Hitler's Last Witness (8 page)

So I spent three days with my grandmother at Oppeln. She lived alone – my grandfather having died in 1936. After my return to Berlin, I found out in a roundabout way why I had been able to have this short holiday; Hitler was not in Berlin. Immediately after I met him, he had left for the Western Front,
[14]
where he would remain for two months.
[15]
During this period of the French campaign, another Blitzkrieg, I had the quietest period of my service.

Wilhelm-Strasse 77

One of Hitler's servants, I cannot remember whether it was Bussmann or Hans Junge, used the absence of ‘the boss' to show me the Führer-suite.
[16]
What I eventually saw, after leaving the adjutants' wing and going through the lobby, was something quite different from what one would have expected of a man in Hitler's position. I was disappointed by the dimensions of the suite. The four rooms and bathroom covered no more than a hundred square metres.

The private tour began in the living room, with its small library. I was impressed by the unbelievably comprehensive
Meyers Lexikon
, with its gigantic volumes. From there, one went to the study and, on the other side, to the bedroom, which was somewhat smaller. It had a brass bedstead and above it, exactly central, hung a picture of Hitler's mother. Left near the bed was a dumb waiter; there was additionally a round table with two cocktail chairs, a clothes cupboard and shoe cupboard – the whole room measured no more than five by six metres. Off the bedroom was a narrow, green-ceramic bathroom. It was all very simply furnished, almost spartan. The walls were painted an eggshell colour. When I saw the suite during Hitler's absence in May 1940, there were no private things around. All I noticed was all kinds of sketching material with ruled lines and numerous crayons, and an extensive Wagner score. It was Hitler's birthday the month before, and a great pile of official presents awaited a decision on what should be done with them.

The guest room seemed smaller to me than the bedroom. This was where Eva Braun lived when she stayed in Berlin. I did not know her then, and at that point there had been no talk about her. There was a small stool in the guest room just before the corridor to the bedroom, on which we would leave the despatches at night. The bedroom windows faced onto the gardens.

If Hitler had a private guest, his half-sister for example, he would receive them in the so-called Stairs Room, which had four chairs and a round table. It was a little forward of the suite proper and was so called because two stairways led down from it. One led into the domestic offices, and the other to the adjutants' wing. The offices of Dietrich, Hewel and Lorenz were located on the same floor as Hitler's private rooms. Hitler had access directly from his study to the large conference room – the military officials entering it from the Wehrmacht wing on the other side.

The Old Campaigners

My anxiety at running across Hitler had evaporated. Soon I would be seeing him several times a day. During his two-month absence in the early summer of 1940 I had time to find my feet in peace.

One of the first things I did led me to Hitler's personal tailor in Tauentzien-Strasse. Here I got myself a new bespoke uniform not much different in form from the old one but of better material, closer to an officer's version. From a fine supplier on Friedrich-Strasse I changed my soldier's boots, so unloved by Hitler, for more carpet-friendly ones.

After a while, I had my first conversations with Hitler's servants and adjutants. The Alte
Kämpfer (Old Campaigners) were those men who, before Hitler's seizure of power, in the so-called period of struggle, had been in his service or were close supporters. They made it easy for me to find my way around. Adi Dirr, Hitler's long-serving companion, initiated me into internal idiosyncrasies such as the widespread use of the word ‘Wolf'.
[17]
I learnt that the prefix or suffix in the names of the various Führer-HQs; Wolfschanze, Wolfsschlucht, FHQ Fehrwolf – there were not many in which Wolf did not appear somewhere – went back to earlier election tours. Either the hotel in which Hitler lodged advertised his presence, and the local people would besiege it, or the reply would be, when attempting to reserve rooms, unfortunately we do not have a room vacant for Herr Hitler. Therefore, whether a hotel was well-disposed towards the Nazis or not, it was better to book under another name, and Hitler ordered that in future all rooms were to be reserved under the pseudonym Wolf.

