After spending the night in the wonderful town of Kętrzyn (former Rastenburg), about which the story will be later, we go to the town of Gerłoż (German: Görlitz), where Hitler's headquarters was located during World War II.
In fact, Hitler had more than a dozen rates. In the picture below, the red dots indicate the rates in which the Fuhrer personally visited.
From the Wolf's Lair (Wolfsschanze / Wolfschanze), Hitler led military operations against the USSR. Here he spent more than 800 days from June 21, 1941 to November 20, 1944. Only for three and a half months from July 16 to October 31, 1942, the headquarters from the Wolf's Lair was transferred to the Werwolf bunker near Vinnitsa (Ukraine).
Like the headquarters ground forces Wehrmacht in, the headquarters in Wolfschanz was conceived to lead the fighting on the eastern front against the USSR. The construction of both complexes, which began in the spring of 1940, was entrusted to the secret organization of Fritz Todt. For cover, the object was posed as the chemical enterprise Chemische Werke Askania. The location of the headquarters in this place was determined by the proximity to the border of the USSR, the inaccessibility and deserted territory. In just four years, more than 80 different objects were erected on an area of 250 hectares. At its core, the Wolf's Lair is a whole city with all the services and facilities necessary for life - an airfield, a railway station, power plants, a heating system, water supply and numerous economic and communication services.
The whole complex consisted of three zones, differing in the degree of protection. The most protected was the inner zone 1 (Sperrkreis I), where the headquarters complex and the bunkers of Hitler, Bormann, Goering, Dietrich (the press secretary of the NSDAP and the Imperial government) were located. Access to it was strictly limited and about 130 people had the right to be in it.
This photo, taken in June 1940 in Wolfschanz, shows the headquarters of the German command.
Bottom row from left to right: W. Brickner, O. Dietrich, W. Keitel, A. Hitler, A. Jodl, M. Bormann, N. von Below.
Middle row: K. Bodeschanz, R. Schmund, K. Wolf, T. Morel, R. Schulze.
The second zone (Sperrkreis II) housed the railway station, meeting rooms, separate facilities of the Wehrmacht command and the commandant's office. The third, outer, zone (Sperrkreis III) was a patrol zone and was limited by minefields 50-250 m wide along the outer perimeter.
The camouflage of the complex was given increased attention. Four times a year, in accordance with the season, the camouflage nets stretched over the entire complex changed. Aerial photography of Wolfschanze was carried out regularly to identify possible shortcomings in camouflage. objects A special system was developed for external lighting with special lanterns invisible from above. The outer camouflage of the bunkers was the same as in: algae and moss.
An amazing fact: during the entire existence of Wolfschanze, Allied aviation never made any serious bombardment of the complex. Although the construction of the bunker in which Hitler was supposed to be was not completed in the summer of 1944, it was vulnerable to heavy bombs.
There are facts that suggest that the exact location of the Wolf's Lair was known to the allies almost at the end of 1943. It is possible that the Soviet command also knew about the coordinates of the headquarters. At the end of July 1944, the troops of the Red Army were about 140 km east of Görlitz and a landing would be enough a large number paratroopers in order to seriously disrupt (if not completely destroy) the functioning of the rate. In 1944, there were a little more than 2,000 people at the headquarters, of which 300 were senior officers, 1,500 soldiers of the security battalion and 150 people of the SS intelligence and security service. But be that as it may, the Wolf's Lair was blown up by the Germans themselves on January 23-24, 1945. Our troops entered Wolfschanze without a fight on January 27th.
The demining of the complex was carried out by Polish sappers right up to 1956. In total, about 54,000 mines and over 200,000 munitions were cleared.
The thickness of the walls of the bunkers reached 8.5 m. The reinforced concrete of the walls is very similar to that used in the construction of the recently destroyed trestle bridge in Kaliningrad. Only in the Wolf's Lair everything is much stronger and more massive.
Remains of an anti-aircraft artillery bunker
When undermining separate fragments the walls of this bunker ended up in a fire pool
Remains of the walls of the officer's casino
Communication bunker. The telegraph was located here.
security bunker
Hitler was supposed to be in bunker No. 13 (I wonder if this number was assigned to the bunker during construction, or after, during the organization of the museum in the Wolf's Lair?)
Now in the former inner zone (Sperrkreis I) Wolfschanze there is a museum and the entrance to its territory is paid.
Entrance to the territory of Sperrkreis II is free. An old German paving stone passes through it, along which you can get to Gerloz. Along the road there are the remains of several objects, access to which, in general, is not limited by anyone and nothing, except for the standard inscriptions about the need to comply with security measures.
