I saw Hitler first after his suicide: Bodyguard

Berlin (Germany), Jan 22: German dictator Adolf Hitler's former bodyguard claimed that he was the first man to see Hitler's body after the latter committed suicide in a bunker below Berlin. 91-year-old Rochus Misch told The Sun newspaper that he saw Hitler's body shortly after the Fuhrer blasted a bullet into his own head.

Misch, born in Opole, Poland joined a combat division of the fanatical SS elite guard aged 20 in 1937. He was transferred to Hitler's elite personal bodyquard, the 1st SS Division Leistandarte SS Adolf Hitler after he got injured during the conquest of Poland in 1939.

"Hitler was my Fuhrer like everyone else's, and I was in awe of him. I found him correct - charming even."

As the Third Reich crumbled, Misch says Hitler retreated to a cluster of small rooms 40ft underground in Berlin.

"On April 22, 1945, Hitler said: "The war is lost. No one is obliged to do anything any more''. Misch says that the following day, shortly after 3 pm, Hitler left his final followers and entered a private room with Braun. Misch said they waited around 45 minutes 'for the shot'. Alongside other soldiers left in the bunker, he then opened the door.

He says: "I saw Hitler slumped by the table. I did not see any blood on his head. And I saw Eva with her knees drawn up, lying next to him on the sofa.

"Hitler was wrapped in a blanket as I watched. He was then taken outside to be burnt. It was over."

Misch was captured by the Red Army and sent to Moscow, where he was questioned and tortured. After eight years in prison camps he returned to Berlin in 1953. Today, Misch, who was never indicted for war crimes, lives in the same two-storey detached house where he moved with his late wife Gerda in 1942.

ANI