by Mark Felton
There was also a small landing strip for Fieseler Fi-156 Storch spotter planes south of the facility. Also located nearby, and separate from Hans Baur’s Führer Squadron (F.d.F) was the Führer Kurier Staffel (Führer Courier Squadron) under the command of Luftwaffe Hauptmann Talk.11 This unit consisted of between six and twelve fighters that could be used to quickly move around documents or dispatches and to ferry messages.
The threat from paratroopers was limited to some extent when the FBB dug in 20mm anti-aircraft cannons around the lakes to be used in the ground role, and to punch holes in the ice in the event of a sudden enemy landing. In the town of Goldap, 70km northeast of the Wolf’s Lair, was a German paratroop battalion that was kept in a high state of readiness. If enemy forces or partisans penetrated the Wolf’s Lair’s security zone, these German paratroopers had orders to fly directly to Hitler’s aide and jump into action over Sperrkreis I, II and III, Hitler apparently having no qualms about the casualties that these elite troops would suffer jumping into a forest canopy or landing on mine-fields. Hitler and his staff would seal themselves inside their gas and bomb proof bunkers and await relief. Other nearby troops included SS Anti-Tank Training and Replacement Battalion 1 in Rastenburg.
As at the Berghof in Bavaria, so life for Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair was fairly relaxed and very routine. Hitler was remarkably indolent for a man attempting to hold his crumbling empire together, and usually rose late in the morning. After rising, washing and being shaved by his valet and taking breakfast Hitler would walk his Alsatian dog Blondi within Sperrkreis I between 9.00 and 10.00am. He did this alone with only his own thoughts for company. At his military headquarters Hitler always wore a form of uniform unique to him. Before the war Hitler was often seen dressed in a brown tunic with red and gold Nazi Party armband and black trousers, but he never wore this uniform once the war began. Instead, he would wear a high double-breasted military-style field-grey tunic with a golden German eagle on the left upper arm, white shirt, black tie, black trousers, leather shoes and a grey and brown peaked cap with gold embroidered eagle and national cockade. When he was walking outside he usually also wore kid leather gloves. On the left side of his tunic were three badges – his Iron Cross 1st Class, his Wound Badge in Black from the First World War, and his Nazi Gold Party Badge. He was entitled to wear four other First World War decorations (the Iron Cross 2nd Class, the Bavarian Cross of Military Merit 3rd Class with Swords, the Bavarian Medal of Military Service 3rd Class, and the Honour Cross of the World War 1914–18 with Swords) but never did. He was very proud of his Iron Cross and wore it, along with his Wound Badge, to demonstrate his wartime courage and service to the ‘Fatherland’.
At 10.30am the mail was brought in to him. At noon he would walk across to Keitel and Jodl’s shared conference room for the first of the two daily situation briefings delivered by the military high command. This event, known as the ‘situation discussion’ was the most important event of the day. Depending on the news, this meeting might last for up to two hours. Lunch was served in the dining room promptly at 2.00pm. Hitler usually sat in the same place, between press secretary Dr Otto Dietrich and Generaloberst Jodl. Opposite usually sat Keitel, Bormann and General der Flieger Bodenschatz. This arrangement was changed after a heated argument between Hitler and Jodl one lunch-time in early September 1942. Afterwards, Hitler ate alone or with two of his secretaries until he became bored and a fresh list of lunch companions was drawn up.
Following his vegetarian meal Hitler would deal with non-military matters, particularly any meetings or receptions. He frequently had important international guests to talks at the Wolf’s Lair. Some of the notable visitors included Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria, Admiral Miklos Horthy of Hungary, Admiral Pierre Laval, Prime Minister of Vichy France, Finnish statesman Field Marshal Carl Mannerheim, Mussolini, and the Japanese Ambassador, General Hiroshi Oshima.
