Guarding Hitler

by Mark Felton

  In November 1944 Major Court presented his plan, codenamed Operation ‘Foxley’, but it was turned down after some heated argument. At this stage of the war, many senior officers felt that Hitler alive was doing more damage to the German military than Hitler dead. There were also some reservations about making Hitler a martyr through assassinating him. Foxley was by this stage anyway a theoretical exercise because Hitler had left the Berghof for the last time on 14 July 1944. However, postwar analysis of the plan suggests that although German security forces would most probably have captured the two-man sniper team before they were able to get into position, if they had managed to conceal themselves along the path between the Berghof and the Mooslahnerkopf Teahouse, they could have killed Hitler with relative ease.

  The main problem was that the plan came too late. SOE lacked intelligence about Hitler’s routine until after D-Day when they captured a few low-ranking former guards who had been returned to active service. By the time SOE had managed to thrash out an assassination plan, Hitler had managed to frustrate them by moving away from the target area.

  After the war had began, and following Bormann’s stringent efforts to beef up security around the Berghof and prevent day trippers and hikers from getting anywhere near the place, any real threat of assassination had to come from insiders. Hitler was to face some serious attempts by members of his own armed forces to kill him whilst he was at home on his mountain. The resolve of his opponents to carry out their plans was severely tested by Hitler’s formidable security apparatus. Killing Hitler soon became virtually a suicide mission for the few people who were prepared to act.

  Hitler being driven by Julius Schreck in the early 1930s. Hitler almost always sat in the front passenger seat during car journeys.

  The approach road to Hitler’s mountain retreat, the Berghof, on the Bavarian-Austrian border. He purchased this house from royalties earned on his book Mein Kampf.

  Hitler and his girlfriend Eva Braun pictured with their dogs on the sun terrace at the Berghof, 1936. Hitler kept his mistress out of the public spotlight on the Obersalzberg.

  The Great Hall at the Berghof.

  Reich Chancellery guards from the elite Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Berlin, 1938.

  Hitler greeting his adoring public whilst standing in the passenger seat of one of his Mercedes-Benz armoured limousines.

  The results of Georg Elser’s failed assassination attempt on Hitler at the Burgerbraukeller in Munich, 1939.

  Hitler being greeted by Generalfeldmarschall Keitel at the Wolf’s Lair. On the left stands Oberst Count von Stauffenberg, the man who would come closest to killing the Hitler.

  Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair pictured with some of his SS-Begleit Kommando and RSD bodyguards. Second from right is the controversial Bruno Gesche.

  Henning von Treskow, one of the central plotters against Hitler in the Wehrmacht.

  Hitler’s Focke-Wulf Fw. 200 Condor.

  Hitler addressing Reich Gauleiters in a conference hut at the Wolf’s Lair, 4 August 1944.

  (Left to right) Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, Hitler and Reichsleiter Martin Bormann pictured at the Wolf’s Lair the day after Stauffenberg’s bomb attempt. Hitler is holding his injured arm.

  Hitler’s black uniform trousers shredded by the bomb blast on 20 July 1944.

  Hitler presents medals to Hitler Youths in the Reich Chancellery Garden, 20 March 1945.

  The Führerbunker emergency exit (block house on the left). Hitler’s body was cremated in a shell hole near the doorway on 30 April 1945.

  Chapter 7

  Wolf’s Lair

  ‘Our enemies are not human beings any more, they are beasts.’

  Adolf Hitler

  The Wolf’s Lair, 14 July 1941

  The ‘Wolf’s Lair’ conjures up images of danger, of hidden menace, of evil power. It was named by Hitler, playing on his own preoccupations with the wolf as metaphor for himself. Hidden beneath a canopy of fir trees, in the summer the complex of huge above ground concrete bunkers and net covered walkways was alive with the buzzing of mosquitos that thrived in the humid and unhealthy local conditions. During the winter the forest was silent and heavily laden with snow, the surrounding lakes frozen solid in the bitter cold.

  The Wolf’s Lair was well named, hidden as it was deep in the gloomy East Prussian forest, 8km east of Rastenburg (now Ketrzyn, Poland). It was here that Hitler would spend most of the war, over 800 days in total, directing the monumental fight against the Soviet Union. But the Wolf’s Lair was not Hitler’s only Eastern Front headquarters. As with his command facilities in the West, Hitler used several different headquarters at different times, and they all differed markedly in design and comfort.

