Hitler's Last Witness (3 page)

Consequently, most of what we now understand as the dominant narrative of Nazi Germany seems to have passed Rochus Misch by entirely. He claims to have first heard about the Holocaust, for example, only after returning from Soviet internment in 1953. And, astonishingly, he wonders aloud in these very pages whether he ever noticed that Hitler ‘hated the Jews'. To our modern sensibilities, this is baffling, and it is easy to assume that Misch is simply dissembling, by hiding his own knowledge of, and perhaps even complicity in, Nazi Germany's most heinous crimes. But, I would suggest that this assumption should be resisted. To my mind, this is not an example of a cunning memoirist airbrushing his own memories (Misch had many character traits, but one does not get the impression that ‘cunning' was among them). Rather, I would argue that such apparently glaring omissions are the result of Misch's own rather unquestioning nature combined with the blinkering effect of his close proximity to Nazi power. The omissions are also a useful corrective – an example ofthe tremendous benefits afforded by hindsight and a reminder of the adage: ‘The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.'

What is more genuinely surprising about this memoir is the author's evident lack of any real perspective on the events to which he was a witness. Despite the intervening years, Misch comes across as strangely unreflective, even unrepentant in nature. His comments about Hitler's would-be assassin – Claus von Stauffenberg – are a good case in point. With seven decades of hindsight, one might have expected Misch to have developed a more nuanced, sympathetic view of the assassin and what he was trying to achieve. But no: Misch voices a similar opinion here to that which he might have given back in 1944. Stauffenberg was ‘a murderer of his colleagues,' he writes. ‘There was really nothing worse.' There is no hint of contrition in Misch; no expression of the collective
mea culpa
voiced by Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge, for example, nor even of the sense of retrospective regret expressed so eloquently after the war by Hitler's former foreign press chief, Ernst Hanfstaengl, who said: ‘You get on a bandwagon and it turns out to be a dustcart.'
[1]
This is perplexing and a little disappointing, but in Misch's case one senses that it is motivated more by a simple lack of imagination than by any lingering ideological fealty.

Yet, despite his limitations, one should not assume that Misch is an uninteresting or unenlightening source. He is neither. His observations, certainly, are more ‘kitchen sink' than ‘kitchen cabinet', but that does not invalidate them; they still have much to teach us. Purists can sometimes get rather sniffy about ‘human interest' in history – complaining, for example, that the fact that Hitler kissed ladies' hands, or chatted amiably with his secretaries tells us nothing of substance about the Third Reich. On the superficial level, they are right of course. We are brought no nearer to understanding the Holocaust by knowing Hitler's dietary habits. And yet, I would suggest that such information does play a role. It is of interest in its own right, of course, but it also serves a more profound purpose: not only that of explaining the dynamic provided by Hitler's personal charisma, but also that of reminding us of our shared humanity with an otherwise rather two-dimensional monster. It is too easy, in my opinion, to dismiss Hitler as a breed apart – not like us. Acknowledging his humanity, in contrast – the hand-kissing, as well as the hatred – makes his crimes all the more horrific.

In addition, it is Misch's very ordinariness that makes his account rather instructive. Though his rather cosseted, privileged war was not the same as that of the average Berliner, his views, prejudices and blind spots most certainly were. Consequently, his recollections are almost as interesting for the things that he doesn't say as for the things he does. One gets the impression, indeed, that Misch represented the kind of rather bovine, uncritical, unthinking type that provided the very backbone of the Nazi regime – being obedient, unquestioning, ‘making no trouble'. Without Misch, and many thousands like him, the Third Reich would simply have been unable to function.

When Rochus Misch died, the media was primarily excited by the fact that he was the last surviving witness of Hitler's final days. With his passing, the sole living link with the tumultuous, bloody demise of the Third Reich was finally severed. This was certainly true, but Misch signified a lot more than just an accident of longevity. For all his blind spots, he gives us vivid detail about everyday life in Hitler's innermost circle, and by extension provides an insight into the thoughts and feelings of a generation of ordinary Germans. He was a remarkable eyewitness to a fascinating period.

