Otto Guensche dies

[fdewaele]

An aide to Adolf Hitler who says he helped to burn his body in Berlin in the final days of World War II has died at the age of 86.
Otto Guensche was an SS officer and a member of Hitler's inner circle.

He was captured by Red Army troops, but was released after several years to live quietly in western Germany.

Mr Guensche's son told the Associated Press news agency that his father had died of a heart attack on 2 October in the town of Lohmar, near the former capital Bonn.

Born in 1917, he joined the Wehrmacht and rose to be a first lieutenant in the SS.

He was with Hitler when he survived an assassination attempt in July 1944, and was in the bunker in 1945 where Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide.

In a recent interview, he said that the Fuehrer had personally ordered him to burn his body.

He added that he threw the rag which started the fire after chief of staff Martin Boorman had failed to ignite the bodies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3187566.stm