At 5.00pm Hitler would call the two female secretaries that he took with him to the Wolf’s Lair in to take coffee with him, as well as some of his military aides. ‘A special word of praise was bestowed on the one who could eat the most cakes.’12
At 6.00pm sharp there occurred the day’s second military briefing delivered by Jodl. Dinner was served at 7.30pm, often dragging on for two hours as Hitler subjected his guests to one of his infamous monologues. Afterwards, Hitler and his inner circle, and any high-ranking guests that were visiting him, usually repaired to the cinema to watch films and newsreels. Then Hitler would retire to his personal quarters, usually with Bormann and his two female secretaries, and talk or listen to music until the early hours. ‘Sometimes, it was daylight by the time the nocturnal discussions came to an end.’13 As the war started to go badly for Hitler the atmosphere changed. Towards the end Jodl was to describe the Wolf’s Lair as halfway ‘between a monastery and a concentration camp.’14
Hitler’s two secretaries at the Wolf’s Lair, Christa Schroeder and Gerda Daranowski (later Christian) were given very simple living quarters. ‘The sleeping section of their bunker was no larger than a compartment in a railway carriage. It had a toilet, a mirror, and a radio, but not much else. There were shower rooms.’15 They were also under-employed in the almost exclusively male-dominated world of the Wolf’s Lair, drawing criticism from many of the adjutants. But it appeared that Hitler liked to have females around for company. ‘They had as good as nothing to do. Sleeping, eating, drinking, and chatting filled up most of their day.’16 The job of being Hitler’s secretary was not, apparently, a particularly happy one. ‘We are permanently cut off from the world wherever we are,’ complained Schroeder in a letter to a friend in August 1941, ‘in Berlin, on the Mountain [Obersalzberg], or on travels. It’s always the same limited group of people, always the same routine inside the fence.’17
Security and guard duties along the fences of Sperrkreis I and II were primarily the responsibility of the FBB. Hauptmann Gaum, an FBB officer, made this point emphatically to his British interrogators in late 1944.18 Three guard companies were on active duty at any given time, day or night. Inside Sperrkreis I the primary bodyguards were RSD and SS-Begleitkommando. RSD Bureau I worked in cooperation with the SS. An SS-Begleitkommando officer was responsible for guard changes and patrols by both services as well as guards at the cinema, the issue of passwords, and supervising guards details in their quarters before they came on duty. Permanent guards were mounted as follows:
SS-Begleitkommando guard in front of the Führerbunker day and night.
RSD officer on constant patrol around the Führerbunker day and night.
RSD officer in front of the shorthand writers’ building day and night.
RSD officer patrolling throughout Sperrkreis I between 10.00am and 6.00pm.19
Hitler’s permanent adjutants were empowered to use the RSD guards for small errands as required. Anyone leaving one bunker to visit another bunker had to have permission. Officers were not permitted to wander freely around Sperrkreis I. Identity papers could be demanded at any time. The RSD would check them thoroughly and the person would then be escorted to his destination or to an exit gate into Sperrkreis II. The RSD guards were not supposed to stand around chatting or to walk in pairs. When Hitler was walking his dog or strolling the grounds in conversation with a member of the inner circle or a guest, the RSD officer on roving patrol was supposed to keep other people out of earshot of Hitler, and also make sure that he stayed well back. RSD guards were also not permitted to enter the Führer-bunker unless they were escorting in a workman or a maintenance engineer. Any messages or packages for the Führerbunker were handed to one of Hitler’s adjutants at the main door.
Although it appeared that the guards always followed strict protocol regarding passes, Hauptmann Gaum noted that this was not always rigorously applied for the top Nazis. ‘If a person such as Himmler or Göring were seen approaching slowly in a car, he might possibly be let by without being checked by the sentry, but in that case the sentry would ring the IC of the Camp Commandant, who was th
e official responsible for issuing passes to persons before entering the FHQ.’20
Heavy drinking appears to have been a feature of life for Hitler’s elite bodyguards and would lead to the dismissal of the head of the SS-Begleitkommando. In early 1942 Bruno Gesche, while blind drunk, pulled out his service pistol and took a few potshots at a fellow SS officer. For years Himmler had borne a grudge against Gesche. This time he had grounds for dismissal, and leaping at the opportunity had him dismissed from the SS-Begleitkommando. At the age of thirty-seven, with no previous combat experience, Gesche was sent to the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking on the Eastern Front. But contrary to what Himmler expected, Gesche proved to be neither a disgrace nor easy to kill. During the German retreat from the Caucasus in October 1942 Gesche was wounded in action and evacuated back to Germany. Awarded the Iron Cross Second Class and the Wound Badge in Black, Hitler was delighted with his former bodyguard’s performance and, overruling Himmler, reinstated Gesche as commander of the SSBegleitkommando with the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer. Hitler also ordered, in light of Gesche’s experience, that no members of his guard detail would be permitted to serve on the Eastern Front for fear of capture by the Soviets. The Soviet security police would have thoroughly interrogated any such prisoner for every scrap of information about Hitler, his various headquarters and their security arrangements. It was too much of a risk.