Some people thought that the origin of its usage had something to do with one of his secretaries, Johanna Wolf, but the name was already in use before she joined Hitler's staff. It was probably the case, too, that Hitler's forename had a connection to the word Wolf. Whatever the reason, Hitler liked it. His sister Paula also used the surname Wolf on her brother's instructions.

The Old Campaigners in the bodyguard, Party members from the beginning, enjoyed relating their experiences about the early period of the Movement to interested newcomers. They were identified by a low Party membership number, and nearly all of them were of no great military rank: ‘narrow-gauge soldiers', one might say. An exception was Max Amann: he had fought alongside Hitler in the First World War.
[18]
Amann had been present at the 1923 putsch and had shared imprisonment with Hitler.
[19]
On our first meeting, he reminisced about the old times with great pleasure, including when he piddled against a tree with Hitler.

I recall the story of the Kaiserhof. The hotel lay diagonally across from the Reich Chancellery, and Hitler had lived there temporarily while electioneering.
[20]
Later, he liked to go over there in the afternoon for tea. He had been told that a small band played there and that he should hear the bandsmen. After he had made a regular thing of this in the afternoons at the Kaiserhof, he had said in surprise: ‘Those are the same ladies every day sitting opposite me.' It turned out that the waiters had been able to start a thriving business, thanks to their celebrated guest. As soon as Hitler left, they sold the tableware, knife, fork and spoon he had used. Probably they bribed the staff to reserve the same places for them every day. When Hitler found out, he ordered that the waiters should not be punished, but from then on he abandoned these visits.

The Old Campaigners at the Reich Chancellery were anything but soldierly – the place being more like a public authority. Inside the building, one never saluted with outstretched arm if one came across a superior. After all the military drill, such social behaviour was difficult to get used to. Rituals of address were used only to Hitler. We juniors addressed him as ‘
Mein Führer
'; the Old Campaigners said ‘Boss' or merely ‘Herr Hitler'. Among the household staff, he was ‘the boss' for everyone; nobody used the word ‘Führer'. In the street when opening the car door, the Hitler salute was obligatory. As he got out we had to offer him a helping hand, but he never accepted it. He never returned a salute when one met him in the morning, not even a nod or anything similar. I was told however that I should not think that he did not notice me. He always knew by sight and by name everybody who worked in the Reich Chancellery. He was renowned for his first-class memory; he never forgot a name. I discovered later that this was true.

I was quickly accepted into the group of close colleagues around Hitler. We were soon a sworn circle. Besides Dirr, who I have already mentioned, were also Otto Hansen, Helmuth Beermann, Karl Weichelt, Hermann Bornholdt and Paul Holtz, as well as Schlotmann and Rüss, whose forenames I no longer recall.

Otto Hansen was a fatherly type, one of the Old Campaigners, and deputy chief of the bodyguards at the Berghof. I got on very well with him. We juniors always addressed the Old Campaigners as ‘
Sie
', the formal form of ‘you', but among ourselves, at least of the same rank, we quickly used the informal and familiar ‘
Du
'. Hermann Bornholdt had also belonged for ages to Hitler's personal bodyguard. He, Schlotmann and Rüss were fanatical Nazis. Schlotmann was a very calm, matter-of-fact type, while Rüss was a really nice guy who gratefully accepted the apples I gave him from my Aunt Sofia. We called Helmuth Beermann, our mail and courier service senior, the ‘Supplier'; he got through to everybody. Karl Tenazek, who joined the bodyguard after me, was another loner like myself. We did not need to exchange many words, as we understood each other from the start. Karl Weichelt belonged neither among the Old Campaigners nor us youngsters. He was the only one of us who belonged to neither group, but was one of the few Party Gold Badge holders – ‘narrow-gauge soldiers' – who could teach the others something about soldiering.

