The man who served as Adolf Hitler’s bodyguard has died aged 96.

Rochus Misch was by the Nazi leader’s side for five years throughout the Second World War.

It is thought he died on Thursday following a short illness. Misch travelled with Hitler from bunker to bunker throughout the 1940s.

Following a German defeat on January 16, 1945, Misch and the rest of Hitler’s personal staff moved into the Führerbunker in Berlin.

He was told not to leave the bunker for any significant period of time until the end of the war and handled all of the direct communication from the underground area.

After Hitler killed himself on April 30 1945, Misch was one of the first to find the Nazi leader’s body.

He fled the bunker and was captured by the Russian Red Army – but was released in 1954 and lived in Berlin, only two miles away from the bunker, until he died.

Before his death he spoke several times about his experience of working with the Nazi leader.

In a 2005 interview with the Associated Press, Misch said Hitler, who he referred to as ‘boss’, was ‘a very normal man’.

Misch said, ‘He was no brute. He was no monster. He was no superman.’

He told newspaper Berliner Kurier that, with most of the letters he receives asking for autographs, it was ‘no longer possible’ to reply because of his age.

He said: ‘[The letters] come from Korea, from Knoxville, Tennessee, from Finland and Iceland – and not one has a bad word to say.’