The Führer’s headquarters or Führerhauptquartiere – officially abbreviated FHQu – were the various command posts from which the supreme commander directed military operations during the Second World War. They ranged widely from the rather simple array of railway coaches, nicknamed the Führersonderzug (Führer’s special train), to an extensive, reinforced, heavily guarded concrete complex called the Wolf’s Lair or Wolfschanze, built deep in the countryside of East Prussia.
From the very beginning, it is necessary to note that the Führerhauptquartiere never bore any relationship to the General Headquarters or Obersteheersleitung, the highest German military command centre in the First World War. In 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm II was the commander-in-chief and was expected to take advice from his General Staff of the field army at all times, the German Army’s highest general. Generally, the Kaiser interfered very little in military matters, leaving the General Staff to preside over the War, whilst the Kaiser was scarcely more than an invited guest.
Adolf Hitler, however, was certainly no Kaiser Wilhelm II. He had recognized the Kaiser’s weakness, and by 4 February 1938 had personally taken command of the armed forces, replaced the War Ministry with the High Command of the armed forces or Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) and acquired for himself the instruments needed for the administration and supply of the armed forces. The chief of the General Staff of the Army no longer functioned as the Army’s top general. Instead, he was now an advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, or what was known as the High Command of the Army or the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH).
Between OKH and Hitler, was the OKW. It was an independent military authority, the nerve centre of the German hierarchy. It was commanded by General Wilhelm Keitel. In Keitel, Hitler had found exactly the type of officer he was seeking. He was someone who would carry out his commands to the letter without question, a ‘yes-man’ who would be content to receive orders from the Führer without any independent command. With such a responsibility a tremendous workload now rested upon Keitel, and Hitler soon grew accustomed to having this ever conscientious and exceedingly hard-working administrator in charge.
Keitel organized his new command into four sections: the Armed Forces Operations Staff (Fuhrungstab/WFA, later Wehrmacht Fuhrungsstab/WFSt (Armed Forces Operations Office)), the Intelligence and Counterespionage Office (Abwehr, the Armed Forces Central Office), and the Armed Forces Economic Office. The Operations staff was regarded as the most important section, and Keitel chose one of the most suitable military experts for the job, Major-General Alfred Jodl, as Chief of the OKW Operations Office.
The Operations Office, existing alongside OKW, acted as an administrative office for the receipt and processing of reports from the front. It also received orders from Hitler and issued them accordingly. Although both Keitel and Jodl had become part of Hitler’s military hierarchy, they actually worked without any real defined responsibilities and command authority. Together, they headed OKW to correlate and supervise individual strategies as conceived and initiated by the three services, the OKH, the Oberkommando der Marine (High Command of the Navy), and the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL, the High Command of the Airforce).
Alongside OKW stood the OKH, which was commanded by Colonel-General Walter von Brauchitsch. In Keitel’s opinion, he was a gentleman of the old school with sound judgement in military matters who possessed the talent necessary for conducting strategy along classical lines. Brauchitsch’s Chief of Staff was Colonel-General Franz Halder, who was the most controversial of all the generals in Hitler’s military elite. Halder was a devoted general of the highest competence and his main responsibilities were to form strong planning teams within the General Staff that could challenge the authority of Keitel and Jodl in the OKW.
The first real test of the higher organization of the Wehrmacht began with the planned invasion of Poland, code-named ‘Case White’. It was here that the new Führerhauptquartiere was first established onboard a special train code-named the Führersonderzug, the Führer Special. In the days leading to the war, it was not possible to say what made Hitler reject all proposals for the organization of the Army War Headquarters. Though we do know that when Keitel had put forward a semi-complete plan to house it in a newly completed barracks in the Potsdam area of Berlin, Hitler remarked that as supreme commander, he could not move out of Berlin westwards when the Wehrmacht was marching east into Poland. To the public, that would look like deserting his post. So it was that Hitler decided to use his special train as his first headquarters of the war. Only this mobile headquarters could provide the means for him to shuttle back and forth from east to west as the occasion might demand, and more easily visit sectors of the front he was interested in.
On 3 September 1939, Hitler’s new mobile headquarters left Berlin’s Anhalt station bound for Poland. Among the coaches, there were two baggage and one power-engine cars, the Führer’s Pullman, and one press car with a communication centre including a 700-watt short wave transmitter. There was Hitler’s extensive guest, dining and personal staff accommodation, including a bathing car. In his personal coach was a drawing room, and attached to these quarters was his communication centre, equipped with radio-telephone and several teletype machines. There was the escort car for the Reichssicheerheitsdienst (RSD), Reich Security Service and Führer-Begleit-Battaillon (FBB) or Führer Escort Battalion. The remaining coaches consisted of two cars for personnel such as secretaries, cooks, aides, signal corps men, and two sleeping cars for entourage and guests.
