After recovering, from 1940 to April 1945, he served in the Führerbegleitkommando (Führer Escort Command; FBK) as a bodyguard, courier, and telephone operator for German dictator Adolf Hitler.
[4] Misch was born on 29 July 1917 in Alt-Schalkowitz near Oppeln (Opole) in the Province of Silesia (now Stare Siołkowice, Poland).
[8] In 1935, after working as a journeyman painter, Misch attended the Masters' School for Fine Arts in Cologne.
[14] Near Warsaw on 24 September, he was one of four men selected by his company commander, then SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Mohnke, to negotiate the surrender of Polish troops during the Battle of Modlin.
[23] On 16 January 1945, following the Wehrmacht's defeat in the Battle of the Bulge, Misch and the rest of Hitler's personal staff moved into the Führerbunker and Vorbunker under the Reich Chancellery garden in Berlin.
[24] His FBK commanding officer, Franz Schädle, appointed Misch to be the bunker telephone operator.
On 22 April 1945, Schädle called him on the phone and told him there was a place reserved for his wife and young daughter on one of the last planes out of Berlin.
[27] Upon returning to the Reich Chancellery, Misch learned Hitler was releasing most of the remaining staff to leave Berlin.
[28] By that date, as the Red Army was entering Berlin, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda brought their six young children to stay in the Vorbunker.
[29] Joseph Goebbels moved into the room next to Misch's telephone exchange in the lower level of the Führerbunker.
[35] Misch started to leave to report the events to Schädle, then stopped and returned to the door of Hitler's study.
[36] After returning to the telephone exchange, Misch later recalled Unterscharführer Retzbach proclaiming "So they're burning the boss now!
Thereafter, Günsche came down and told Misch that the corpses of Hitler and Braun had been burned in the garden of the Reich Chancellery.
[37] Misch was present in the bunker complex when Magda Goebbels poisoned her six children and then committed suicide with her husband Joseph on 1 May 1945.
Schädle told Misch what route he should take in order to avoid the Soviet encirclement of the Berlin area.
[48] Misch was brought to Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, where he was tortured by Soviet NKVD officers in an attempt to extract information regarding Hitler's last days.
[49] Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was extremely interested in learning of Hitler's fate and theories about possible escape.
[53] He finally obtained a loan backed by wealthy German philanthropists to buy out a painting and interior decorating shop from a retiree in Berlin.
[11] After the release of the 2004 German film Downfall (Der Untergang) in France, French journalist Nicolas Bourcier interviewed Misch on a number of occasions in 2005.
The resulting biography was published in French as J'étais garde du corps d'Hitler 1940–1945 ("I was Hitler's bodyguard 1940–1945") in March 2006, ISBN 2253121541.
Misch served as consultant to writer Christopher McQuarrie on the 2008 film Valkyrie, a Hollywood depiction of the 20 July plot.
[57] In a 2005 interview, Misch called Downfall "Americanized" while comparing what happened in the film to what happened in real life, stating that although it portrayed the important facts accurately, it exaggerated other details for dramatic effect, such as the film's characters screaming and shouting when in his recollection most people in the bunker spoke quietly.
[58] After listening to an 11-minute recording of Hitler in private conversation with Finnish Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Misch opined: "He is speaking normally, but I'm having problems with the tone; the intonation isn't quite right.
"[59] With the deaths of Bernd von Freytag-Loringhoven on 27 February 2007, Armin Lehmann on 10 October 2008, and Siegfried Knappe on 1 December 2008, Misch was said to be the last survivor of the Führerbunker.