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Führerbunker
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The Führerbunker (German, literally meaning "shelter for the leader" or "the Führer's shelter") is a common name for a complex of subterranean rooms in Berlin, Germany, where German dictator Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide during World War II. The bunker is perhaps the most famous of Hitler's Führer Headquarters; another famous one is the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) in East Prussia.
There were actually two bunkers that were connected together: the older Vorbunker and the newer Führerbunker.
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The Führerbunker (German, literally meaning "shelter for the leader" or "the Führer's shelter") is a common name for a complex of subterranean rooms in Berlin, Germany, where German dictator Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide during World War II. The bunker is perhaps the most famous of Hitler's Führer Headquarters; another famous one is the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) in East Prussia.
There were actually two bunkers that were connected together: the older Vorbunker and the newer Führerbunker. The Führerbunker was located about 8.2 meters beneath the garden of the old Reich Chancellery building at Wilhelmstraße 77, about 120 meters north of the new Chancellery building, which had the address Voßstraße 6. The Vorbunker was located beneath the large hall behind the old Chancellery, which was connected to the new Chancellery. The Führerbunker was located somewhat lower than the Vorbunker and west (or rather west/south-west) of it. The map opposite shows the approximate locations of the two bunkers. The two bunkers were connected via sets of stairs set at right angles (not spiral as some believe).
The complex was protected by approximately four meters of concrete, and about 30 small rooms were distributed over two levels with exits into the main buildings and an emergency exit into the gardens. The complex was built in two distinct phases, one part in 1936 and the other in 1943. The 1943 development was built by the Hochtief company as part of an extensive program of subterranean construction in Berlin begun in 1940. The accommodations for Hitler were in the newer, lower section and by February 1945 had been appointed with high quality furniture taken (or salvaged) from the Chancellery along with several framed oil paintings.
Events in 1945
On 16 January 1945, Hitler moved into the Führerbunker. He was joined by his senior staff, Martin Bormann, and later, Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels with Magda and their six children who took residence in the upper Vorbunker. Two or three dozen support, medical and administrative staff were also sheltered there. These included Hitler's secretaries (including Traudl Junge), a nurse named Erna Flegel and telephonist Rochus Misch. Hitler's dog Blondi was also one of the occupants of the underground bunker. Initially, Hitler would often stroll around in the chancellery garden with Blondi until March 1945 when shelling became very common.
The bunker was supplied with large quantities of food and other necessities and by all accounts successfully protected its occupants from the relentless and lethal shelling that went on overhead in the closing days of April 1945. In the final days of the war, it is said that Hitler still enjoyed 10 to 16 cups of tea per day even though it was hard to obtain. Many witnesses later spoke of the constant droning sound of the underground complex's ventilation system.
On 16 April the Red Army started the Battle of Berlin by attacking German front line positions on the rivers Oder and Neisse. By 19 April Soviet spearheads had broken through the German lines and were starting to encircle Berlin.
On 20 April, his birthday, Hitler made his last trip to the surface to award Iron Crosses to some boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth.
On 21 April Hitler gave orders which showed that his grasp of military reality had gone. He ordered German army formations to counter attack to pinch off the two massive Soviet pincers that were encircling Berlin. The northern attack was to be commanded by SS-General Felix Steiner's Army Detachment. Steiner tried to explain to his superiors that the only offensive capability he had was two battalions of the 4th SS Police Division and they had no combat weapons. No one passed on this information to Hitler. The southern counter attack was also just as unrealistic, because far from attacking, the German Ninth Army was being pushed back into the Halbe pocket.
On April 22, at his afternoon situation conference Hitler fell into a tearful rage when he realised that his plans of the day before were not going to be realised. He declared that the war was lost, he blamed the generals and announced that he would stay on in Berlin until the end and then kill himself. In an attempt to coax Hitler out of his rage, General Alfred Jodl speculated that the German Twelfth Army, under the command of General Walther Wenck, that was facing the Americans, could move to Berlin because the Americans, already on the Elbe River, were unlikely to move further east. Hitler immediately grasped the idea and within hours Wenck was ordered to disengage from the Americans and move the Twelfth Army north-east to support Berlin. It was then realised that, if the Ninth Army moved west, it could link up with the Twelfth Army, in the evening Heinrici was given permission to make the link up.
