories? Are
you doing anything to mark the anniversary? Tell us your experiences here .
