The man who worked closely with Adolf Hitler as his bodyguard during World War II has died at 96 years old.
Rochus Misch was the last living witness to the final hours of Hitler's life, the Guardian reported.
Misch passed away on Thursday in Berlin after an illness, according to Burkhard Nachtigall, who wrote Misch's biography.
The late bodyguard took pride in his work for the Nazi leader until the end. He talked about Hitler, whom he fondly called "boss," during an interview in 2005, where he described the dictator as "a very normal man."
"He was no brute. He was no monster," he said at the time. "He was no superman."
Misch was born on July 29, 1917, in the small Silesian town of Alt Schalkowitz-today's Poland. Misch became an orphan at quite a young age.
At 20 years old, he joined the SS-he saw this military organization as a counter to the ever-increasing threat of the left, the Guardian reported. His unit, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, consisted of a group that protected the Nazi leader personally.
"It was anti-communist, against Stalin-to protect Europe," Misch said. "I signed up in the war against Bolshevism, not for Adolf Hitler."
After Misch was shot while negotiating the surrender of a fortress just by Warsaw and was moved to Germany for recovery, he and one other SS man were chosen to work as Hitler's bodyguards and general assistants.
Johannes Hentschel and Misch went everywhere with Hitler; their duties ranged from answering phones to welcoming high-ranking officials.
"He was a wonderful boss," Misch recalled. "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."
Misch delivered a highly detailed account of the days leading up to Hitler's end.
The late bodyguard lived in the Berlin bunker where Hitler died in 1945.
"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."
He remembered on April 22, 1945, Hitler said: "That's it. The war is lost. Everybody can go."
In that same 2005 interview, Misch did not mention the Holocaust, and didn't address questions of responsibility for the killing of six million Jewish people. He said he didn't know about it, and that Hitler never spoke on the issue in his presence.
"That was never a topic," he said firmly. "Never."