Despite the commands issuing from the Führerbunker by April 25 the Soviets had consolidated their investment of Berlin and leading Soviet units were probing and penetrating the S-Bahn defensive ring. By the end of 25 April there was no prospect that the German defence of the city could do anything but delay the capture of the city by the Soviets as the decisive stages of the battle had already been fought and lost by the Germans outside the city.
Hitler summoned Field Marshall Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to take over command of the Luftwaffe from Göring. On 25 April while flying over Berlin in a Fieseler Storch, von Greim was seriously wounded by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Hanna Reitsch, his mistress and a crack test pilot, landed von Greim on an improvised air strip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate.
On the same day that Reitsch and von Greim landed in Berlin, 26 April, German General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling was appointed commander of the Berlin Defense Area. Hitler had ordered that Weidling be executed by firing squad only four days earlier on 22 April. This was due to a misunderstanding concerning a retreat order issued by Weidling as commander of the LVI Panzer Corps. Weidling had been appointed commander of the LVI Panzer Corps on 20 April.
On 28 April, Hitler learned of Heinrich Himmler's contacts with Count Folke Bernadotte in Luebeck. Himmler had asked Bernadotte to convey a peace proposal to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Enraged at Himmler's duplicity, Hitler ordered von Greim and Reitsch to fly to Dönitz's headquarters at Ploen. Field Marshal von Greim was ordered to arrest the "traitor" Himmler.
General Hans Krebs made his last telephone call from the Führerbunker. He called Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel Chief of OKW (German Armed Forces High Command) in Fuerstenberg. Krebs told Keitel that, if relief did not arrive within 48 hours, all would be lost. Keitel promised to exert the utmost pressure on Generals Walther Wenck, commander of Twelfth Army, and Theodor Busse commander of the Ninth Army. Meanwhile, Martin Bormann wired to German Admiral Karl Dönitz: "Reich Chancellery (Reichskanzlei) a heap of rubble." He went on to say that the foreign press was reporting fresh acts of treason and "that without exception Schörner, Wenck and the others must give evidence of their loyalty by the quickest relief of the Führer". Bormann was the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and Hitler's private secretary.
During the evening, von Greim and Reitsch flew out from Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 trainer. Field Marshal von Greim was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamerplatz (only a city block from the Führerbunker) and to make sure that Himmler was punished. Fearing that Hitler was escaping in the plane, troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army, which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten from the north, tried to shoot the Arado down. The Soviet troops failed in their efforts and the plane took off successfully.
During the night of 28 April, General Wenck reported to Keitel that his Twelfth Army had been forced back along the entire front. This was particularly true of XX Corps that had been able to establish temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. According to Wenck, no relief for Berlin by his army was now possible. This was even more so as support from the Ninth Army could no longer be expected. Keitel gave Wenck permission to break off his attempt to relieve Berlin.
At 0400 hours on 29 April, in the Führerbunker, General Wilhelm Burgdorf, Goebbels, Krebs, and Bormann witnessed and signed the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler. Hitler dictated the document to Traudl Junge, shortly after he had married Eva Braun.
Late in the evening of 29 April, Krebs contacted General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) by radio: "Request immediate report. Firstly of the whereabouts of Wenck's spearheads. Secondly of time intended to attack. Thirdly of the location of the Ninth Army. Fourthly of the precise place in which the Ninth Army will break through. Fifthly of the whereabouts of General Rudolf Holste's spearhead." In the early morning of 30 April, Jodl replied to Krebs: "Firstly, Wenck's spearhead bogged down south of Schwielow Lake. Secondly, Twelfth Army therefore unable to continue attack on Berlin. Thirdly, bulk of Ninth Army surrounded. Fourthly, Holste's Corps on the defensive."