Roger Moorhouse

1
Quoted in Peter Conradi,
Hitler's Piano Player
, London 2005, p. 325.

Chapter One

My Childhood: 1917–1937

‘But he thanked God for allowing him to experience all kinds of misfortune, and spent five whole years in the dungeon.'

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ‘Sankt-Rochus-Fest zu Bingen' (‘The Orphan Boy from the Village')

THE VENERABLE SANKT ROCHUS
is honoured in Europe as a curer of the plague. Born in Montpellier in the thirteenth century, he had the gift of protecting people against epidemics. On 16 August 1814, Goethe attended the dedication of the Rochus Chapel at Bingen on the Rhine, in honour of the saint, and in his essay ‘Sankt-Rochus-Fest zu Bingen' he described his impressions of that day. The name Rochus itself comes from the Old High German word
rohon
(roar) or from the Yiddish terms
rochus
and
rauches
(annoyance, anger), and the French
rouge
(red). As it so happens, the venerable Rochus was born with a red cross on his chest – a sign of his divine selection.

I found all this out a long time ago, when I developed an interest in my uncommon Christian name. Whether my mother knew the story when she named me I have no idea. Equally, I do not know if my grandparents intentionally chose the plague-healer as patron of their son, my father. Rochus was my father's name, and it was also mine. Probably I would not have been given it had my father survived my birth. After my elder brother Bruno, I am the second son of Rochus and Victoria Misch, and had my father wished to pass on his name he would surely have given it to his first-born son. However, my mother wanted me to have the name of her dead husband.

My father was a builder, while my mother Victoria worked for the Berlin public transport. Bruno was born when my parents lived on the Händelplatz, Berlin-Steglitz, but shortly afterwards, when the First World War began, the family moved to Alt-Schalkowitz near Oppeln in Upper Silesia.
[1]
My mother's parents lived there. I assume she did not want to spend the war alone in Berlin, as my father was quickly sent to the front.

In July 1917, my mother was very advanced in her pregnancy with me. My father was in a field hospital at Oppeln. He had been returned from the front seriously wounded, shot through a lung and missing his thumbs. Shortly before the expected date for my birth, he was allowed to leave hospital. He therefore went home, where everybody was awaiting my arrival. One night, my father suddenly had a haemorrhage and died next morning. The undertakers came to fetch him, and my mother wept and shouted as they carried the coffin past her. The midwife was already in the house and stood by helplessly. A few hours later, on that 29 July 1917, I was born.

When I was two and a half, my mother died of pneumonia following influenza. My brother Bruno met with a fatal bathing accident on 2 May 1922. His right side was stiff, probably as the result of a stroke brought on by the ice-cold water in our small brook. It took fourteen days for him to die.

Now I was quite alone with my grandparents. I was still too young to understand that I had lost my whole family within the first five years of my life: father, mother, brother. My grandparents Fronia, my mother's parents, spoke little of their daughter. They did not even have a photograph of her hanging somewhere. So I grew up without even having a picture of my parents. Nevertheless – or perhaps because of that – I did not consciously miss my father and mother. At first, my grandmother was my guardian. Later, in the 1930s, when she was too old for it, the duty was transferred to my mother's sister, my Aunt Sofia Fronia in Berlin.

Despite this tragic start in life, I have only good memories of my childhood. However, I must have been very ill once as a small boy. I was told I had had the English Disease.
[2]
I remember that I was taken to a special hospital in the Altvatergebirge mountains for treatment, but I do not know how I got there and how long I stayed. Apparently, they knew how to treat it.

After eight years of elementary school, my grandfather wanted me to learn a trade. He would tell me interesting stories, and in Berlin he had worked on the building of the Teltow canal. This was a big project, which had opened in 1906 – no fewer than 10,000 men had worked on it. It was very important for him that one did something ‘with one's hands', develop one's talent for something. Thus, he got me to learn the mandolin. The master tailor in the village taught me this instrument.

