Faithful to the last

Farewell then, Lieutenant General Baron Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, who has died aged 93.

In April 1945, then a major and adjutant to the army chief of staff, he was one of the handful of Wehrmacht staff officers who stayed with Hitler in the bunker as the Nazi regime fell apart. One of the last to leave, he was entrusted with a signed copy of Hitler's political and personal testament for Dönitz.

After the war he worked in the publishing industry until West Germany joined Nato in 1955, and then went back into uniform, serving in various West German army posts and Nato staff appointments and reaching the rank of Lieutenant-General.

You see, he had been able to prove to the Americans that he had never been a Nazi, so that was all right.