During the morning of April 30, SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, commander of the centre sector of Berlin, informed Hitler the centre would be able to hold for less than two days. Later that morning Weidling informed Hitler in person that the defenders would probably exhaust their ammunition that night and again asked Hitler permission to break out. At about 13:00 Weidling, who was back in his headquarters in the Bendlerblock, finally received Hitler's permission to attempt a breakout. During the afternoon Hitler shot himself and Braun took cyanide. In accordance with Hitler's instructions, the bodies were burned in the garden of the Reich Chancellery. In accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Joseph Goebbels, the Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, became the new "Head of Government" and Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler). At 3:15 am, Reichskanzler Goebbels and Bormann sent a radio message to Admiral Karl Dönitz informing him of Hitler's death. Per Hitler's last wishes, Dönitz was appointed as the new "President of Germany" (Reichspräsident).
By the end of the Day the Soviets had captured the Reichstag, which was of huge symbolic importance to the Soviets and one of the last German strong points defending the area around the Reich Chancellery and the Führerbunker.
At about 04:00 on 1 May, Krebs talked to General Chuikov commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army. Krebs returned empty handed after refusing to agree to an unconditional surrender. Only Reichskanzler Goebbels now had the authority to agree to an unconditional surrender. In the late afternoon, Goebbels had his children poisoned. At about 20:00, Goebbels and his wife, Magda, left the bunker; close to the entrance they bit on a cyanide ampule and either shot themselves at the same time or were given a coup de grâce by the SS guard detailed to dispose of their bodies.
Weidling had given the order for the survivors to break out to the northwest starting at around 21:00 hours on 1 May. The breakout started later than planned at around 23:00 hours. The first group from the Reich Chancellery led by Mohnke avoided the Weidendammer bridge over which the mass breakout took place and crossed by a footbridge, but Mohnke's group became split (Mohnke failed to escape and was captured the next day and like others who were captured and had been in the Führerbunker was interrogated by SMERSH). A Tiger tank that spearheaded the first attempt to storm the Weidendammer bridge was destroyed. There followed two more attempts and on the third attempt, made around 1:00 (2 May), Martin Bormann in another group from the Reich Chancellery managed to cross the Spree. He was reported to have died a short distance from the bridge, his body was seen and identified by Arthur Axmann who followed the same route.
At 01:00 hours the Soviets picked up radio message from the German LVI Corps requesting a cease-fire and stating that emissaries would come under a white flag to Potsdamer bridge. Early in the morning of 2 May the Soviets stormed the Reich Chancellery. General Weidling surrendered with his staff at 06:00 hours.
Paradoxically the last defenders of the bunker were the French SS volunteers of the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French) who remained at the bunker until the early morning of May 2 to prevent the Russians from capturing the bunker on May Day.
General Burgdorf, who played a key role in the death of Erwin Rommel, and General Krebs chose to commit suicide rather than attempt to break out. Few people remained in the bunker, and they were subsequently captured by Soviet troops on 2 May. Soviet intelligence operatives investigating the complex found more than a dozen bodies (the persons had apparently committed suicide) along with the cinders of many burned papers and documents.
Post-war events
The ruins of both the old and new Chancellery buildings were levelled by the Soviets between 1945 and 1949 but the bunker largely survived, although some areas were partially flooded. In 1947 the Soviets tried to blow up the bunker but only the separation walls were damaged. In 1959 the East German government also tried to blast the bunker, apparently without much effect. Since it was near the Berlin Wall, the site was undeveloped and neglected until after reunification. During the construction of residential housing and other buildings on the site in 1988–89 several underground sections of the old bunker were uncovered by work crews and were for the most part destroyed.
The former Chancellery was situated at the corner of Wilhelmstraße and Voßstraße. Other parts of the Chancellery underground complex were uncovered during extensive construction work in the 1990s, but these were ignored, filled in or quickly resealed.
Since 1945 government authorities have been consistently concerned about the site of the bunker evolving into a Neo-Nazi shrine. The strategy for avoiding this has largely been to ensure the surroundings remain anonymous and unremarkable. In 2005 the location of the bunker was not marked in any way. The immediate area was occupied by a small Chinese restaurant and shopping mall while the emergency exit point for the bunker (which had been in the Chancellery gardens) was occupied by a parking lot.