I well remember my grandfather having a big row with the school director Demski, when he took me out of school. The director was adamant that I should continue my education and go to a higher school in Oppeln – I had good grades. However, grandfather had decided against it, even though the director visited us at home in an effort to convince him. To no avail. It was obvious to my grandfather that I should learn a trade. To his great joy, I had an ‘A' in Art, and so it was quickly decided that I should be a painter. Grandfather would brook no opposition, being a thorough-going Prussian authoritarian, but in any case I had no objections.

My cousin Marie from Hoyerswerda, who happened to be visiting us when my grandfather had this row with the school director, obtained for me in 1932 through her husband's contacts an apprenticeship with the firm Schüller and Model. During the first two years, I lived with my instructor Schüller. He also had a son, Gerhard. My instructor was a kind of foster-father to me, but ultimately I was left to my own devices, although I was not given a key to the house. If nobody was home, I had to wait somewhere. This was not too bad – I was a loner and could always find something to do.

I had great fun as an apprentice. I may say that I was specially gifted, and from early on I was given many interesting things to do. We painted cinema placards and gigantic advertisements on walls. For example: ‘Persil – for all your washing only Persil' stood in letters as tall as a man at a neighbouring station, the name of which I can no longer recall.

When Hitler became Reich chancellor in 1933, hardly anybody in Hoyerswerda was interested. There must have been some sort of event on the marketplace, but if there was I never noticed; at the time, the name Adolf Hitler meant next to nothing to me. Hoyerswerda, a small town, was rather left-wing because of its many mine workers. Even the Schüller family had nothing to do with the National Socialists. The boys of my other boss, Herr Model, however, were in a Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (National Political Education Institute; ‘Napola' for short); and a neighbour's son joined the Hitler Youth, but all that passed me by.
[3]
Subsequently, I never observed any oppression, arrests or other measures against people, which could be traced back to the new regime.

In 1935, the year before the Berlin Olympic Games, Schüller and Model received an especially important commission from the local shooting club: at every festival a painting would be prepared as a prize, and this time the theme had to be the Olympic Games. Our talented master Schrämmer wanted to paint it, but scarcely had he begun than he fell seriously ill. Therefore, at just eighteen years of age and not yet even a journeyman, I was chosen to finish it. It was actually two pictures: one as a prize for the victor in the main competition, and one for the junior champion. The first work showed the Olympic stadium; the other was of a torch bearer, with the countries through which he would run in the background.

I received 300 Reichsmarks for the big painting, and 190 Reichsmarks for the smaller one. I was rich. This was really a lot of money. My instructor contacted my grandparents in order to make sure I did something sensible with it. My continued training was considered a good investment by both my grandfather and my instructor.

Therefore, for six months I was able to attend the Masters' School for Fine Arts in Cologne. Note, this was as a trainee. As I was not a journeyman, naturally I could not become a master, even though I had passed all my examinations. There were about forty master-instructors at the school from all regions of the German Reich. I learned many interesting creative techniques, such as gilding and varnishing processes, also stage design and much more. I went about the job with a will.

When our school was commissioned to design a set for a Cologne theatre in the cathedral office, I noticed that the stage manager cast frequent looks at my work. One day he asked if I would like to be an extra in a play about the building of the cathedral, as a stone-cutter, because it would be better if the actor already had the movements for the part. At first, I was not particularly enthusiastic. I did not see myself on the stage. After some hesitation, I let myself be persuaded. Thus, I became a thirteenth-century stone-cutter with a boy's head and leather apron, forced to do compulsory labour on the cathedral building. It was a speaking role, in which I had to say: ‘Maria'. Although I liked acting in the end, without doubt I preferred the five Reichsmarks, which I received per performance, more. One day in the future I would have to do forced labour for real: as a POW in Russian work camps, I painted shields for building sites. This macabre parallel is only one of the many strange things that Fate had in store for me.