Otto Günsche

Otto Günsche ( Jena , Germany , 24 of September of 1917 - Lohmar , Bonn , 2 of October of 2003 ) was a German officer in the SS belonging to the SS-Begleitkommando des Führers in function Adjutant . It was the last Adjutant of Adolf Hitler who witnessed the death of the German leader and responsible for burning his body in the bunker of the Chancellery .

Biography

In 1931, Günsche entered the Hitler Youth and in 1934, due to his high stature (1.99 meters) and his “Aryan” appearance, in addition to other skills, and is accepted in the select rows of the division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler de The SS with the number 257.773; In 1935 affiliated like member to the Nazi Party with the number of ficha 3,601,524.

In 1936, he was promoted to SS Obersturmführer ( lieutenant ) and assigned to the Begleitkommando SS des Führers in the Personal Guard of the Führer as an ordinance. In 1941 and 1942, he studied at the Officer Academy of Bad Tölz; To serve later in the front. Between January and August of 1943 worked like personal assistant of Hitler and became a pride and image of the German of pure Aryan race that both Hitler wanted to impose, in addition it arrived to be one of the members of the SS closest to the leader next to Heinz Linge .

Combat in the front as company chief of the armored division LSSAH; From February to June 1944. Again serving as Hitler’s personal assistant, that year he is promoted to SS Sturmbannführer (major) and comes out unscathed from the Stauffenberg Attack at the Wolf ‘s Den .

He received from Hitler the order of the cremation of his corpse and that of his wife Eva Braun once they committed suicide. Günsche was one of the characters present in the bunker of the Chancellery that escaped along with other personalities, like Traudl Junge

He was captured by Soviet troops who surrounded the city and was detained on 2 May 1945 in a Soviet military prison. In 1950, he was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He was systematically interrogated along with Linge about the details of Hitler’s private life and personality. The results of these interrogations were held by the NKVD . ¹

In 1955, he was delivered to the Democratic Republic of Germany where he was detained in Bautzen until May 1956 when he was released under the initiative of Konrad Adenauer . He fled to the Federal Republic of Germany where he established his residence. Günsche together with Gerda Christian , with whom he had contact, were one of the few personal members of Hitler who refused to provide public details of their experiences during the Third Reich and did not write postwar memoirs or publications about Hitler. ²

The 2 of October of 2003 died of a heart attack in Lohmar, near Bonn, Germany , at 86.

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