 Prior to his suicide , Joseph Goebbels finally released Misch from further service ; he was free to leave . Misch and mechanic Johannes Hentschel were two of the last people remaining in the bunker . They exchanged letters to their wives in case anything happened to either of them . Misch then went upstairs through the cellars of the Reich Chancellery to where Schädle had his office to report one last time . According to Hentschel , by that time Schädle 's shrapnel leg wound had turned gangrenous . Misch told Schädle that Goebbels had released him . Schädle told Misch of the route he should take to try to get through the Soviet encirclement of the area . After helping Misch , Schädle shot himself . Misch fled the bunker in the early morning of 2 May , only hours before the Red Army seized it . He met up with some other soldiers and they travelled north through the U @-@ Bahn tunnels . However , they were captured shortly thereafter and taken prisoner . Misch was brought to Lubyanka Prison in Moscow , where he was tortured by Soviet NKVD officers in an attempt to extract information regarding Hitler 's last days . Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was extremely interested in learning of Hitler 's fate and theories about possible escape . Misch spent eight years in Soviet forced labour camps . 