  One of his first was a truly enormous civil engineering project in occupied Poland built to protect his mobile headquarters train, the Führersonderzug. In November 1940 Hitler had sent Dr Fritz Todt east with a collection of military aides to find three possible locations for a permanent military HQ for the coming Soviet operation. Two sites in today’s Poland were quickly selected: Anlage Mitte (Installation Centre) near Tomaszow and Anlage Sud (Installation South). Both were basically enormous shelters for the Führersonderzug. Only the latter was actually used by Hitler.

  Anlage Sud consisted of a pair of gigantic reinforced concrete tunnels built by Polish slave labourers sent from nearby concentration camps that worked under the direction of Organisation Todt engineers and guards. The tunnel bunkers were located close to the main railway line between Rzeszow and Jaslo. One tunnel was built near the village of Stepina, 45km south of Rzeszow, the other at the town of Strzyzow, 30km southwest of Rzeszow. Each tunnel was 480m long, 8.3m wide and 12m high. The concrete walls were 2m thick, making for a formidable structure.1 Around each tunnel bunker were wooden huts, more bunkers and wooden watchtowers, as well as fences, protected by the usual FBB, SS-Begleitkommando and RSD detachments. Each tunnel contained a railway line and a platform, so important trains could be completely hidden from observation and aerial attack. The portals that gave access to the tunnels could be sealed with gigantic steel doors with firing positions. In the event of parachute assault or partisan attack the tunnels could be sealed and defended while reinforcements were sent from military bases nearby to relieve Führer Headquarters.

  Completed in the summer of 1941, Anlage Sud was first used on 27 August when Hitler met with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to discuss the war in the Soviet Union. The Führersonderzug was parked in the tunnel at Strzyzow while Mussolini’s private train was hidden in the second tunnel bunker at Stepina. Mussolini’s party was then driven to meet Hitler aboard his train inside the armoured tunnel, the Führer never stepping foot on the platform during his entire visit. Hitler visited once more in October 1941, this time attending meetings in the surrounding complex of bunkers and huts. 2

  The third site chosen by Dr Todt was codenamed Anlage Nord (Installation North), which eventually became known as the Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair). A one-track railway and a road ran through the Wolf’s Lair connecting the town of Rastenburg with Angerburg and Lotzen where other headquarters staffs were located.

  The Wolf’s Lair complex, initially a collection of concrete bunkers and wooden huts, was in the middle of a dense fir forest. The complex covered an area of 6.5 square kilometres and was divided into three security zones, or Sperrkreis. Where trees were felled to create space for buildings, artificial trees and camouflage netting were installed to maintain a continuous tree canopy. A company from Stuttgart was brought in to disguise the buildings, planting bushes, grass and artificial trees on the flat roofs. Roads were also partly disguised by camouflage netting and fake trees. The Germans carefully photographed the completed site from the air to test the camouflage, but the Soviets were soon aware of the existence of the headquarters and of its purpose.

  Hitler’s train was kept under more nets and trees at Bahnhof Görlitz, the Wolf’s Lair’s private station.3 Hitler first
arrived at the Wolf’s Lair by train on 24 June 1941 and would stay, with some large breaks when he was in Berlin, Munich, and Berchtesgaden or at Werwolf, another Eastern Front headquarters, until 20 November 1944.

  Visitors could arrive at the Wolf’s Lair using four methods. The first method was by train, arriving at Görlitz Station. Every night two identical courier trains left from Silesian Station in Berlin and the town of Angerburg in East Prussia, passing Görlitz en route, and arriving at the opposite destination the next morning. The second method was by plane, arriving at Rastenburg Airfield southwest of the Wolf’s Lair. Thirdly, the headquarters complex could be approached by road from the west, south or east. Fourthly, a rail trolley, a kind of tram, commuted between the Wolf’s Lair and the OKH (Supreme Army Command) ‘Mauerwald’ command complex near Angerburg with stops at Görlitz Station and at the eastern entrance gate near the Luftwaffe liaison offices.4

  In order to enter Sperrkreis I, the complex’s inner sanctum where Hitler lived and worked, one would have to pass through at least four security checkpoints.

