Rochus Misch (1917 – 2013) was a German SS sergeant, with the rank of Oberscharführer, best known for his service as bodyguard, courier and telephone operator to Adolf Hitler. He is regarded as the last surviving member of Hitler's personal staff and the last man to leave the Führerbunker in Berlin, shortly before the Red Army took the city on 2 May 1945. Although his life was not built around painting, after the war he returned to Berlin and took over a painting and interior decorating business, which became his livelihood.
Born in Alt-Schalkowitz in Upper Silesia, Misch joined the SS-Verfügungstruppe in 1937 and was badly wounded during the invasion of Poland in 1939 while serving with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. His company commander recommended him for Hitler's escort unit, the Führer Escort Command, in which he served from 1940 until the end of the war. In the final weeks he worked as the bunker's telephone operator. He was the last man to speak with Joseph Goebbels before the propaganda minister's suicide, and he saw the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun, refusing to help with their cremation.
Captured by the Soviets, Misch was sentenced to death in 1949. The sentence was commuted to forced labour and later reduced to ten years, of which he served about nine in prison camps in Kazakhstan and Siberia. He said that, although he relayed many messages during the war, he never learned what was happening to Jews in occupied countries, and that he only understood the horrors of the Holocaust while in captivity.
In his later years Misch lived from the royalties of his books Ich war Hitlers Leibwächter (2006) and Der letzte Zeuge (2008), and gave lectures about his experiences. After the deaths of other bunker survivors in 2007 and 2008, he became the last living person who had known Hitler personally. He died in Berlin in 2013, aged 96. His testimony is a first-hand source, although his accounts of Hitler's last days were partial and changed over time.