In December 1941 work had commenced on Hitler’s most forward headquarters, codenamed Werwolf (Werewolf). It was constructed 12km north of the town of Vinnitsa, Ukraine, on the Kiev highway between the villages of Stryzhavka and Kolo-Mikhailovka. Completed in June 1942, Werwolf was another mini-Wolf’s Lair. The Wehrmacht had established its regional HQ in Vinnitsa while the Luftwaffe had a huge airbase at Kalinovka, 20km from Hitler’s new lair. Once again, the collection of buildings and bunkers were located inside a deep, dark pine forest of the sort much favoured by Hitler, his headquarters often appearing oppressive places lurking in the woods like some fairytale grotto.
Werwolf consisted of a modest log cabin village that was built around a private courtyard with its own concrete bunker for Hitler and his intimates. Hitler’s cabin or ‘Führerhaus’ was very carefully guarded. The RSD even searched the building’s walls for microphones and explosives before he moved in.
Surrounding Sperrkreis I were another twenty wooden cottages and barracks and three smaller concrete bunkers. Werwolf was equipped with a teahouse, sauna, bathhouse, cinema, barbershop, and even an open-air swimming pool that Hitler never used.
The German company Zeidenspiner established a large vegetable garden within the complex to supply Hitler’s dietary needs, and fresh water came from two deep artesian wells. Hitler’s obsession about his diet and his fear of poisoning led the RSD to enact some intense security protocols. At Werwolf, his personal chef, SS-Hauptsturmführer Fater, had to go out to select the vegetables for Hitler’s meals himself. ‘Any other vegetables destined for the Führer’s plate had to be dug up under the eyes of an appointed courier who then brought the produce directly to the kitchen. All the food was chemically analysed before cooking, and sampled by a taster before it reached his plate.’21 The water supply was sampled several times a day by the RSD. Mineral water had to be bottled in the presence of couriers, and brought in. ‘Even the laundry was X-rayed to ensure that no explosive had been concealed.’22
Hitler’s obsession with poisoning was also much in evidence at the Wolf’s Lair. He never really trusted his own inner circle and allies, and realised that because his security was so tight and thorough any attempt to kill him would probably have to come from those in closest proximity to him, and in positions of trust. When Romanian dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu sent Hitler caviar and sweets Hitler ordered the RSD to destroy them. Hitler remarked to Generalmajor Rudolf Schmundt, his chief Wehrmacht adjutant, Generaloberst Jodl and his aide Engel in November 1942 that there were ‘groups busy trying to destroy him and his work, and he also knew that there were designs against his life; so far, he had managed to make life miserable for those who were out to get him.’23
Hitler was also frightened of the noxious vapours that were given off from his ferro-concrete bunker walls at both the Wolf’s Lair and Werwolf, so the RSD maintained oxygen tanks outside the bunkers ready to pump in fresh air. These tanks were regularly tested. The bunkers were also fitted with anti-gas chambers to prevent the enemy or any would-be assassins from pumping poison gas into the bunkers through the air ventilation system.
The usual concentric barbed wire fences and access gates at Werwolf were strengthened with minefields, anti-aircraft batteries, an anti-tank ditch and a very well armed FBB detachment that included tanks.
Werwolf was built using mostly Soviet POWs working under Organisation Todt supervision. According to one account, Hitler ordered Oberstleutnant Thomas, commander of the FBB, to liquidate the workers on completion of the project, Hitler remarking: ‘They must all be shot. There is not a moment to lose. They know too much about my HQ.’24 Thomas apparently carried out this order faithfully, for there are large grave pits at the nearby village of Stryzhavka.25
The new headquarters was connected to Germany by air and rail. A daily 3-hour flight connected Berlin Tempelhof with the airbase at Kalinovka, while a train connection ran from Berlin-Charlottenburg to ‘Eichenbein’ Station at Werwolf, with a journey time of 34 hours.
