Agreed. I wonder if the Soviets were aware of his position as Hitler’s bodyguard? 9 years in a Soviet gulag has got to have a bit less than a 10% survival rate.
I'm sure they did. They were pretty thorough in working to discover exactly what happened in the bunker, and everyone was thoroughly interrogated, down to Hitler's dentist. Apparently they went to the extent of making everyone reenact what happened.