Rochus Misch

Rochus Misch (born 29 July 1917) was an SS sergeant who was responsible for the Führerbunker's communications system. Misch is still alive, and is the only surviving witness to the events in the bunker, making him the only Downfall parody character with a flesh-and-blood counterpart.

Role in Downfall
In Downfall, Hans Fritzsche - exasperated by the hopelessness of the situation and by Joseph Goebbels' refusal to allow a surrender - enters Misch's office and tells him to send a telegram for Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov. Misch asks "to Marshal Zhukov?" and then Wilhelm Burgdorf comes in and tries to shoot Fritzsche.

Misch later appears when Krebs and Burgdorf commit suicide. He was sitting at his desk when he heard two shots coming from a nearby room. He went over there and found Krebs' and Burgdorf's bodies. He took two napkins and laid them over their heads, covering the bullet holes in their heads.

Downfall parodies
Like in Downfall, Misch's role is mainly that of a radio operator. His most common appearances are in parodies using the Goebbels Rants Scene. It's a running joke that Hans Fritzsche constantly tries to get him to send illegal radio messages to people, only to be stopped by Wilhelm Burgdorf, such as in the scene pictured above, taken from "Goebbels doesn't like to be called Skeletor" by Hitler Rants Parodies, in which Fritzsche asks Misch to tell everyone about Goebbels horrible nickname.

Other popular names Misch likes to use in this scene may include, among others:
 * Hermann Fegelein
 * Ulrich Matthes
 * And even Joseph Goebbels himself.

Trivia

 * The actor who portrayed Misch, Heinrich Schmider, died in 2010. That means that Misch outlived his portrayer.﻿ This also means that the person who portrayed the only person who is still alive from Hitler's bunker died before any of the other actors who were in the film.
 * Despite appearing in various scenes throughout Downfall, Misch only actually has one line in the non-extended version of the movie, which is his reaction of "Marshall Zhukov" after being told to send a message to him. In the extended version, he only has one more line, where he gives Traudl the message about Göring that she gives to Bormann. Misch, however, has a much more prominent role in the earlier movie The Bunker, which covered the same events.
 * He was the man with the lowest military rank in the Führerbunker.
 * To this day, the real-life Misch has been a vocal proponent for a controversial memorial to the Goebbels children. A particular push to have this memorial made occurred in 2005, a year after the film Downfall was released. Misch insists that the children were innocent of their parents' crimes, and their parents ended up murdering them, just as the Nazi leadership had caused the deaths of millions of innocent German civilians.