Otto Gunsche (24 September 1917 – 2 October 2003) was a Waffen-SS soldier who served as Adolf Hitler's personal adjutant.
Biography[]
Otto Gunsche was born in Jena, Thuringia, German Empire on 24 September 1917, and he volunteered for the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and joined the Nazi Party in 1934. From 1940 to 1941, he served as Adolf Hitler's SS adjutant, and he served as a panzergrenadier company commander on the Eastern Front from 1942 to January 1943 and on the Eastern Front and in France from August 1943 to February 1944. In March 1944, he returned as Hitler's personal adjutant, and his eardrums were burst during the 20 July plot assassination attempt in 1944. On 30 April 1945, during the Battle of Berlin, Hitler entrusted Gunsche with burning his body, and Gunsche had Erich Kempka bring him 200 liters of petrol to burn his and Eva Braun's bodies. He was captured by the Red Army on 2 May 1945, and he was imprisoned in Moscow, Russian SFSR and Bautzen, East Germany until 1956, and he died of heart failure in Lohmar, North Rhine-Westphalia on 2 October 2003 at the age of 86.