My position at the Reich Chancellery attracted an increase of fifty Reichsmarks, the so-called ‘Führer-supplement', making my total pay 337 Reichsmarks. The Reich Chancellery also paid one's rent and telephone bill, and a free pass for the Reichsbahn railway network was another useful financial perk. The Reich Chancellery and the Ministry of the Interior were jointly responsible for the bodyguards' salary. We therefore had a hybrid status between military and civilian service.

Everyday Life in the Reich Chancellery

Hitler returned to Berlin at the beginning of July 1940, from France. At just about the time he arrived at the Anhalter station, I was coming off-duty. On the street, jubilant masses were preparing to give him a tumultuous welcome. I ran to the trams on Potsdamerplatz to get home as quickly as possible. I hate great crowds and have a horror of hysterical masses. To whoever of my generation who speaks to me in a reproachful undertone of my service with Hitler, I retort: ‘You, all of you, rejoiced!' Yes, they did. Almost every one of them.

In August 1940, after my probationary period, I received my final service identity document, an ‘Open Sesame' as big as an envelope:

Herr Rochus Misch is a member of my personal bodyguard. I request all military, political and civilian authorities to provide him with all possible assistance in the execution of his duties. Herr Misch is authorised to pass through all barriers and has access to the Führer apartment.

Adolf Hitler

I no longer remember the precise wording, but it was roughly along those lines. The ID was changed every year, and the new one had a different colour. The last one was yellow; an earlier one had been bright grey.

I know that, at least during my probationary period, I was under surveillance by the Reich Security Service RSD.
[21]
Whether it continued afterwards I cannot say. Certainly my mail was examined from time to time. An RSD man approached me once, brandished a letter addressed to me and wanted to know how I came to be receiving mail from the police president of Düsseldorf. Well, I could explain easily, but not without some embarrassment. I had a female penfriend whom I had got to know during my convalescence at Bayrischzell. Not far from the sanatorium was a police rest home, where she used to spend her holidays. I had had to accompany her a couple of times to cultural institutions; among other things, her chauffeur had driven us to the opera at Salzburg. I knew that she was the wife of a police commissioner in Düsseldorf. I was therefore very surprised to receive a letter from her written on the official notepaper of the police authority. I had a fit of the horrors when I saw the envelope with the office of the sender printed on the back until I grasped the connection. Since then, we had continued writing to each other on and off, as I made clear to the RSD enquirer.

Shortly after the end of my probationary period, I accompanied Hitler for the first time, on 4 September 1940. It was to a speech he was making at the Sportpalast. He only went inside with the Old Campaigners; we, the young men of the bodyguard, were left behind in the car. Applause swelled up now and again, which we heard from outside, but I never really regretted not being present at such occasions. Talks with generals – certainly, I would like to have had those frequently, the course of the war being a hot topic, which naturally interested my comrades-in-arms and myself. We would descend on the waiters who brought in table water from time to time, and question them as to what they had been able to pick up. Hitler's speeches however – no, I never thought I might be missing something. Mostly after a while people would begin to gather around us and the vehicles, and so it was never tedious.

On the whole, I found my duties exciting. My colleagues and I were constant fliers with Flugkapitän Baur and his courier planes. We handled all the courier services. It must be remembered that there was a daily exchange of reports from the current Führer-HQ to the presidential Chancellery under Otto Meissner, for the affairs of the Reich president were carried out separately, even though Hitler was Reich chancellor and head of state at the same time.
[22]
The bodyguard was also responsible for the many minor messenger runs and auxiliary services. Hitler would mostly express his wishes to his adjutants or servants, but often he would tell us directly. There was always something that had to be done. Maybe it would be the delivery of flowers and other courtesies, or footballs that had to be arranged at short notice for a children's home that Hitler was due to open. I remember Hitler discovering the impending engagement of Wolfgang Wagner:
[23]
‘Misch – arrange the flowers.'

Blumen Rothe of Zehlendorf had a branch in Hotel Adlon, and I used to go there to place such orders. I myself brought the bouquet for the couple to the Wagners' house on the Kaiserdamm.