  Sperrkreis III was the outer security area consisting of fences, gates, slit trenches and guardhouses. The perimeter was extensively mined. After the war the Soviets removed 54,000 landmines from the complex. Close by, to the northeast of Sperrkreis III, was a Wehrmacht operations staff facility and army headquarters. Additional troops were stationed 72km away in case of an emergency. This unit, a kampfgruppe (battle-group), was under the command of highly decorated combat officer Generalmajor Walter Denkert. It was later envisaged that Kampfgruppe Denkert would be used to garrison proposed Festung (Fortress) Lotzen. Denkert’s troops had responsibility for guarding the area outside of Sperrkreis III.5

  The FBB was responsible for guarding and defending Sperrkreis III. The unit was expanded in April 1943 by the creation of a second unit, the Führergrenadierbataillon (FGB) from selected Grossdeutschland personnel. The FBB and FGB had tanks, anti-tank and anti-aircraft units, and mechanised infantry with which to defend the Wolf’s Lair.

  Within Sperrkreis III, like a Russian doll, sat Sperrkreis II. It was a self-contained fenced area lying north and south of the Angerburg road. It contained concrete and brick one-storey houses of the Wehrmachtführungsstab (Armed Force Leadership Staff) and the headquarters of the Wolf’s Lair Commandant and his staff. There were two messes, heating plants and a communications centre. East of the buildings, and south of the road, were more concrete and brick houses containing the Kriegsmarine (Navy) and Luftwaffe liaison offices, a two-storey building for drivers with a large garage on the ground floor to store and maintain Mercedes limousines, two tall air raid bunkers, FBB barracks, and the barracks for the Führer-Flak-Abteilung (Führer Anti-Aircraft Detachment). Sperrkreis II also contained housing for some of the senior Nazi leaders including Hitler’s Armaments Minister Albert Speer and Reich Labour Front leader Fritz Todt (until his death in a plane crash in February 1942).

  Sitting like the yolk at the heart of the Wolf’s Lair egg was Sperrkreis I – the holiest of holies. Within Sperrkreis I was the Führerbunker as well as a collection of ten concrete bunkers or concrete and brick houses for the inner circle and their staffs. These consisted of bunkers for Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, Head of the Armed Forces (OKW), Press Chief Dr Otto Dietrich, Martin Bormann, a second communications centre, Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, Chief of the OKW Operations Staff, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, the Army Personnel Office, and the Adjutants Office. There was a house for the shorthand writers who transcribed all of Hitler’s conversations and orders. Each bunker was above ground, the marshy soil precluding very many subterranean constructions, and each was built of steel reinforced concrete with 2m thick roofs to protect from aerial bombs. Hitler became increasingly and somewhat morbidly fascinated by the idea of an Allied bombing raid on the Wolf’s Lair and once remarked to his secretary Traudl Junge: ‘They know exactly where we are, and sometime they’re going to destroy everything here with carefully aimed bombs. I expect them to attack any day.’6

  To ensure his survival Hitler had Sperrkreis I extensively rebuilt in 1944, Albert Speer spending 36 million Reichsmarks reinforcing the bunkers. The Führerbunker was turned into a veritable fortress containing a large maze of passages, rooms and halls. The roof was increased to a thickness of 7 metres, with a layer of gravel within designed to provide a cushioning effect and prevent the cracking of the inner bunker shell if struck by large aerial bombs.7

  Within Sperrkreis I were also several RSD command posts, Hitler’s personal air raid shelter, the Secretariat under Philipp Bouhler, Johann Rattenhuber’s RSD security headquarters, a post office, radio and telex buildings, vehicle garages, a siding for Hitler’s private train, a cinema, and generator buildings. There were quarters for Hitler’s personal physician, the fat and unpopular Dr Theodor Morell, Hitler’s chief Luftwaffe adjutant General der Flieger Karl Bodenschatz, Walter Hewel of the Foreign Ministry, Vizeadmiral Hans Voss of the Kriegsmarine, and, after 1943, SS-Brigadeführer Hermann Fegelein, representing Himmler’s SS. Martin Bormann, always close by his Führer, had a nearby staff accommodation house and an air raid shelter in addition to his personal bunker. Hitler’s bunker was located at the northern end with all of its windows facing north to avoid direct sunlight. Hitler, Keitel and Jodl’s bunkers had built-in conference rooms.