Hitler, who spent most of his time directing the campaign on the Eastern Front from the Wolf’s Lair, only stayed at Werwolf for three short periods as compared to the over 800 days that he spent at Rastenburg during the war. He first arrived on 16 July 1942 and stayed until 30 October. The summer temperatures were punishingly hot, with daytime recordings of 458C.
During this first visit Hitler contracted a very bad dose of the flu, his own temperature touching 408C. Hitler was not only feverish from his illness, but also perhaps because he believed that the Red Army was about to collapse. He was pressuring his generals to take the city of Rostov as the panzer spearheads reached the Don River deep in the Soviet Union. It was while ill that Hitler had made the disastrous decision to split Army Group South into two parts, attempting to capture Stalingrad and the oilfields in the Caucasus simultaneously, leading eventually to the German defeat at the great city on the Volga and the demise of Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus’s 6th Army. It proved to be a major turning point of the war.
Hitler’s second visit to Werwolf between 19 February and 13 March 1943 almost cost him his life. It was while he was at Werwolf that Generalmajor Henning von Treskow managed to smuggle a bomb on to Hitler’s Condor at Kalinovka Airfield. But, as we have seen, though Treskow and his aide Schlabrendorff had managed to penetrate Hitler’s tight security screen, mechanical failure saved Hitler from what looked to be certain death. Hitler’s last stay at the site was between 27 August and 15 September 1943.
After Hitler left Werwolf only minimal security was maintained, unlike at the Wolf’s Lair which was fully guarded and maintained even when Hitler was not in residence. At Werwolf a small RSD security detachment remained under SS-Untersturmführer Karl Danner, while a second line of defence was provided by Landesschützen Bataillon 318, a Wehrmacht unit consisting of over-age or invalid soldiers who were unfit for the rigours of frontline service.
On 20 September 1943 Hitler, now back at the Wolf’s Lair, decided to further tighten up his security arrangements. Rudolf Schmundt and NSKK-Gruppenführer Albert Bormann, Martin Bormann’s brother and one of Hitler’s closest aides, issued a new directive to further intensify security and secrecy within Sperrkreis I. A new inner sanctum was created called Sperrkreis A. It included Keitel’s bunkers and annexes, Hitler’s personal adjutants building, Mess No. 1, the teahouse, the Führerbunker, Martin Bormann’s bunker, the Wehrmacht Adjutants’ Office, and the Army Personnel Office. Only those serving with Hitler directly or those who had offices within Sperrkreis A, or those who lived there, were allowed in regularly. New passes were issued by the RSD.
Three gates gave access to Sperrkreis A – one by Keitel’s bunker, one next to the Adjutants’ House and one by Bormann’s building. One RSD officer and one FBB NCO manned each gate. The FBB was responsible for checking passes, and the RSD man assisted. In addition, one RSD officer was on constant patrol within Sperrkreis A.
A special list of thirty-eight persons was created by the RSD. These men and women were permitted to dine with the Führer at lunchtime in Dining Room No. 1, and Hitler would select several each day from the list who were then issued with passes for Sperrkreis A. In addition, a further forty-three aides, valets, typists and shorthand writers were on another list permitting them to dine in Dining Room No. 2 inside Sperrkreis I.27
These new security precautions made any attempt to kill the Führer considerably more difficult. An assassin would firstly have to have a valid reason to enter the Wolf’s Lair complex, and would have to pass through four identity checks before gaining direct access to Hitler. Very few people were given passes for Sperrkreis I, let alone the new inner sanctum of Sperrkreis A. But those determined to kill Hitler were resourceful and often well-connected individuals who were prepared to use Hitler’s security precautions to their own advantage. During 1943–44 trusted men who were close to Hitler tried to kill him on several occasions. It would only take the right circumstances for one of these brave men to succeed and change Germany and the world’s destiny in an instant.
