Rochus Misch, who served as Adolf Hitler's devoted bodyguard for most of World War II has died at the age of 96.
Rochus Misch, who served as Adolf Hitler's devoted bodyguard for most of World War II has died at the age of 96. Misch died in Berlin on Thursday after a short illness, Burkhard Nachtigall, who helped him write his 2008 memoir, revealed. Misch remained proud to the end about his years with Hitler, whom he affectionately called "boss". In an interview given in 2005 Misch spoke of Hitler as "a very normal man" and gave a riveting account of the German dictator's last days before he and his wife Eva Braun killed themselves as the Soviet Red Army closed in around their bunker in Berlin. "He was no brute. He was no monster. He was no superman," Misch said. Born in the tiny Silesian town of Alt Schalkowitz, in what is now Poland, Misch was orphaned at an early age and joined the SS at the age of 20, seeing it as an organisation that was against the rising threat from the left. He signed up for the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, a unit founded