Israel Matzav

Hitler's bodyguard dies, wife may have been Jewish

Rochus Misch, who was one of Adolph Hitler's two bodyguards, has died at the age of 96.

YNet publishes excerpts of a fascinating interview (via AP) which apparently dates to the mid-90's.

Misch and 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 the Fuehrer'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 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."
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 recalled 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."
However, Hitler clung to a report – false, as it turned out – 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." 

If you can stand more of this sycophant, read the whole thing.

The New York Times adds a couple of pieces that aren't in the AP account. One is the murder of the six Goebbels children by their mother (Magda and Joseph Goebbels committed suicide shortly thereafter), and the other is this little tidbit.

Mr. Misch’s wife, Gerda, whom he married in 1942, died in 1997. In 2009, the BBC quoted their daughter, Brigitta Jacob-Engelken, as saying that she had been told by her maternal grandmother that Gerda Misch was originally Jewish.

“He is still saying, ‘No, I won’t believe that!’ ” Ms. Jacob-Engelken, describing her father, then 92, told the BBC. “But I know it from my grandma.”

Ms. Jacob-Engelken, an architect who lives in Germany and who has long been estranged from her father, is among his survivors. According to the BBC report, Ms. Jacob-Engelken learned Hebrew and lived for a time on an Israeli kibbutz. In Germany, her work has included the restoration of local synagogues.

Hmmm.

For the record, like all good Germans of that era, Misch claims that he didn't know anything about the murder of six million Jews. Misch is probably being roasted even as you read this.... 

Labels: Adolph Hitler, Holocaust, World War II

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:23 PM