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Ed’s Note: Roger Mason wrote the arti-cle text, while Blaine Taylor found the photographs and wrote their captions.

Origin

I n the autumn of 1940 Hitler was looking eastward for his next campaign. He therefore ordered

Minister of Construction Ernst Todt to personally conduct a search for a suitable location for his new east front headquarters. Todt, along with two senior adjutants, began scouring East Prussia for suitable areas. Eventually three locations were selected there and in Poland. The top choice was a wooded area in the Gorlitz Forest near the East Prussian town of Rastenburg. The site was remote and sparsely populated, and was connected to civili-zation by a single highway and rail line.

By that time the Fuehrer had already occupied five other military headquarters in western Germany, France and Belgium. They ranged from temporary buildings with field fortifications to permanent com-pounds with underground bunkers. All of them required construction and engineering expertise. Organization Todt, the official construction and civil engineering firm of the Reich, was given those tasks.

Siegfried Schmelcher was appointed chief architect for all Fuehrerhauptquartier (Fueher Headquarters or FHQ). He in turn set up a design studio with a team of 30 architects and engineers at the Organization Todt offices in Berlin. Schmelcher’s deputy was Leo Muller. The team members were selected for their expertise in a variety of engineering and architectural disciplines including: sanitation, water systems, heating, camouflage and fortification. They maintained a large warehouse that provided all the furniture used for the various FHQ.

Every FHQ received a codename, usually selected personally by Hitler. The list included a variety of names

based on famous battles, Wagnerian opera characters or predatory fowl, while several locations referred to wolves. In the 1920s Hitler had tempo-rarily used the last name of “Wolf” as an alias. He told his associates he often envisioned himself a lone wolf prowl-ing through a dark forest. The new east front headquarters was named by Hitler the Wolfschanze or Wolf’s Lair.

Construction

Upon final site selection, work on the eastern front FHQ began immediately. The design was a rectangular complex in a wooded area with two security areas divided by a rail line. Security Zone I included accommodations and buildings for Hitler and his staff.

Within it was housing for a select number of senior officials, including Field Marshals Keitel and Goering. It didn’t include housing for other senior Nazis, such as

Alfred Jodl, Henrich Himmler, Todt, Joseph Goebbels or Joachim Von Ribbentrop. All of them stayed in temporary quarters nearby, or set up their own satellite headquarters.

Security Zone II included support buildings, storage, administrative offices and staff areas. The original buildings were wooden huts along with a handful of small bunkers. Roads and footpaths were laid out within both zones. Vehicles were kept to a minimum in Security Zone I. Only Hitler, Keitel, Goering and visiting VIP were allowed to bring their cars into that area.

During initial construction some trees were removed to allow more building space. In turn, that caused the designers to become concerned about the possibility of aerial reconnaissance due to gaps in the vegetation. There were also extensive walkways cut through the trees between the huts and bunkers. Many of those walkways were therefore covered and camouflaged,

Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair HeadquartersBy Roger Mason & Blaine Taylor

Some of the German high command at a weapons demonstration in East Prussia nearby the Wolf ’s Lair HQ. From left to right: Minister of Armaments & War Production Albert Speer, Army Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl, Armor Inspector General Heinz Guderian, High Command Chief & Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Hitler, a pair of unidentified officers, and Gen. Walter Buhle.(Photo by Walter Frentz, FHQ motion picture cameraman during the war.)

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table in the area, which complicated that aspect of construction. The only underground rooms were in the offi cer mess, where a food storage facility and wine cellar were located.

Invasion of Russia

On 22 June 1941 the Wehrmachtcrossed the border into the USSR, and within 36 hours Hitler was on the move from Berlin to Rastenburg. His headquarters staff boarded trains in Berlin and were told they were going to a secret location.

Gen. Walter Warlimont was deputy chief of operations for the military high command. He described the impressions of the staff as they arrived at Security Zone II. That area was sur-rounded by barbed wire and contained wooden huts for offi ces. He wrote the atmosphere was “foreboding,” and seemed like a “cross between a monastery and a concentration camp.”

With the invasion of Russia begun, the central focus of the war moved to the eastern front: to Hitler, everywhere else became secondary theaters of operation. The larger general staff was replaced at the FHQ by a smaller group of offi cers under the supervision of Gen. Jodl. His planning team took verbal orders directly from Hitler and turned them into written operational plans and documents. Hitler assumed more and more personal control of operations as the war progressed. With every branch of the German government increasingly having to be connected to the Wolfs Lair FHQ, the facility grew in size and complexity.