On June 8, 2006 a small plaque was installed with a schematic of the bunker to mark the location. The plaque can be found at the corner of In den Ministergärten and Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße, two small streets about three minutes' walk from Potsdamer Platz. One of Hitlers body guards Rochus Misch, apparently one of the last people living who was in the bunker at the time of Hitler's suicide, was on hand for the ceremony. As of May 2007, only one other bunker occupant remained alive, Armin Lehmann, who provided researchers with historical facts. Lehmann was a 16-year-old Hitler Youth member assigned to Artur Axmann's staff as Hitler's courier. He died on 10 October 2008 in Coos Bay, Oregon at the age of 80.
On film and television
Dramatisations
- Hitler: The Last Ten Days is a 1973 feature film directed by Ennio De Concini and starring Alec Guinness in the title role.
- The Bunker was a 1981 made-for-television film directed by George Schaefer. Anthony Hopkins won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Hitler.
- The 2004 German film Der Untergang (The Downfall) is largely set in and around the Führerbunker, with director Oliver Hirschbiegel trying to accurately reconstruct the actual look and atmosphere within as best he could through eyewitness accounts, various survivors' memoirs, and other verified sources.
Documentaries
- " DVD. Christoph Neubauer Verlag, Waldkirchen 2007, ISBN 978-3-9811593-0-1 (Computer Animation of the Fuehrer Bunker).
- " DVD. Christoph Neubauer Verlag, Waldkirchen 2008, ISBN 978-3-9811593-3-2 (Computer Animation of the Reich's Chancellery).
- Adolf Hitler's Last Days, from the BBC series Secrets of World War II, recounts the story of Hitler's last days.
- The World at War (1974) is a Thames Television episode 21 Nemesis-Germany (February–May 1945). Included interviews with several people who visited the bunker, including secretary Traudl Junge, reminiscing about the very end in the bunker.
- Unsolved History: Hitler's Bunker (2002), from the Discovery Channel's series Unsolved History. Historians digitally reconstruct the entire bunker as it existed more than 50 years ago using authentic period photographs, samples of paint, state-of-the-art mapping techniques and the original schematics.
See also
Sources
- Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
- Dollinger, Hans. The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
- Ziemke, Earl F. Battle For Berlin: End Of The Third Reich, NY: Ballantine Books, London: Macdomald & Co, 1969.
Further reading
Books
- Boldt, Gerhard, Hitler: The Last Ten Days, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1973
- Fest, Joachim, Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich, Picador, 2005, ISBN 0374135770
- Guido, Pietro Fuehrerbunker-Discovered its Mysteries", ISEM, Fifth Edition, 2009 - Milan
- Junge, Traudl, Until the final hour, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003
- . The Führer Bunker - Hitler's Last Refuge. Berlin Story Verlag, Berlin 2006, .
- O'Donnell, James, The Bunker, Da Capo Press, reprint 2001, (orig. pub. 1978). ISBN 0306809583
- Petrova, Ada and Watson. The Death of Hitler The Full Story with New Evidence from Secret Russian Archives ( and a by Richard Breitman in Washington Post, April 14, 1996)
- Ryan, Cornelius, The Last Battle, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1966
- Trevor-Roper, Hugh, The Last Days of Hitler, University Of Chicago Press, paperback edition 1992 (orig. pub. 1947). ISBN 0226812243
Articles
- Ramsey, Winston G. (editor) & Posch, Tom (researcher), The Berlin Führerbunker: The Thirteenth Hole, , No.61, Special Edition, Battle of Britain International Ltd, 1988, London
- Staff. , MalGo Media Services Ltd.
- Staff. , MalGo Media Services Ltd.
Visual representations
- Allied Intelligence Map of Key Buildings in Berlin (Third Edition, 1945)
- Neubauer, Christoph., . three dimensional virtual reconstruction of the bunker.
- Bogoe, Dines. External images and maps of the Führerbunker.
External links
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