XPost: ca.politics, nyc.general, mi.news   
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   From: anon@dont-email.me   
      
   BERLIN (AP) — He was 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. To the very end, SS   
   Staff Sgt. Rochus Misch was proud of it all.   
      
   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, with   
   a rigid posture, broad shoulders, neatly combed white hair — and   
   no apologies for his close relationship with the most reviled   
   man of the 20th century.   
      
   "He was no brute. He was no monster. He was no superman," Misch   
   said.   
      
   The 96-year-old Misch died Thursday, one of the last of a   
   generation that bears direct responsibility for German brutality   
   during World War II.   
      
   In his interview with the AP, he stayed away from the central   
   questions of guilt and responsibility, saying he knew nothing of   
   the murder of 6 million Jews and that Hitler never brought up   
   the Final Solution in his presence.   
      
   "That was never a topic," he said emphatically. "Never."   
      
   He appeared to have little empathy for those he did not directly   
   know, and even for some he did.   
      
   Misch was moved nearly to tears when talking about Joseph and   
   Magda Goebbels' decision to kill their six children in the   
   Berlin bunker before committing suicide themselves. But he was   
   also able to guffaw about a family friend, "a real lefty," being   
   thrown into the Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin   
   and noting upon his release that "the paper shirts (at the camp)   
   were uncomfortable."   
      
   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 organization 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.   
      
   "It was anti-communist, against Stalin — to protect Europe,"   
   Misch said, noting that thousands of other Western Europeans   
   served in the Waffen SS. "I signed up in the war against   
   Bolshevism, not for Adolf Hitler."   
      
   But when Hitler's armies invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Misch   
   found himself in the vanguard when his SS division was attached   
   to a regular army unit for the blitzkrieg attack. As German   
   forces quickly closed in on Warsaw, Misch, who spoke some   
   Polish, was sent with a party to negotiate the surrender of a   
   fortress and was told by the troops inside that they needed time   
   to think about the offer.   
      
   "As we were walking away they opened fire," Misch said at his   
   home in Berlin. "A bullet came through here and right out, two   
   centimeters from my heart."   
      
   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   
   — and once running flowers to one of the Fuehrer's favorite   
   musicians who had just gotten engaged.   
      
   Misch and SS comrade Johannes Hentschel accompanied Hitler   
   almost everywhere he went, including his Alpine retreat in   
   Berchtesgaden and his forward "Wolf's Lair" headquarters. He   
   lived between Hitler's apartments in the New Reich Chancellery   
   and the home in a working-class Berlin neighborhood that he kept   
   until his death.   
      
   "He was a wonderful boss," Misch said. "I lived with him for   
   five years. We were the closest people who worked with him … we   
   were always there. Hitler was never without us day and night."   
      
   In the last eight to 10 days of Hitler's life, Misch followed   
   him to live underground, protected by the so-called   
   Fuehrerbunker's heavily reinforced concrete ceilings and walls.   
      
   "Hentschel ran the lights, air and water and I did the   
   telephones — there was nobody else," he said. "When someone   
   would come downstairs we couldn't even offer them a place to   
   sit. It was far too small — little cells of 10 or 12 square   
   meters. It was no bunker to live in. It was an air-raid bunker."   
      
   After the Soviet assault began, Misch remembered generals and   
   Nazi brass coming and going as they tried desperately to cobble   
   together a defense of the capital with the ragtag remains of the   
   German military.   
      
   He remembered that on April 22, two days before two Soviet   
   armies completed their encirclement of the city, Hitler said,   
   "That's it. The war is lost. Everybody can go."   
      
   "Everyone except those who still had jobs to do like us — we had   
   to stay," Misch said. "The lights, water, telephone … those had   
   to be kept going, but everybody else was allowed to go and   
   almost all were gone immediately."   
      
   But that same day, Hitler clung to hope given by what turned out   
   to be a false report that the Western Allies had called upon   
   Germany to hold Berlin for two more weeks against the Soviets so   
   that they could battle communism together.   
      
   "He still believed in a union between West and East," Misch   
   said. "Hitler liked England — except for (then-Prime Minister   
   Winston) Churchill — and didn't think that a people like the   
   English would bind themselves with the communists to crush   
   Germany."   
      
   On April 28, Misch saw the familiar figures of Propaganda   
   Minister Joseph Goebbels and Hitler confidant Martin Bormann   
   enter the bunker with a man he had never seen before.   
      
   "I asked who it was, and they said that's the civil magistrate   
   who has come to perform Hitler's marriage," Misch said.   
      
   That night, Hitler and longtime mistress Eva Braun were married   
   in a short ceremony in which they both pledged they were of pure   
   Aryan descent before taking their vows and signing a registry   
   book.   
      
   Two days later, Misch saw Goebbels and Bormann again, this time   
   talking with Hitler and his adjutant, SS Maj. Otto Guensche, in   
   the bunker's corridor outside the telephone operator's room.   
      
   "I saw him go into his room … and someone, Guensche, said that   
   he shouldn't be disturbed. And that meant 'Now it's happening,'"   
   Misch said. "We all knew that it was happening. He said he   
   wasn't going to leave Berlin, he would stay here."   
      
   "We heard no shot, we heard nothing, but one of those who was in   
   the hallway, I don't remember if it was Guensche or Bormann,   
   said 'Linge, Linge, I think it's done,'" Misch said, referring   
   to Hitler's valet Heinz Linge.   
      
   "Then everything was really quiet, everything was still … who   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)