Construction Phase II: 1942-43

As the fi ghting dragged on, the need to make the temporary buildings permanent became obvious, while staffi ng requirements also continued to grow. Approximately 1,500 support staff were soon at the FHQ. More staff meant more offi ce space was needed. Buildings that had started as wooden huts were converted into permanent constructions of brick and mortar. Every branch of the government and armed forces came to have at least a liaison offi cer, often with his own staff, at the Wolf’s Lair.

Wooden annexes were added to Keitel and Hitler’s bunkers to provide more working space. Additional

comfort facilities were added for the permanent staff, including a second dining hall, a sauna and a cinema. An additional security zone was set up inside the original Zone I, which became known as Security Zone A. That included a fence immediately surrounding the Fuehrer bunker

Living at the Wolf’s Lair

Most of the staff didn’t live at the Wolf’s Lair, but in various civilian and military quarters nearby. Commuting to work was therefore an issue. Staff living at the army compound at Mauerwald could drive those 10 miles or take a small commuter train to the FHQ. Suffi cient time had to be added to daily schedules to permit passage through the layers of security.

Visitors and workers would approach the compound through one of three gates. At each gate was a member of the Fuehrer Begleit (Escort) Battalion and an offi cer of the Reichssicherheitsdienst (RSD or Reich Security Service). Every person’s papers were checked. A basic pass would allow its holder entry to Security Zone II, but another kind of pass was needed in order to gain access to Security Zone I. Once entry was granted, visitors were escorted directly to their place of business and told not to wander from it. Any staff member needing to stretch

also worked to keep the light subdued. It’s unclear if all that was to thwart aerial reconnaissance or because the Fuehrer detested bright light. It was probably a combination of both.

The original bunkers were small, above ground, and with no under-ground tunnels. At the time the Wolf’s Lair was built, it was intended only as a temporary fi eld headquarters like its predecessors on the western front. There was then no perceived need for permanent structures, because the conquest of Russia was to be com-pleted by fall. Underground structures were also limited due to the high water

while the bunkers were painted to match the surrounding forest and the entire area was covered by camoufl age netting. The only open space was a meadow directly east of the Fuehrer bunker, which was reserved for Hitler’s dog as a recreation area.

Lighting at night was minimized. Hitler’s secretary Traudel Junge recalled how walking across the FHQ at night could be disorienting. White rings were painted on trees at eye-level to provide contrast in the gloom, while the roads and some of the walkways were illuminated by blue lights. The camoufl age netting

Another interior map room scene showing Hitler (right) greeting famed Luftwaffe fi ghter ace Erick Hartmann at left (Heinrich Hoffmann Albums).

An exterior view, taken after the explosion, of the northeast side of the Conference Hall. The trio of window shutters are open (Library of Congress).

One of Hitler’s favorite wartime portraits. (US Army Combat Art Collection, Washington, DC.)

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his legs could exit the security zones and walk through the outer forest.

Hitler lived in the Fuehrer bunker. Its exterior dimensions grew as more layers of protective concrete were added. It was a single-fl oor structure with a central corridor about six feet wide, with a toilet facility only at one end. The walls of most of the bunkers and huts were lined with pine boards.

The regular inhabitants in the Fuehrer bunker were Hitler, his person-al aide and butler SS Adjutant Heinz Linge, his personal adjutant Julius Schaub, and his German Shepherd “Blondi.” There was a main entrance, protected by a porch (screened to keep out mosquitoes), and a rear emergency entrance occasionally used by Hitler for night walks with Blondi. The exterior doors and window shutters along Hitler’s conference room were steel. An orderly was posted at the main entrance to receive messages and mail and oversee access by visitors.

One of the most important rooms was occupied by the Chief Adjutant Julius Schaub. He’d been Hitler’s valet dating back to the late 1920s, and he was considered an old comrade and was fully trusted by the dictator. By the time Hitler moved to the Wolf’s Lair, however, Schaub had become an alcoholic and was considered ineffective by the rest of the staff. Even

so, Schaub maintained an important responsibility: he was the only person beside Hitler with a key to the Fuehrer’s personal safe and therefore with access to his secret papers.

Hitler’s personal room was normal-ly off limits to everyone except his doc-tors and valet. The only descriptions of that room come from a period in September 1944 when Hitler became ill with a stomach ailment. His secretaries and doctors were then allowed into the room with him. Traudl Junge described it as small and sparse with only a low camp bed and small table with a lamp.

