Hitler's Last Witness: The Memoirs of Hitler's Bodyguard

After being seriously wounded in the 1939 Polish campaign, Rochus Misch was invited to join Hitler's Schutzstaffel (SS) bodyguard. There he served until the war's end as Hitler's bodyguard, courier, orderly and finally as chief of communications.

After being seriously wounded in the 1939 Polish campaign, Rochus Misch was invited to join Hitler's Schutzstaffel (SS) bodyguard. There he served until the war's end as Hitler's bodyguard, courier, orderly and finally as chief of communications.

On the Berghof terrace, he watched Eva Braun organise parties; he observed Heinrich Himmler and Albert Speer; and he monitored telephone conversations from Berlin to the East Prussian F hrer Headquarters on 20 July 1944 after the attempt on Hitler's life. Towards the end, Misch was drawn into the F hrerbunker with the last of the 'faithful'. As defeat approached, he remained in charge of the bunker switchboard as his duty required - even after Hitler committed suicide.

Misch knew the private side of Hitler, and his position was one of unconditional loyalty to him. This first-hand testimony of the last witness to Hitler's final hours offers an intimate view of life deep inside the bunker, and it provides new insights into military events, such as Hitler's initial feeling that the Sixth Army should pill out of Stalingrad.

Shortly before he died in 2013, Misch wrote a preface for this first-ever English-language edition. The book also contains an introduction by British historian Roger Moorhouse.


'Misch's memoir is full of detail, asides and digressions, which allow the reader a rate and fascinating insight into the Third Reich's inner sanctum . . . Misch overheard conversations, watched the comings and goings and was a keen onserver of events . . . He was as close to being a 'fly of the wall' as one could get.'
-Roger Moorhouse, author of Berlin at War

'Rochus Misch's memoir is a thoroughly readable, informative and frequently fascinating insider's account of various events during and aspects of a momentous period of history, by a man who - with a very few others - was privileged to witness much that was historic, cataclysmic, sometimes bizarre, and finally nihilistic, but whose rank and position meant that he always lacked the opportunity, access or personal desire to influence that which he heard or observed.'
-David J.A. Stone, British military historian, author, and former soldier


' D emystifies his subject by documenting the ordinariness of everyday life in Hitler's employment ... H is record of the final days of the Third Reich, as observed from the switchboard of the Fuhrer bunker - including glimpses of the bodies of Hitler and Braun and watching Hitler's body being carted off to be burnt - have a candid fascination to them.'
-Steven Carroll, Canberra Times