In the train, as at the Reich Chancellery, the brown Nazi party uniform dominated the scene. Onboard there were nine or more adjutants and aides, Keitel and Jodl of the OKW (later, each had his own Sonderzug), the Führer’s army adjutant Gerhard Engel, two personal physicians for the Führer, two secretaries and three or more press officers, including the Reich press chief Otto Dietrich, who was soon to write a short book about the journey. There were several radio operators, guests such as the chief photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, a liaison officer, Heinrich Himmler, Karl Wolff, Martin Bormann’s younger brother Albert, a representative of the Foreign Office, three valets, the driver and deputy, ten SS Begleit-Kommando men or Führer Escort Battalion (FBB), ten RSD men, fourteen officials and employees of the Reich Railway Catering Service including waiters, cooks, kitchen maids and two silver cleaners, five railway police officers, and three inspectors of the Reich mail. Later, Theodor Eicke also operated his command headquarters for the brutal Death’s Head regiments from Hitler’s special train.
For the next two weeks, Hitler was to spend most of his waking hours in the claustrophobic atmosphere of his command coach. Here, Keitel introduced the Führer to his Chief of Operations, Alfred Jodl. This tall, balding officer impressed Hitler immediately. Jodl was to be his principal strategic advisor until the end of the War.
From the train Hitler was able to devote his attention entirely to operations in Poland; this was only the first of several journeys the train made. In spite of the advantages in mobility from the very first day it left Berlin for Poland the train had obvious disadvantages as a military headquarters. In fact, on 14 September 1939, in the swaying carriage of the ‘command coach’, Hitler discussed at length with his chief engineer Fritz Todt the need for a permanent headquarters in the West. Jodl instructed his deputy General Walther Warlimont to reconnoitre for a field headquarters for the OKW to the west of central Germany, from which the later phases of a war against the West could be conducted.
For the next few months, the search was on for the first ground headquarters. As usual, Hitler took up residence in the Chancellery, using it temporarily, as he did throughout the war as supreme headquarters. By April 1940, with the war poised against the West, a new location for the headquarters had been found near the town of Munstereifel, code-named Felsennest, Rocky Nest. Hitler had instructed that OKH should be located in a neighbouring hunting lodge, whilst the Luftwaffe chiefs of staff were left to choose their own headquarters.
Hitler’s underground command post at Felsennest was very small and claustrophobic. But in spite of the gloomy surroundings in which he worked and lived he was able to undertake detailed discussions with his service professionals and execute orders quickly and effectively. From behind the barbed wire entanglements the military leadership were able to plan and order various operations. Commanders fighting on the front lines were influenced daily by the Führerhauptquartiere. Many of them were regularly summoned to make a presentation or report, which gave Hitler and his operations staff a more detailed insight into operations being conducted on the frontlines.
For the second phase of the war in the West, Hitler and his headquarters staff moved to the small deserted Belgian village of Bruly-de-Pesche, near the border with France. It was promptly sited in a forest clearing code-named ‘Forest Meadow’. However, by the time Hitler arrived on 6 June 1940 he wanted to give these peaceful surroundings a war-like name, Wolfschlucht (Wolf’s Gorge).
Hitler never felt at home here as he did at Felsennest. Whether it was the swarms of mosquitoes that plagued all around or his burning desire to win the war quickly, nobody could tell. Despite his agitation he was supremely confident. The Wehrmacht had achieved rapid success and swept forward almost unimpeded on a 400-mile front, heading for Paris.
When victory had finally been attained during the last week of June OKW and OKH collected themselves from the Wolf’s Gorge and surrounding areas and moved deep into the Black Forest in one of the headquarters prepared before the outbreak of the War. Its nickname was Tannenberg. Here, Hitler had decided on a short stay before returning to the Chancellery, primarily so that he could visit the great forts of the French Maginot Line. Tannenberg was not one of Hitler’s most attractively sited headquarters. The tall pine trees swayed with alarming momentum, and it rained heavily for most of his week’s stay. When there was sunshine, he could be seen walking through the dripping forest of the restricted part of the headquarters known as HQ Area I, flanked either by guests, party dignitaries or adjutants.
On 6 July, just two months after he had set forth to conquer France, Hitler left the bleak surroundings of Tannenberg and boarded his train for Berlin. For the next nine months he spent his time either at the Reich’s Chancellery, his mountain retreat in the Berghof, or on board his train, now code-named Amerika.
During this period Hitler began preparing the military machine against the one target that he had never lost sight of – the Soviet Union. By September 1940, he was discussing his decision to attack Russia in the spring the following year. By special order of the Führer, Chief engineer Fritz Todt, his army adjutant Lieutenant Colonel Engel and other headquarter staff officers and construction specialists were sent out to look for a suitable site for Hitler to direct his campaign against Russia. In November Todt had found a location and was instructed to build a huge fortress, bigger than anything else yet built.
It was emphasized however, because of its size and remarkable construction, it would take many months to complete. The site itself, known only by a handful of the Führer’s closest staff, was situated deep inside the East Prussian forest of Gorlitz, a few miles east of a town called Rastenburg (now Ketrzyn in Poland). Before the area had been sealed off for a military barracks, it had been a place to relax for the people of the nearby town. The task of sending thousands of construction workers to build the new headquarters was left in the capable hands of the Konstrukionsburo with engineer Peter Behrens heading the construction team of Organisation Todt workers.
During the initial construction phase, the identity of the headquarters was camouflaged under the code name Anlage Nord (Camp North), and also Chemische Werke Askania (Askania Chemical Works). When building first began at Anlage Nord, two other headquarter sites were also chosen in Poland and underwent construction. They were known as Anlage Mitte (Installation Centre) near Tomaszow, and Anlage Süd (Installation South), near Krosno. The building of these two installations was not designed as a permanent headquarters for Hitler’s forthcoming campaign, consequently they were never to match the huge concrete fortress of Anlage Nord. Instead they were purely as tunnels of reinforced concrete for Hitler’s special headquarters train, Führersonderzug Amerika, with platforms and a few wooden huts scattered about.
A few hundred miles to the north, work continued on Anage Nord. For seven solid months, Organisation Todt labourers laid out a network of roads through the swampy malarial East Prussian landscape. They turned forest paths into a huge complex of wood and concrete bunkers and other buildings. Dormitory barracks for thousands of construction workers covered the area, with many teams working in shifts around the clock. Massive excavation machines dug out thousands of tons of earth, and huge amounts of steel and concrete filled the holes. At night the various buildings sites glowed with light, and occasionally detonations thundered through the forest.
In total, an area of 154,501 square metres was developed, with only four per cent of the area comprised bunkers. Hitler’s headquarters covered 41,720 square metres. Of the 173,260 cubic metres of concrete laid, three-quarters of it was poured into Hitler’s headquarters sites, whilst the remainder was laid in OKH and the Luftwaffe Command centres. On average, some 4,600 German OT workers and foreign labourers, which were all thoroughly vetted by the RSD, worked on the vast construction programme at any time. The peak period before Hitler’s arrival was between September 1940 and June 1941.
Every day a stream of workers entered the construction site, labourers, builders, plumbers, electricians, telecommunication engineers, air conditioning specialists and architects. Miles of cables were laid and telecommunication installations were connected through a small telephone/telex exchange building. In total, three exchanges were set up and an independent telegraphy unit was installed at Heligenlinde, about fifteen miles to the west of Hitler’s new headquarters.
Various barrack-type huts with mantels of brickwork and concrete were constructed, and plans were drawn up to reinforce their ceilings for protection against bomb splinters. Originally there were ten bunker constructed, each had been reinforced with two metres of concrete. The floor in the rear part of the bunker was sunk over two metres deep and was to be used for sleeping quarters. Inside the work bunkers a narrow corridor led to what was known as the workroom door. This door led to a small room which could house two desks, chairs and filing cabinets. The windows to these bunkers had steel shutters attached and could only be closed and bolted from the outside. The windowless dormitory bunkers had two entrances. Inside the cabins were panelled with light wood and the sleeping compartments were furnished with a bed, wash basin, fitted wardrobe and later connected by telephone. Near the entrance of the bunker, plumbers installed a small bathroom complete with waste pipe and running water.
Air ducting engineers installed ventilation machinery which drew fresh air through the ceiling. Air conditioning units were installed.
All the rooms also had electrical heating, and warm air could be circulated through the ventilation shafts. The ventilator proved to be noisy, but engineers found that if it was turned off the bunker became unbearably hot and stuffy. Those that were to occupy the bunkers were instructed to ensure that the ventilators remained on at all times, in spite of the terrible shrieking noise they made.
Elsewhere around the headquarters builders assembled the small guard houses, which were positioned at the three entrances to the installation, North, South and East. Barbed wire fencing surrounded the entire headquarters and blockhouses for guard personnel were built.
By the end of May, a full inspection was made of the new headquarters site, and on 6 June 1941 the 1st Battalion Flak Regiment 604 was moved to the Gorlizt Forest. The flak unit which was to protect Hitler’s headquarters from possible aerial attack consisted of five batteries, three of which were equipped with 10.5cm guns and one each with 2cm and 3.7cm guns.
By the time the Russian invasion was unleashed on 22 June 1941, work on the headquarters still had not been completed. With word that the Führer might arrive any day, frantic measures were immediately undertaken to complete the finishing touches to the Führerbunker, and other important bunkers and buildings that were to house Hitler’s staff during the conquest of Russia.