Against the opposite wall from the bed was a large wooden crate for Blondi. There was also a cupboard on the wall, and a place for Hitler to hang his clothes and personal items. Next to the bed was a button wired to Heinz Linge’s room. That allowed Hitler to summon that aide at any time.

There was a large rectangular conference room and offi ce accessed by double doors in the attached annex. That was a wooden hut attached to the actual bunker structure the concrete construction of which didn’t allow for easy expansion. Outside the double doors was a small reception area for visitors. Along one wall was a long conference table with special lighting. That table was always covered with the latest situation maps. Along

the other wall was a round table and easy chairs by a fi replace.

Hitler also had a desk where he kept a handful of papers and a large magnifying glass for reading maps. His adjutants always kept colored pencils available, because he continuously made notations on the daily situation maps.

Living accommodations for the staff were relatively crude. The original housing for offi cers and staff were partially buried bunkers that Warlimont described as similar to the long sleeping cars on passenger trains. He found they fostered a feeling of claustrophobia.

The original Rastenburg Inn was nearby in Security Zone II. Before the war it had served travelers arriving at the train station, and it had been left in place along with the proprietor and his wife in residence within it. It became the new quarters for many staff offi cers, and its dining room served as the offi cer mess in Security Zone II.

A ventilating system was used to provide fresh air in the housing bunkers, but it was notoriously noisy. The bunkers included some guest rooms, and gradually others were constructed with additional living quarters. Most people didn’t use

them because of their claustrophobic atmosphere, the noisy ventilation, and the fact Hitler preferred the temperature be kept extremely cool.

The same ventilation and heating system was used in all bunker living quarters. Many reported they were often humid and always smelled of wet concrete and mildew. Staffers developed their own solutions to the uncomfortable situation. For example, many secretaries brought cots to the huts where they worked. Those build-ings were of wooden construction, but were equipped with windows. While cold in the winter, they remained preferable to the bunkers for many.

Three special trains (Sonderzug) were kept on the north siding of the compound: an army staff train, one for the armed forces high command, and Hitler’s personal train. At least one locomotive was kept under steam at all times. Many preferred the trains’ sleep-ing cars over the rooms in the bunkers.

Summer brought further problems. The area surrounding the FHQ was only sparsely inhabited and wasn’t even used for farming. It was also marshy and covered with small lakes and ponds. In the summertime the Wolf’s Lair was hot, humid and abuzz with mosquitoes and gnats.

Early in the war, meals were taken in the offi cer mess. Hitler would dine there with his staff and all the offi cers available. That was often diffi cult due to the increasingly insomniac dictator’s schedule. As he became less and less able to sleep during

normal hours, meals were served later and later. Thirty-eight of Hitler’s closest personal staff came to be on the regular list for meals at “Mess #1.” An additional 43 secondary staff dined in “Mess #2,” which also served as a reception center for persons summoned to Security Zone I.

The regulars soon tired of eating lunch at 2:30 p.m., listening to the Fuehrer’s long monologues and then staying up all night, so they often sought mealtime replacements for themselves. They would talk younger

offi cers visiting the FHQ to fi ll in for them at the table, claiming it would be a “career broadening” experience.

Food in the mess included Hitler’s vegetarian diet as well as simple meat and potato dishes. Later in the war, as Hitler began quarreling with his staff, he more and more began eating in his bunker with only a handful of secretaries and closest aides.

Special accommodations included a teahouse and a cinema. The teahouse was used for some meals early in the war. Hitler relaxed on occasion within

Hitler’s bomb blast injuries were immediately treated by his personal physician since 19360 Dr. Theodor Morell (Heinrich Hoffmann Albums).

Gen. Adolf Heusinger survived the bomb blast and World War II to become a general in the West German Bundeswehr in 1955, and he appears here in that uniform. Heuisinger was reporting to Hitler when the bomb exploded, and he was one of the few Hitler-era offi cers to be employed by the later republic.

Head of the German Army Personnel Department Gen. Rudolf Schmundt was severely wounded in the bomb blast, and he died in the hospital on 1 October 1944. (Phooto by Walter Frentz.)

The monument to the German anti-Hitler resistance movement (above, center), taken in 1998 at the site of the 1944 assassination attempt (photo by John H. Bloecher).

Regular German Army troops – not SS – at one of the compound’s checkpoints. Note the barrier bar in the down position (Heinrich Hoffmann Albums).