those had to be kept going, but everybody else was allowed to go and almost all were gone immediately.вЂќД«ut 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.

вЂњEveryone except those who still had jobs to do like us - we had to stay,вЂќ Misch said. He remembered that on April 22, two days before two Soviet armies completed their encirclement of the city, Hitler said, вЂњThatвЂ™s it. It was an air-raid bunker.вЂќДЄfter 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. It was far too small - little cells of 10 or 12 square meters. вЂњWhen someone would come downstairs we couldnвЂ™t even offer them a place to sit. вЂњHentschel ran the lights, air and water and I did the telephones - there was nobody else,вЂќ he said. In the last eight to 10 days of HitlerвЂ™s life, Misch followed him to live underground, protected by the so-called FuehrerbunkerвЂ™s heavily reinforced concrete ceilings and walls. Hitler was never without us day and night.вЂќ

We were the closest people who worked with him. He lived between HitlerвЂ™s apartments in the New Reich Chancellery and the home in a working-class Berlin neighborhood that he kept until his death. Misch and SS comrade Johannes Hentschel accompanied Hitler almost everywhere he went, including his Alpine retreat in Berchtesgaden and his forward вЂњWolfвЂ™s LairвЂќ headquarters. вЂњA bullet came through here and right out, two centimeters from my heart.вЂќДЄfter his evacuation to Germany and convalescence, he was appointed in May 1940 to serve as one of two SS men who would serve as HitlerвЂ™s bodyguards and general assistants, doing everything from answering the telephones to greeting dignitaries - and once running flowers to one of the FuehrerвЂ™s favorite musicians who had just gotten engaged. вЂњAs we were walking away they opened fire,вЂќ Misch said at his home in Berlin. 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. 1, 1939, Misch found himself in the vanguard when his SS division was attached to a regular army unit for the blitzkrieg attack. вЂњI signed up in the war against Bolshevism, not for Adolf Hitler.вЂќД«ut when HitlerвЂ™s armies invaded Poland on Sept. вЂњIt was anti-communist, against Stalin - to protect Europe,вЂќ Misch said, noting that thousands of other Western Europeans served in the Waffen SS. He signed up for the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, a Berlin-based unit that originally was founded as the FuehrerвЂ™s personal bodyguard. But he was also able to guffaw about a family friend, вЂњa real lefty,вЂќ being thrown into the Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin and noting upon his release that вЂњthe paper shirts (at the camp) were uncomfortable.вЂќД«orn July 29, 1917, in the tiny Silesian town of Alt Schalkowitz, in what today is Poland, Misch was orphaned at an early age.ДЄgainst 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.

Misch was moved nearly to tears when talking about Joseph and Magda GoebbelsвЂ™ decision to kill their six children in the Berlin bunker before committing suicide themselves. In the AP interview, he appeared to have little empathy for those he did not directly know, and even for some he did. In the forward to the English-language version of his book, вЂњThe Last WitnessвЂќ - due for publication in October - he wrote that it was a different вЂњrealityвЂќ then and he never asked questions during what he considered just his вЂњregular day at work.вЂќ вЂњThat was never a topic,вЂќ he said emphatically. 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. 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. He had 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. Even in his later years, during a 2005 interview with The Associated Press in which he recounted HitlerвЂ™s claustrophobic, chaotic final days, Misch still cut the image of an SS man.

Magda goebbels killed her children