  For relaxation Sperrkreis I also had an officers’ mess, a mess room, teahouse, sauna, heating plant and a communal air raid shelter. The interiors were Spartan, as Hitler intended all of his field headquarters to reflect his own personal tastes and his concern to distance himself from his ‘official’ home in the grand and ostentatious Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Hitler always wanted to appear as a humble and frugal man in front of his people, though ironically his security needs ended up absorbing huge amounts of money and manpower that could have been more profitably used helping the war effort. For example, in 1944 alone, Bormann had 28,000 forced labourers working on improving Hitler’s various headquarters.

  To guard further against the possibility of air attack there was a radar system that was able to locate incoming enemy aircraft up to 100km away, giving several minutes warning of an air raid, though the Wolf’s Lair was never seriously targeted by either the Red Air Force or the British and Americans. The Führer-Luft-Nachrichten-Abteilung (Führer Air Intelligence Detachment) had many observation posts to back up the radar system. If a plane was detected inside the security zone an alert list of key persons were immediately evacuated to shelters by the RSD or SS-Begleitkommando. Soviet planes did drop a few bombs on Sperrkreis III on one occasion, but other than this one nuisance raid the enemy left the Wolf’s Lair in peace.

  Certain senior Nazis were prevented from having offices inside the Wolf’s Lair by Bormann, most notably Heinrich Himmler and Joachim von Ribbentrop. The OKH was also located elsewhere, only having adjutants at the Wolf’s Lair and regular visits by army commanders.

  Göring, the Deputy Führer, established his own Eastern Front headquarters elsewhere. Göring’s HQ was a rather modest affair and quite out of keeping with the man himself. He had a place for his special train, ‘Robinson’, created in Rominten Forest northeast of the town of Goldap. The Luftwaffe High Command had a separate headquarters in Goldap itself.

  In June and July 1941 Reichsführer-SS Himmler lived aboard his special Pullman carriage from his personal train, ‘Heinrich’, parked on a modest siding near Grossgarten (now Pozezdrze). Ribbentrop also had his carriage parked there. The platform was equipped with five small bunkers cum air raid shelters that were not habitable. Because of space considerations, both Himmler and Ribbentrop were forced to work inside their stuffy and uncomfortably hot railway carriages throughout the summer.8

  Ribbentrop, who had a fondness for the finer things in life, decided to find a permanent and considerably more comfortable Eastern Front base and relocated to Steinort Manor, a large house 8km northeast of the Wolf’s Lair and 10km from the main OKH headquarters.

&nb
sp; On 16 September 1941 Himmler moved into a farmhouse and in the autumn had ‘Hochenwald’ built, his own mini-Wolfsschanze in a dry pine forest 11km north of Grossgarten. The area was much healthier than the location chosen for Hitler’s HQ, and it was also more comfortable during the summer and much more attractive than the ‘breezeless, fetid swamp’9 at the Wolf’s Lair. Hochwald was a Feldkommandostelle (Field Command Post) and consisted of a railway siding for Heinrich, bunkers, barracks, garages, a central kitchen etc.

  The OKH Eastern Front HQ was codenamed ‘Mauerwald’ and consisted of two sections that were separated by the Rosengarten– Angerburg road. ‘Fritz’ contained the General Staff offices and bunkers while ‘Quelle’ housed the supply section and general administration offices. The HQ was decentralised for security reasons, some personnel living in barracks in Angerburg, Lotzen and other local towns. In total, around 1,500 officers and men worked at Mauerwald. The generals and other senior officers were guarded by sixty secret military police and the entire site patrolled by two companies of older Wehrmacht soldiers who were unfit for frontline duty.10

  Hitler was always concerned about enemy parachute attack on his headquarters or those of the army high command and other important complexes close to the Wolf’s Lair. Hitler had sited his Eastern Front headquarters in dense forest in an attempt to discourage the Soviets from attempting this form of assault, because paratroop units that jump into forests generally suffered huge casualties from injuries sustained when striking the canopy, or proved easy targets for defending forces when strung up in the trees. The area around the Wolf’s Lair contained few open spaces big enough for the kind of enemy force that would be required to overwhelm the FBB units defending the Führer. But in winter this was not the case. The large lakes, including the nearby Moy-see and Zeiser-see, that dotted the marshy East Prussian landscape froze solid, providing perfect drop zones for paratroopers or glider-borne commandos.