 On 16 January 1945 , following the Wehrmacht 's defeat in the Battle of the Bulge , Misch and the rest of Hitler 's personal staff moved into the Führerbunker and Vorbunker under the Reich Chancellery garden in Berlin . His FBK commanding officer , Franz Schädle , appointed Misch to be the bunker telephone operator . Misch handled all of the direct communication from the bunker . He did not leave it for any significant period of time until the war ended in May 1945 . On 22 April 1945 , Schädle called him on the phone and told him there was a place reserved for his wife and young daughter on one of the last planes out of Berlin . Misch was temporarily released from duty and drove to pick up his family to take them to the aircraft . However , his wife refused to take their daughter and leave him and her parents in Berlin . Upon returning to the Reich Chancellery , Misch learned that Hitler was releasing most of the remaining staff to leave Berlin . By that date , as the Red Army was entering Berlin , propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda brought their six young children to stay in the Vorbunker . Joseph Goebbels moved into the room next to Misch 's telephone exchange in the lower level of the Führerbunker . The Goebbels children would play in the corridor around Misch 's post . 
