Rochus Misch

Rochus Misch (born July 29, 1917 in Alt Schalkowitz , Upper Silesia , † September 5, 2013 in Berlin ) was a German member of the SS in the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler , most recently with the rank of SS Oberscharführer . From 1940 to 1945 he worked as a member of the Führer Accompanying Command at the Führer Headquarters , most recently as a telephone operator. From 2009 he was the last surviving contemporary witness from Hitler's immediate environment .

Life

childhood and education

Rochus Misch was the second child of the construction worker Rochus Misch and his wife Victoria. His father, who was seriously wounded by a shot in the lung as a soldier in World War I , died shortly before he was born. In 1920 the mother died of pneumonia . In May 1922, his older brother had a fatal swimming accident. Misch grew up with his maternal grandparents from the age of six.

Misch attended elementary school for eight years and then trained as a painter in Hoyerswerda . After having been a painter's journeyman for some time, he started his own business with an older colleague in Hornberg in the Black Forest .

In 1937, when he was being drafted, he volunteered for the SS disposal force , a predecessor organization of the Waffen SS . He received his draft order for the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler on October 1, 1937. Misch and his SS unit took part in the Anschluss of Austria and the occupation of the Sudetenland as a result of the Munich Agreement .

Second World War

Used as a member of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler

On September 24, 1939, during the attack on Poland in the fighting for the fortress Modlin , Misch was seriously wounded in the arm and through a wound through the lung. In 1939 he was awarded the Iron Cross II. Class and the Wound Badge in Black.

Leader Accompanying Command

After Misch's recovery and on the recommendation of his company commander Wilhelm Mohnke (Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler), Hitler's chief adjutant at the time, Wilhelm Brückner , assigned Misch to the Führer's escort command . As a member of the Führer Accompanying Command, from 1940 to 1945 he stayed mainly in Berlin in the New Reich Chancellery , in Berchtesgaden am Obersalzberg ( Berghof or " Small Reich Chancellery "), in Rastenburg ( Führer Headquarters Wolfsschanze ) or in the Führer special train .

Misch reported on the last few days as a telephone operator in the Führerbunker behind the Berlin Reich Chancellery and a conversation with the newly appointed Reich Chancellor Goebbels on the day of his death (by suicide ), May 1, 1945:

Goebbels: "Any calls for me, Misch?"

Misch: “Yes, Mr. Reich Chancellor. The Gauleitung, General Weidling and a call from Lieutenant Colonel Seiffert. "

“Well, that's not much anymore,” Goebbels waved now.

Misch left the Führerbunker early in the morning on May 1, 1945 after Goebbels had released him from his position as a telephone operator. Only the machinist Johannes Hentschel remained there with Goebbels and his wife Magda . Misch fled from the front of the Old Reich Chancellery through the underground tunnel from Kaiserhof underground station via Berlin Friedrichstrasse station and the Weidendammer Bridge to Stettiner Bahnhof , where he was en route to his Berlin-based family of Red Army soldiers was captured. He shared the prison cell with Hitler's chief pilot Hans Baur . The conversations between Baur and Misch were bugged by the Soviet secret service. Because of his membership in the Waffen SS and because of his proximity to political prominence in the Third Reich , he and Baur were flown to the Soviet Union and detained in the Butyrka military prison in Moscow , where Misch said he was repeatedly subjected to severe abuse during interrogation. In 1953, Misch was released from captivity.

Post-war period and importance as a contemporary witness

After his return from captivity, Misch bought a shop for painting and interior decoration needs in Berlin-Schöneberg with a loan of 28,000 marks. He ran his business until he was sixty-eight. He then sold the business and retired.

Since the death of Hitler's SS adjutant Otto G possibly in October 2003, Misch was the last eyewitness and contemporary witness from the inner circle of the “ Third Reich ”. In April 2006, the MDR released a television documentary entitled The Last Witness - Rochus Misch . Also in April 2006, Misch's biography was published in France under the title J'étais garde du corps d'Hitler . The book mainly covers the period from 1940 to 1945. Further publications followed in Argentina, Spain, Brazil, Poland, Turkey and Japan. In Germany, Misch's memoirs were published on June 30, 2008 under the title The Last Witness .

Misch did not distance himself from his work for the dictatorship. The historian and professor of modern history at the University of Konstanz, Rainer Wirtz, criticizes the fact that Misch “did not process his history in a contemporary manner”, and cites Misch's designation of Count von Stauffenberg as a “comrade murderer” as an example . In an interview with PM magazine , Misch was asked in this regard: “You once described the Stauffenberg assassination as 'comrade murder'. Do you still stand by this accusation? ", To which he replied with" Yes, because four comrades died ".

In the film Der Bunker (1981) he was played by Michael Kitchen , in Der Untergang (2004) by Heinrich Schmieder and in The Last Battle (2005) by Florian Lukas . All productions deal critically with the last days of the Nazi regime. In his book The Last Witness , Misch spoke of a partially misrepresentation of himself in the film.

Rochus Misch had been married to the later SPD politician Gerda Misch (1920–1997) in Berlin since 1942 and had a daughter. Rochus Misch died of a heart attack in 2013 at the age of 96 .

Publications

book

• Rochus Misch: The last witness. I was Hitler's operator, courier, and bodyguard . With a foreword by Ralph Giordano . 11th edition, Piper-Verlag Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-25735-0 .

Audio book

• Rochus Misch: The last witness. I was Hitler's operator, courier, and bodyguard . Spoken by Frank Engelhardt, audio media verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86804-060-9 .

Web links

• Rochus Misch in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Literature by and about Rochus Misch in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The last contemporary witness of Hitler's suicide is dead. In: Die Zeit , September 6, 2013.
2. ↑ Misch: The Last Witness ; 4th edition, p. 38 f.
3. ↑ Misch: The Last Witness ; 4th edition, p. 43
4. ↑ Misch: The Last Witness ; 4th edition, p. 49 f.
5. ↑ Misch: The Last Witness ; 1st edition, p. 59 f.
6. ↑ Dominik Reinle: Hitler's end: “The boss is burning!” ( Memento from December 27, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) In: kriegsende.ard.de via Internet Archive .
7. ↑ Rochus Misch: The last witness . 8th edition, 2008, p. 231
8. ↑ Misch: The Last Witness ; 3rd edition, p. 241
9. ↑ roland-harder.de: Conversation with Rochus Misch, April 6, 2006 ( Memento from July 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
10. ↑ Misch: The Last Witness ; 1st edition, p. 259
11. ↑ The eyewitness is dead, long live the contemporary witness / comments on a paradigm shift (PDF; 149 kB). Manuscript for the AULA program on SWR2 on May 28, 2012.
12. ↑ The last witness. ( Memento from April 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: PM Magazin (Interview).
13. ↑ Ralf Simon: The secrets of the last living Hitler confidante In: Spiegel Online , July 29, 2007.