Close to Wolfschanze, in addition to the complex
To get into this gloomy and mystical, but at the same time extremely interesting place I dreamed for a long time. Do you remember the primitive American action films with a kind of "center of evil", a huge global center with a bunch of computers, huge monitors and a map of the world, where everything in the world is regulated from? Here, in the north-east of Poland, among the most beautiful lake region, surrounded by rivers and forests, is located the very "center of evil". Only not cinematic, but absolutely real. From 1940 to 1944, on a territory with several thousand square kilometers, the Nazis erected about 10 massive complexes, each consisting of many dozens of bunkers that go many levels underground, airfields, defense lines, minefields, see the exact coordinates of the place on Wikimapia. The largest of these complexes is the so-called "Wolf's Lair", Hitler's headquarters, which consisted of 80 (!) Bunkers scattered over an area of 20 hectares. Here Hitler was from June 26, 1941 until 1944 and led the actions on Eastern Front. Leaving the headquarters and retreating, the Germans blew up the object with tens of thousands of tons of dynamite. This place is also known for the fact that on July 20, 1944, an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler was made here -
I want to immediately warn all romantics that you will not be able to feel like stalkers and discoverers of gloomy catacombs. I'm not talking so much about the Wolf's Lair, but about this fortified area in general, even a few tens of kilometers from Hitler's headquarters. All more or less interesting objects have long been "captured" by local businessmen from tourism, who have partially ennobled the objects, in some places turned them into mediocre props (trade in souvenirs, a shooting range, restaurants, cafes, etc.) and charge money from those entering for every step.
These same figures brazenly concreted and blocked everything where it was possible to get through without paying money. Sometimes, having found an object of interest to you on the map, you will already meet a collector of money for the entrance near the objects. What are they taking money for? It's not always obvious. So that the failure does not fail, apparently. Sometimes you can bypass the tax collectors, and sometimes they are on duty right next to the object. And if avoiding the parking fee is not so difficult (park nearby), then getting into the bunker without paying is already more difficult. On average, the cost of visiting each of the sites varies from 10 to 15 zlotys (1 euro = 4 zlotys).
A small memorial plaque in honor of Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg, who made an attempt on Hitler and was subsequently shot "for treason" along with 5,000 other Wehrmacht officers (including the commander of the German African Corps, Erwin Rommel), who took part in a conspiracy against the Fuhrer -
Memorial plaque in honor of the Polish sappers who died during the clearance of about 54,000 mines laid by the Germans around the Wolf's Lair -
And we go further, to the town of Mamerki (Mauerwald), where another fortified area is located. By the way, pay attention to these roads, laid down by the Germans in the late 30s. See the exact coordinates of the object on Wikimapia -
Located about 20 km north of the Wolf's Lair, this fortified area was the headquarters of such famous German commanders as Paulus, Guderian, Rommel and the aforementioned Von Stauffenberg. Foreign guests stayed in these bunkers, for example Benito Mussolini, Karl Mannerheim (remember the Finnish Mannerheim line?) and others. In 1944, the headquarters was evacuated and partially destroyed by the retreating German troops -
And just a couple of hundred meters from the gloomy bunkers - the most beautiful lake Mamerki -
Whatever you say, but the roads built by the Germans have survived just the same in perfect condition, neither time (almost 70 years!), nor climate - nothing has power over them -
Having driven somewhere into the forest, we stumbled upon bunkers that have not yet been captured by tourism. But even here, infrastructure is being actively built in the form of restaurants, hotels and ticket offices -
And these are the locks on the Masurian Canal -
We continue to move north, using the navigator to search for a number of obscure military fortifications. Alas, it was getting dark, plus we almost ran into the border fence separating Poland and the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation. Literally a kilometer from this place, on the Russian side, is the village of Krylovo, Zheleznodorozhny district. It is noteworthy that with the Poles you can come close to the border fence, and on the Russian side they invented border zones and fined (rather robbed for bribes) for the very fact of being closer than 50 km to the border -
Some barns -
And lakes again
Wolf's lair, Wolfschanze (German Wolfsschanze) - the main headquarters of the Fuhrer and the command complex of the High Command armed forces Germany. Hitler spent over 800 days here. It was from here that he led the attack on the Soviet Union and the fighting on the Eastern Front. On July 20, 1944, an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler was made here (which was later filmed in the film "Operation Valkyrie" with Tom Cruise). Hitler's headquarters - Wolfsschanze (Russian Wolf's lair). located in the Gerlozh forest, 8 km from Kętrzyn. