On 23 June 1941, just before midday Adolf Hitler and his headquarters entourage made their way through the sprawling streets of Berlin to Hitler’s Führersonderzug Amerika. At half-past noon in the sweltering heat the twin locomotives consisting of fifteen or more coaches, guarded by two flak wagons, left for East Prussia hauling the Führer and his staff.
Throughout the night the various echelons of Supreme Headquarters followed Amerika either by rail or air. Just after midnight Amerika halted on a local line a few hundred yards from the headquarters perimeter fence. Boarding a column of waiting field vehicles Hitler was driven up to a forest and inside this forbidding, heavily guarded wood stood his new headquarters. During the train journey Hitler had decided to call it Wolf’s Lair. When Hitler’s secretary, Fraulein Christa Schroder inquired, ‘Why Wolf again – just like the other headquarters?’ Hitler replied, ‘That was my code name in the years of struggle.’1
The Wolf’s Lair installation was laid out on both sides of an asphalt road which passed west/east through the Gorlitz forest from Rastenburg and then on north-east to Angerburg. The forest was less than 2,000 metres across, and because there were so many meadows and open spaces scattered among the tall pine trees, it was essential to hang camouflage netting to hide the installation from aerial observation. Just north of the road was the railway line which passed through Rastenburg. For a number of years there had been a railway station in the small town of Gorlitz, south of the forest. For some time, tourists had visited the area using the rail network, but now this had been stopped. A rail siding was added to the original rail line at the station, and its building was added to throughout the summer of 1941. A longer ramp was built to accommodate the arrival and departure of Amerika.
It was 1.30 am when Hitler and staff entered the enclosure. Passing cordons of sentries of the FBB guarding the Gorlitz forest, they moved through the outer perimeter barrier known as Sperrkreis IV (Security Zone IV), which was a high barbed wire fence enclosing an area of about 2.5 square kilometres and well hidden from the road. Installed menacingly along the fence were blockhouses, flak and machine-gun towers, and other defensive emplacements including a small minefield surrounding the compound. Again sentries patrolled the barrier here, as well as posts within the compound. Beyond the outer perimeter was an extensive number of concrete gun emplacements strategically emplaced at road junctions and covering access roads.
Security at the installation was multi-layered. There were essentially one outer and three inner security zones known as Security Zone I, Security Zone II, Security Zone III, and Security Zone IV, each complete with checkpoints and guards. A visitor entering Wolf’s Lair passed through at least two, three or even four checkpoints on his way through to Hitler’s Security Zone I, the inner sanctum of the headquarters. It was situated north of the Rastenburg/Angerburg tracks and road in the eastern part of Security Zone II. As one approached this well guarded enclosure, it too was surrounded by a fence and topped with barbed wire. Here, sentries manned the western and eastern entrance gates with a barrier, scrutinizing every person that wanted access.
Security Zone I consisted of huge concrete bunkers that loomed over an assortment of wooden huts. The bunkers were concealed from the air by painted designs on walls, foliage between buildings on poles and camouflage netting suspended from the tree tops. A Stuggart landscaping firm had been hired to install artificial trees, camouflage nets and artificial moss on top of buildings, over the concrete roads inside the installation, and wherever man-made structures might be visible from the air. The Führersonderzug too, was kept under cover of camouflage trees and nets when it stopped at Gorlitz, the Wolf’s Lair station. Chief of the OKW, General Wilhelm Keitel wrote in his memoirs:
I have often flown over the site at various altitudes, but despite my precise knowledge of its location was never able to pin-point it from the air, except perhaps by the virtue of the lane leading through the forest and a single-track railway spur which had been closed to public traffic.2
Despite serious efforts to keep the headquarters secret, close observation of the area using aerial photography could locate the installation. But the German security authorities could not know if the Russians would be able to determine that the buildings hidden among the trees were Hitler’s Eastern Front headquarters. Nevertheless great efforts were made throughout the War to conceal it from enemy aerial reconnaissance.
Inside Security Zone I the Führer and his entourage from State, party and Wehrmacht came to live. On the military side, Keitel, General Alfred Jodl and aides, together with the newly appointed ‘historian’, Colonel Walter Scherff set up camp. Here the assorted huts served as a conference room, mess and administrative offices. There were guest quarters, a mail room, a communication bunker, a teahouse and there was even a cinema and plans for a sauna. Everyone lived and worked in wooden huts, barracks or concrete bunkers which were above ground and consisted of two or more rooms. Newly constructed roads and tracks criss-crossed the entire site, which were screened by many trees. Hitler’s bunker (No.11), known as the Führerbunker, was the main structure in Security Zone I. His hut and bunker was hidden at the extreme northern end. In addition to the Führerbunker, many other bunkers had been erected. During the first construction phase, concrete and brick houses were built with windows and steel shutters.1 Just south of the Führerbunker across a gravel path was a small building known as Kasino.I, a building which contained two dining rooms for the Führer and his inner circle. Between these two buildings was a flagstone walk, which was partly covered by camouflage netting suspended from the trees. The path ran south to an office/bunker for Keitel. South of Keitel’s building was a long, barracks-type building for Jodl. West of the Führerbunker was a bunker/office/quarters for Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, head of Hitler’s secretariat and Chief of Party Chancellery. Nearby, running parallel to the railway line and security fence stood Reichsmarshall Herman Göring’s house.2
Throughout Security Zone I there were a wide range of buildings and plans for a host of other bunkers and barracks. On the main Security Zone I road, west of the Keitelbunker (No.7), were two bunker/barracks-type buildings for the Führer’s personnel and SS adjutants (No.8) and another (No.13) for his Wehrmacht adjutant. There were buildings for the Reich Press Chief, guests, men of the RSD (Reichssicherheitsdienst, Reich’s Security Service) and SS-Begleit-Kommando (Escort command troops), and quarters for Hitler’s inner circle including personal servants, and secretaries. Christa Schroder wrote:
The blockhouses are scattered in the woods, grouped according to the work we do. Our sleeping bunker, as big as a railway compartment, is very comfortable-looking, panelled with a beautiful light-coloured wood … as the air conditioning noise bothered us … we have it switched off at night with the result that … we walk around with leaden limbs all next day. Despite all this it is wonderful except for an appalling plague of mosquitoes. The men are better protected by their long leather boots and thick uniforms; their only vulnerable point is the neck. Some of them go around all day with mosquito nets on. Wherever a mosquito turns up, it is hunted down. In the first few days this led to immediate problems of jurisdiction, as the Chief [Hitler] says it should be the Luftwaffe’s job only. They say the small mosquitoes are replaced by a far more unpleasant sort at the end of June. God help us!
It is almost too cool indoors … the forest keeps out the heat: you don’t notice how much until you go out onto the street, where the heat clamps down on you.3
Security Zone II was a fenced encampment north and south of the Rastenburg-Angerburg road, inside the larger fenced area. Here too, the compound was entirely surrounded by high barbed wire fencing and was virtually camouflaged from the road. It housed the concrete and brick single storey houses of the Wehrmachtfuhrungsstab (Wehrmacht Leadership staff) or WFst, and the headquarters commandant, SS-Gruppenführer Hans Rattenhuber, and his staff. The majority of officers were housed in wooden huts around a simple country inn that was once used by the local inhabitants. There were two messes; heating plants, and a communication centre (telephone exchange). East of these buildings, still south of the road, there were concrete and brick houses for the Luftwaffe and Navy liaison officers and a two storey building for the drivers with garages at the ground level.
Walking through Security Zone II a visitor soon realised that the installation was far removed from the normal picture of a military headquarters. Everything had been undertaken by the designers to try and make the camp as comfortable as possible, including the living quarters. Inside the officers quarters for instance there were walls covered with ornate wooden panelling painted in cheerful colours. There were also built-in cupboards, glazed basins and baths with running water and even central heating.
There were several other installations in the general area of the Wolf’s Lair, between 12 and 50 miles away. These installations served the needs of the Army High Command and its General Staff. The Luftwaffe High Command had its own headquarters onboard Göring’s Robinson, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler’s Sonderzug Heinrich was shunted into a railway siding near Grossgarten (now Pozedre), and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop’s and State Security Dr Hans Heinrich Lammers’ railway carriages were also parked there. In addition to a platform there were five small bunkers that served only as air-raid shelters, and were not habitable. In July 1941 Ribbentrop and Lammers managed to obtain a place away from the sweltering carriages. Ribbentrop took up headquarters in a mansion about five miles north-east of the Wolf’s Lair, and seven miles south of the Army High Command headquarters Mauerwald.
The Mauerwald installation had been built in a dry, high pine forest and was regarded by those that worked and lived there as considerably healthier and more comfortable than the Führer’s breezeless, fetid swampland. The site was divided into two sections, Fritz and Quelle, and separated by a road. General Staff officers were all encamped in Fritz, except for the supply section which was in Quelle, together with administrative offices. As at the Wolf’s Lair, there were bunkers and hutments built into the forested area. Some 1,500 personnel worked just at Mauerwald.
The entire area surrounding the Wolf’s Lair including the other headquarters installations were all integrated into the early warning system of Air Fleet Reich, land forces under the control of No. I Military District Command in Konigsberg. The Wolf’s Lair however, was the most heavily defended site of them all by the Führer-Luft-Nachrichten-Abteilung (FLNA, Führer Signal Detachment), and a much strengthened FBB (later renamed the Führer Begleit-Brigade).
Deployed around the Wolf’s Lair there were normally around 30 anti-aircraft guns, some 70 light MG34 machine-guns, between 16 and 21 tank guns, two heavy MG34 machine-guns, and four 7.5cm well dug-in tank guns. Tanks, mainly of the Pz.Kpfw.IIIs and Pz.Kpfw.IV types, were fully manned and armed, stationed both within and outside the outer perimeter.
Troop strength was estimated in the region of 1,570 officers and men. Security and guard duties along the fences of Restricted Security Zone I and II were the primary responsibility of the FBB units. They guarded partly inside and outside the Führer’s headquarters. One entire platoon of the three guard companies was on active guard duty at any one time. Inside the fenced area, Security Zone I, the principal security forces were the RSD and the SS-Begleit-Kommando.
Rattenhuber and his deputy, SS-Sturmbannführer Peter Hogl, were in charge of Hitler’s personal security. Permanent guards were posted all over Security Zone I. One SS sentry stood guarding the front of the Führerbunker day and night, whilst at the same time one RSD officer was in constant patrol. There was one RSD in front of the shorthand writers hut day and night, and one RSD patrol throughout Security Zone I from 10 am to 6 pm. The RSD officer patrolling the immediate area around the Führerbunker watched all entrances. He was ordered to prevent all disturbances around the bunker area, which included noise, and the entry of unauthorized persons. Hitler’s personal adjutants, SS-Obergruppenführer Julius Schaub, NSKK-Gruppenführer Albert Bormann, Chief Wehrmacht Adjutant Lieutenant-General Rudolf Schmundt, SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Gunsche and SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Schulze-Kossens used the RSD guard for small errands and runner services. The RSD officers had to make sure that unauthorized persons, including persons on duty or quartered in Security Zone I, did not walk about the compound unnecessarily, in particular in the vicinity of the Führerbunker.
One of Keitel’s aides remembers vividly that he had to have permission on every occasion to go to the Führerbunker. Identification papers were always scrutinized and persons or visitors were always escorted to wherever they needed to be taken. An individual found without a valid pass was immediately escorted off the premises and questioned. Only persons working in Security Zone I or serving the Führer directly were allowed by the RSD officers to enter the compound regularly. It was strictly forbidden to allow anyone to enter the Zone without a pass, not even if they were chaperoned with someone else with a pass, except if they were escorted through the gate by an RSD officer. Everyone who required access needed to obtain new or additional passes either by express permission of the Chief Wehrmacht adjutant Schmundt, his deputy, SS-Obergruppenführer Schaub or his deputy, or personally from the headquarters commandant. Security measures were so stringent inside the Führer’s compound that motor traffic was restricted to cars of persons holding high ranking positions and Reich ministers and leaders. These and their drivers, including all passengers, no matter what rank they held, all had to have valid passes. Those without a pass were ordered out of the vehicle and instructed to wait outside the gate.
Despite the tight security, it was possible in those early days of the War to accidentally wander through into Security Zone I. Such an incident occurred when a Colonel got off the local train near the compound, thinking he was in the army’s Mauerwald installation, and casually walked into the inner sanctum. Once inside, he found the officer’s mess and ordered some breakfast. Sitting at the table he was surprised to see Hitler’s Navy Aide, Rear-Admiral Karl Jesco von Puttkamer. When Puttkamer wanted to know why he was sitting in the officer’s mess in Security Zone I of the Wolf’s Lair, the Colonel refused at first to believe that he was not at Mauerwald, until Puttkamer pointed Hitler out to him, strolling outside.
Although such cases were very rare, there were occasions when labourers working on the site accidentally wandered into forbidden areas. One Polish labourer left his place of work without permission and took a short cut on his way home. As he passed through some trees he was spotted by a sentry guarding the outer perimeter of Security Zone IV, and was shot dead on the spot.
Though the Wolf’s Lair was unusually close to the front, those living there could never quite come to terms with the loneliness of the place. The whole area was so vast that even with the atmosphere charged with high military drama, everyone still appeared to feel isolated and perplexed. Relatively comfortable as it was, those living inside the compound could not quite rid themselves of the feeling of being behind the wire, as in prison. Even the amenities such as a Turkish bath, an officer’s club, cafes, a cinema and swimming bath could not dissipate their feeling of entrapment.
Some, however, tried their best to escape from what they saw as the prison of concrete and wood. Once they had got through the maze of barbed wire, minefields, and the string of security cordons, they found good walks in the local neighbourhood. Frequently officers and personnel alike would be seen strolling through the surrounding woods and around the lakes of the East Prussian countryside, and sometimes basking lazily in the sun during the early hours of the afternoon. The deputy chief of operations for the OKW, General Walther Warlimont, for instance, regularly took to strolling through the forests and around the lakes. The countryside, he later recalled, with its well managed forests, heath lands, tree-shaded roads, rivers and lakes always gave him repose.
Inside the Wolf’s Lair however, life continued routinely and there was hardly any respite. Almost as soon as the various staff sections of the army moved into Security Zone II they set to work collecting and collating information for the vital continuation of the War. As usual practice in the running of military operations from the supreme headquarters, a considerable part of the work was left in the capable hands of General Warlimont of Section L. His department was given the task of collecting reports each morning and evening from the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Navy and sorting and dispatching them by courier to the Chief of Operations, General Jodl, together with their attached situation maps that were brought up to date by the staff’s draughtsman. These reports, together with the attached situation maps were shown at the midday war conference over in Security Zone I, which was held each day in the Führer’s presence. Here, they also discussed the morning reports from the various High Commands.
All the conferences that took place in Security Zone I were held in the Keitelbunker (until the autumn of 1942). During these military meetings it was customary for Jodl to outline the war situation, including the army’s position when the army’s Commander-in-Chief, Field-Marshal von Brauchitsch and Chief of the General Staff of the Army Colonel General Franz Halder were themselves participating. All War conferences lasted an average of three hours and the evening conferences never less than one hour. Any orders or particular instructions the Führer issued on these occasions were dispatched after the conference that same evening by the OKW Operations Staff to the quarters concerned. Liaison officers were responsible for ensuring that their sections in Berlin had received any information and were working and adhering to those orders accordingly. All communications including the daily Wehrmacht reports, and also that of the press, party and state authorities would be dispatched to Berlin and sent to the various offices. Vital military communiqués were generally sent directly from the Wolf’s Lair to the particular military field headquarters of the army group by telegram and dealt with immediately by the General Staff, who in turn would dispatch them to the supreme commander.
At the Wolf’s Lair everyone watched nervously as reports of Barbarossa, the codename for the invasion of the Soviet Union, victoriously forged ahead. Within hours of the initial invasion of Russia, the German spearheads, with their brilliant co-ordination of all arms, had pulverized bewildered Russian border formations. Both OKW and OKH looked upon these first exhilarating days of the campaign as confirming the aura of invincibility that had not been enjoyed by any other army since Napoleon unleashed his forces against Russia.
By July 1941, the German Northern, Central and Southern Groups had bulldozed their way across vast areas of Russia and were achieving momentous victories on all fronts. In Army Group Centre, both Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS troops, spearheaded by the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Group, penetrated through Belorussia almost as far as Smolensk, a sprawling city on the Warsaw-Moscow highway. When they reached the city, they stood a mere 400 miles from the greatest prize of them all – Moscow. Enjoying the staggering successes, Hitler was seen taking leisurely strolls the compound of Security Zone I, and even taking time to chat familiarly with the labourers that were still working on the never ending building programme. At mealtimes, which were always a big occasion, the Führer seemed relaxed, but was noticeably uncertain on his objectives in Russia.
The list of guests, of whom only a few at a time could dine with Hitler in Dining room No.1, which was housed in the building Kasino I (No.10), just south of the Führerbunker, included Keitel, his adjutant Major John Freyend, Jodl and his adjutant Major Waizenegger, Schaub, Schmundt, the brothers Bormann, Otto Dietrich, Minister Walther Hewel, General Karl Bodenschatz, Dr Hans Karl von Hasselbach, Major-General Walther Scherff, Hitler’s personal physician Dr Theo Morell, the Reich Photo Reporter, Staff Leaders SS-Gruppenführer Rattenhuber, Helmut Sudermann, Chief Pilot SS-Gruppenführer Hans Baur and pilot Gaim, Major Weiss, Personal adjutant SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Darges, SS-Sturmbannführer Peter Hogl, Captain Gerhard von Szymonski, Captain Fuchs, Hitler’s trusted chauffeur SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Kempka, SS-Hauptsturmführer Georg Friedrich Hans Pfeiffer, District Leader Heinz Lorenz, Judge Muller, Lorenz, and the headquarters photographer Lieutenant Walter Frentz. In all there were a total of 38 guests, all of which vied for favour with the Führer. In dining room No.2, dined ten shorthand writers and their typists, 23 aides, valets and typists. Hitler’s secretary, Christa Schroder wrote:
Shortly after 10 am we two [Gerda Daranowski Andi] go to the mess bunker – along [a] whitewashed room sunk half-underground, so that glaze covered windows are very high up. A table for twenty people takes up the entire length of the room; here the chief takes his lunch and supper with his Generals, his General Staff officers, adjutants, and doctors. At breakfast and afternoon coffee we two girls are also there. The chief sits facing the maps of Russia hanging on the opposite wall.
We wait in this No.1 dining room each morning until the chief arrives for breakfast from the map room, where meantime he has been briefed on the war situation. Breakfast for him, I might add, is just a glass of milk and mashed apple: somewhat modest and unpretentious.
Afterward we go at 1.pm to the General situation conference in the map room … the statistics on enemy aircraft and tanks destroyed are announced – the Russians seem to have enormous numbers, as we have already annihilated over 3,500 aircraft and over 1,000 tanks including some heavy ones, forty tonners. They have been told to fight to the end and shoot themselves if need be … If there is nothing important to be done, we sleep a few hours after lunch so we are bright and breezy for the rest of the day, which usually drags on till the cows come home. Then, around 5 pm, we are summoned to the chief and plied with cakes by him. The one who grabs the most cakes gets his commendation! This coffee break most often goes on to 7 pm, frequently even longer. Finally we lie low in the vicinity until the chief summons us to his study where there is a small get together with coffee and cakes again in his more intimate circle … I often feel so feckless and superfluous here. If I consider what I actually do all day, the shattering answer is: absolutely nothing. We sleep, eat, drink, and let people talk to us, if we are too lazy to talk ourselves…
This morning the chief said that if ever the German soldier deserved a laurel wreath it was for this campaign. Everything is going far better than we hoped. There have been many strokes of good fortune, for example, that the Russians met us on the frontier and did not first lure us far into their hinterland with all the enormous transport and supply problems that would certainly have involved.4
Such were the successes at the front, nearly everyone at the Wolf’s Lair thought that victory would soon come and that they would be home by winter. Even during these sweltering days of July, Hitler openly declared that the Red Army was doomed. Life at the headquarters continued more or less unchanged. As usual, his intimate staff eagerly visited every day for breakfast, lunch, and in the evening relaxed in either the Führerbunker or over in the teahouse, a short walk south of the Führerbunker. Generally, the tea house was the scene of his famous table talks. One of Hitler’s secretaries noted in her diary:
I really must start writing down what the chief says. It’s just that these sessions go on for ages and afterward you are just too limp and lifeless to write anything. The night before last, when we left the chief’s bunker, it was already light. We did not turn in even then, as ordinary people would have, but made for the kitchen, ate a few cakes, and then strolled for two hours toward the rising sun, past farmyards and paddocks, past hillocks glowing with red and white clover in the morning sun, a fairyland on which you just could not feast your eyes enough; and then back to bed. We are incapable of getting up before 2 or 3 pm. A crazy life … A strange calling like ours probably never [will] be seen again; we eat, we drink, we sleep, now and then we type a bit, and meantime keep him company for hours on end. Recently we did make ourselves a bit useful – we picked some flowers, so that his bunker does not look too bare.5
The OKW war diarist Helmuth Greiner wrote a private letter of the conditions inside the headquarters during that summer of 1941:
We’re being plagued by the most awful mosquitoes. It would be hard to pick a more senseless site than this – deciduous forest with marshy pools, sandy ground, and stagnant lakes, ideal for those loathsome creatures. On top of which, our bunkers are cold and damp. We freeze to death at night, can’t get to sleep because of the humming of the air conditioning and the terrible draught it makes, and we wake up every morning with a headache. Our underwear and uniforms are always cold and clammy.6
Confidently though, Greiner hoped, like so many others, to leave the barbed-wire entanglements of the Wolf’s Lair forever. In his diary in July 1941 he predicted that the Red Army would be annihilated and that Germany would triumph before Christmas. But in spite of the confidence throughout the headquarters there was emerging evidence of growing Russian resistance. Even at the daily war conference Hitler himself could not conceal his worries about the increasing extent of the enemy’s armament. Prior to the invasion, his experts in the field had told him nothing of Russia’s enormous array of armour. In his bunker he was seen by his adjutants to be concerned at the prospect of a major calamity on the Eastern Front, and was brooding. On 21 July Greiner wrote in his OKW diary:
Nobody discussed this [the Russian campaign] at lunch with the Führer yesterday. At first he was very taciturn, and just brooded … then he came to life and delivered a monologue of an hour or more on our brave and gallant Italian Allies and the worries they are causing him … you can’t help being astonished at his brilliant judgement and clear insights. He looks in the best health and seems well, although he seldom gets to bed before 5 or 6 am.7
During the first week of August, Hitler complained of not feeling well. On 7 August one of Hitler’s secretaries noticed how unwell he looked. After breakfast she watched as the Führer struggled to walk over from Kasino I to the Führerbunker. That same morning Hitler visited the map room and suddenly felt faint and then began vomiting. For days he had been steadily getting worse and now had diarrhoea, severe stomach pains, nausea, and a high fever. His personal physician Dr Morell told him he had contracted bacillary dysentery from the surrounding swamplands. Morell noted in his diary that life in the bunker had caused his rapid decline in health. On the following day he was confined to his bed and due to his complaint was allowed no more than one soft boiled egg, mashed potato, and strawberries for supper.
Despite not feeling well, Hitler was determined not to be confined to his dreary sleeping quarters. After he had received his morning injection he would drag himself from his bunker over to the Keitelbunker and attended the war conference, which was now being held each morning and evening. At these long drawn out conferences he sat at a long narrow oak map table with the staff crowded round him, watching intently as he scoured the maps of western Russia, trying to plot the next military breakthrough of the Wehrmacht. Although Hitler appeared pale and drawn he tried to conceal his ailments and dominated the conferences. The first weeks of August were difficult for the military and despite frantic appeals from his Generals to abandon the Barbarossa directive and divert the main thrust of the campaign on Moscow, Hitler held his nerve and warned them of the serious consequences of such an action.
However firm Hitler was at the military conferences his declining health was becoming more apparent. He even began complaining that he found them hard-going and he became increasingly incapable of arguing with his Generals. At one particular conference held in early August he had to call for the assistance of Morell. His ears were buzzing and he complained of terrible headaches. His little doctor resorted to using the medieval method of applying leeches into his ear in order to try and lower his blood pressure. After his ears had bled for a considerable time bandages were applied to his head. Hitler vainly refused to be seen wearing the bandages around the headquarters, and as a consequence decided to eat alone in his bunker.
Over the next few days Hitler appeared to be feeling much better. Although he stated he felt like he had recovered from his bout of dysentery, his staff, still thought he looked pale and drawn. On 19 August Morell recorded in his diary:
The bunker is damp and unhealthy, the temperature just right for growing fungi; once, my boots were mouldy after being left two days, and my clothes got clammy in the bedroom. New bunker walls always sweat quantities of water at first … then there are the colds caused by the draught of the extractor fans. I pointed out all that after just four days in the bunker … people got chest constrictions, anaemia, and general bunker psychosis. I reminded him that I had initially recommended more frequent motor journeys or five days in his special train, a change of scenery to somewhere at a greater altitude. At that time the Führer declared that this wasn’t on because of the centralization of his signals equipment, etc, I also suggested he spend fourteen days at the Berghof.8
18 August was a beautiful summer’s day, and for the first time in five weeks Hitler’s staff watched as he ventured outside his bunker and strolled with Josef Goebbels along his favourite stretch of the compound. The installation was a hive of activity and a number of areas were still a building site. Organization Todt workers were labouring continuously on new buildings, and those still working inside Security Zone I often able to get a glimpse of the Führer for the first time since his arrival in June. Although security was as stringent as ever inside Hitler’s compound the labourers were able to walk about, as long as they did not walk in close proximity to the bunkers, especially as the Führer and Keitelbunkers. Guards were positioned at the entrances of both these buildings at all times and security was tightened during the military conferences. No one was allowed to pass too close to the windows of the buildings either. If the workers had to quickly enter a building because of an emergency, such as a broken water pipe for instance, security officers had to accompany them. During the summer of 1941, additional fences were erected in order to cordon off the construction sites within the compounds of Security Zone I and II. RSD guards were present guarding the entrances to the construction sites and a pass was required by every workman. Though Hitler trusted his German workforce, he was under no illusion as to the risks posed by anyone that entered the Wolf’s Lair as a visitor. When he was seen wondering around the installation, he was always protected by his trusted bodyguards, both near him and at some distance away patrolling the local wooded terrain, scrutinizing the area.
Security was further intensified at the headquarters when dignitaries and other high-ranking personalities arrived, such as on 25 August for the visit of Benito Mussolini. An excited Hitler greeted the Duce at the headquarters station, and the entourage, consisting of open top Mercedes painted in dull olive-grey, drove the short distance back into Security Zone I. Hitler did not waste any time and showed his Italian guest around his new headquarters. Later over a cold buffet in the garden, just outside the tea house, Hitler spoke incessantly for hours of the crusade against Bolshevism. He also openly admited the failures of military intelligence and the immense size of the Red Army, but predicted that victory would certainly be secured by the spring of 1942. Hitler’s staff were also becoming impatient to leave the dreary surroundings of the Gorlitz Forest. At the end of August, Christa Schroder wrote:
Our stay at the headquarters gets longer and longer. First we thought we would be back in Berlin by the end of July, then they talked of mid-October; and now they are already saying we will not get away before the end of October, if even then. It is already quite cool here, like Autumn, and if it occurs to the Chief to spend the winter here we shall all be frozen. This protracted bunker existence can’t be doing us any good. The Chief does not look too well either, he gets little fresh air and now he is oversensitive to the sun and wind the moment he goes out in his car for a few hours. I would have loved to stay in Galicia – we were all in favour of it – but security there is not good enough…
The whole countryside there is freer. Here in the forest it all crowds in on you after a while. Besides, there you didn’t have the feeling that you were locked in; you saw the peasants working in the fields and it made you feel free, while here we keep stumbling on sentries and are forever showing our identity cards. Well, I suppose that wherever we are we’re always cut off from the world – in Berlin, at the Berghof, or on our travels. It is always the same sharply defined circle, always the circuit inside the fence.9
On 28 August at 8 pm, both Hitler and Mussolini drove out of Security Zone I to the headquarters airfield where they flew to General von Rundstedt’s command post at Uman. Much of the Führer’s headquarters staff including his intimate circle stayed behind. His secretaries complained bitterly of the monotony and without Hitler’s presence they found that many of the Generals frowned upon the women staff.
By early September, Hitler arrived back from the Ukraine infused with confidence. He began his first war conference of the month displaying determination and optimism. As predicted reports from the front confirmed that the Wehrmacht was indeed achieving a number of great successes, and there was even talk of the necessity of reaching Moscow before the onset of winter.
Hitler’s confidence was further bolstered by news that Kiev had fallen on 19 September. With Kiev captured, the Wehrmacht were now in a good position to seize the strategically important oil-producing Caucasus Mountains and the Donetz Basin with its industrialized areas. But Hitler had already been drawing up plans for the resumption of operations against Moscow. He told his Generals buoyantly that the Soviets would be taken by surprise at such an audacious plan so late in the year. Field-Marshal Fedor von Bock, commander of Army Group Centre, and a frequent visitor that summer at the headquarters, had for weeks been continually badgering Hitler incessantly on the need to attack Moscow. Now, as autumn was fast approaching, he began to change his mind. In front of Bock with maps of central Russia sprawled out across the narrow oak table, Hitler adamantly told the dumbfounded General that the last act of Barbarossa would be fought out at Moscow.
The organization for the final assault on the capital was an extraordinary feat in itself: General Guderian’s Panzer Group had to return to the Ukraine and General Hoeppner’s taks had to taken out of the Leningrad Front. Within just two weeks, Army Group Centre was ready.
During the early hours of 30 September, the Wolf’s Lair received word that the first phase of ‘Operation Typhoon’, the attack on Moscow, had begun. General Guderian’s Panzer Group was launched north-eastwards towards Orel, from where it would thrust north behind Yeremoneko’s Bryansk Front. Two days later, on 2 October, the rest of the Army Group rolled forward.
Hitler was seen nervously pacing the Führerbunker that day. He spoke little, except to ask for weather reports. He knew perfectly well that the sub-zero temperatures and snow would soon have a role to play in the East. Nevertheless, the news at the war conference was good: Field Marshal Fedor von Bock’s forces were surrounding Red Army formations and destroying them. Emboldened by this hopeful news from the front, Hitler and staff left the headquarters on 3 October for the long haul back to Berlin. Within twenty-four hours Amerika was bearing them back to their East Prussia headquarters. As soon as Hitler arrived in his bunker he immediately wanted a progress report on ‘Typhoon’. It seemed that his forces were continuing to reap the awards and were enjoying significant successes. In front of his staff that evening, his face, which was previously wan and withdrawn, was now beaming with confidence. His staff noticed that he was able to relax more and was able to converse with them all. Over dinner on 6 October he was again in a cheerful mood, and he even made light-hearted jokes, something that he had not done for some time.
The next day however, tension once more gripped the headquarters at the midday conference as Bock’s forces were in the process of completing a huge encirclement around Vyazma. Although Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler was guest of honour that day, celebrating his birthday with the Führer, Hitler was very nervous and was unable to eat. To add to his increasing trepidation and concerns over the military events transpiring in the East, Hitler was standing beneath the camouflage overhang between Kasino I and the Führerbunker when the first snow shower fell.
In spite the arrival of bad weather, Hitler was still displaying an iron nerve in front of his generals. On 9 October his secretaries found him in a friendly mood, and he even took a stroll around the perimeter fence of the compound. Over lunch that day Jodl remarked that the Führer did not seem disturbed by the events that were transpiring in front of Moscow. He himself had no doubt that the Soviets were finished.
Hitler appeared convinced his force would triumph over the Red Army. When Hitler’s Reich Minister for Munitions Dr Fritz Todt and Gauleiter Fritz Saukel dined with the Führer on 17 October, they were also confident that victory would be attained. Nonetheless their unfailing optimism could not hide the fact that bad weather was stalling the Wehrmacht. During the conferences Hitler and his staff had to listen to a catalogue of reports confirming that Bock’s Army Group Centre had been badly hit by an unusually early winter. The Russian countryside had been turned into a quagmire with the roads and fields becoming virtually impassable. It was confirmed that all the roads leading to Moscow had become boggy swamps. Although tanks and other tracked vehicles managed to push through the mire at a slow pace, trucks and wheeled vehicles were hopelessly stuck up to their axles in deep, boggy mud. Despite frantic efforts by thousands of soldiers to pull them free, the progress was painfully slow. To make matters worse, as the rain turned to snow troops begun to shiver for the first time. The advance had gone from a glorious display of military might to a slow, pitiful slog eastward. A winter on the Eastern Front now seemed inevitable.
As the situation worsened, at mealtimes Hitler once more brooded. On 30 October on the way to the map room he met Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and asked him with concern if he had any news on the condition of the front. Canaris explained in no uncertain terms that the situation was indeed bad and that the troops were struggling. The next day on 1 November, snow settled for the first time at the headquarters. All over the installation, the freezing temperatures prompted thoughts of their brave legions fighting in the East. Over the next few days, as Bock’s forces pushed forward through a blizzard, Hitler could not relax until word had reached him of their success. The first report had confirmed that the advance had gone well, but once more it faltered. Day by day, the elements of disaster fused – the German offensive was burning itself out.
On 24 November Bock telephoned Hitler requesting permission for another assault despite the appalling weather. As Hitler waited for word of Bock’s success another even greater crisis began to befall the Wehrmacht. To the outrage of Hitler, Field Marshal von Rundstedt was forced to evacuate the smouldering city of Rostov, the gateway to the Caucasus. Red with anger the Führer sent one of his adjutants immediately over to Bunker 16 to the teleprinter exchange to telegraph an urgent message to Rundstedt instructing him not to move one foot back. Later that evening, the disgruntled Field Marshal cabled back insisting that he could not hold on, and if the Führer did not withdraw his order he should find someone to replace him. The message was greeted with anger and recrimination and sealed the fate of Rundstedt. Without even consulting Field Marshal von Brauchitsch Hitler hastily cabled back and told Rundstedt that he was agreeing to his request and that he should give up his command immediately.
Over the next few days Hitler hardly ventured from his bunker. Other than attending the war conferences, he spent most of his time shut away. Inside his bunker he became increasingly perturbed by the situation on the Eastern Front. Yet the gloom caused by the fall of Rostov soon paled into insignificance by depressing news of the drive on Moscow. In freezing conditions the entire central front began to disintegrate in the snow. In many areas there was startling evidence that soldiers were reluctant to emerge from their shelters during the blizzards to fight. Hundreds of tanks were abandoned in the drifting snow, and the crews had retreated in panic. In the map room red arrows were covering every map. An OKW staff officer recalled seeing the situation maps and how the Red Army arrows dominated the overall picture. Dejection and dismay swept the German supreme command. Von Brauchitsch was so discouraged by the unfolding nightmare in front of the Red capital that many believed he would resign. Even Hitler himself was having trouble dealing with the setback. General Halder noted in his war diary: ‘He refuses outright to take any account of the figures and strengths, and insists that our superiority is proved by the number of prisoners taken.’10 Jodl himself quietly admitted that victory could not be achieved before Christmas.
On the evening of 8 December Hitler reluctantly left East Prussia with his headquarters staff for important business in the Reich capital. A week later Amerika was steaming back towards the headquarters. During the journey Hitler openly admitted that he was deeply concerned that the bulk of his force had no proper winter provisions for winter warfare, but despite this, he was determined to halt any more withdrawals. When he arrived back at the Wolf’s Lair he immediately set about dictating a halt order to Halder so that the General could pass the information over by telephone. Troops of Army Group Centre were told that they were not to give one yard to the enemy.
Hitler’s ‘Halt Order’ immediately caused consternation at the headquarters. As a direct consequence protests began emanating from commanders that saw a withdrawal as their only chance of salvation. Von Brauchitsch for one was totally opposed to Hitler’s order. On 19 December, during a two-hour argument Hitler could no longer tolerate Brauchitsch and decided to relieve the weary Field Marshal of his command. Two hours later, to the astonishment of his war staff Hitler announced that he had decided to take over command of the army himself. For the first time in many days he appeared pleased with his decision and now could personally direct his troops. In his eyes the generals were the only threat to victory in the East. During nearly every war conference their incessant requests for a strategic retreat aggravated him. He had not dared to leave his headquarters, fearing that without his competent leadership the Eastern Front would degenerate into a panic flight.
Christmas festivities at the Wolf’s Lair were sombre. On Christmas Eve, the Panzer ace General Heinz Guderian reported that he had only 40 tanks in his entire command. General Hoepner’s Group had only one strength of more than 15 tanks, but still Hitler forbade them to withdraw. Hewel wrote: ‘A dispirited Christmas. Führer’s thoughts are elsewhere. No candles lit.’11 On Christmas day, Hitler received his staff in turn, and handed them an envelope with a small amount of Reichsmarks inside. Despite greeting them with a firm handshake and a smile his staff noticed that he looked uncharacteristically detached.
On New Year’s eve, General Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge began telephoning the headquarters, requesting permission for minor withdrawals. Hitler refused outright. That evening supper was served late. Afterwards Hitler fell fast asleep, exhausted by the day’s events. As the last minutes of 1941 ticked away, his staff gathered quietly in the mess and waited for him to emerge. But since 11.30 pm Hitler had been on the telephone listening once again to Kluge appealing for the freedom to withdraw his troops. For three hours Hitler argued with his Field Marshal, explaining in no uncertain terms the need to stand fast. It was not until 2.30 am that Hitler appeared over at the tea house to greet his intimate staff. Weary-eyed, he slumped exhausted into a soft chair. In the background the phonograph was playing Bruckner’s Seventh. Christa Schroder wrote:
On New Year’s eve we were all in a cheerful enough mood at supper in the No.2 mess. After that we were ordered over to the regular tea session, where we found a very weary chief, who nodded off after a while. So we accordingly kept very quiet, which completely stifled what high spirits we had. We entered the New Year greetings with doom-laden faces … I just can’t describe it, at any rate it was so ghastly that I broke down in tears in my bunker, and when I went back over to the mess I ran into a couple of lads of the escort command, who of course saw at once I had been crying – which set me off all over again, where upon they tried to comfort me with words and alcohol, successfully. And then we all sang a sea shanty at the top of our voices – ‘At anchor off Madagascar, and we’ve got the plague abroad.’12
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1 During the next construction period of the headquarters two tall bunkers were built to be used primarily as air raid shelters, barracks for the elements of the FBB manning and patrolling the outer perimeter with its machine-gun and anti-tank gun emplacements, and barracks for the Führer-Flak-Abteilung (Führer Anti-aircraft Detachment) manning the anti-aircraft batteries throughout the installation.
2 During the War, Göring used his Wolf’s Lair facility only occasionally, spending most of his time when he was in East Prussia on board his Sonderzug Robinson, about 65 kilometres away in the Romintern Forest.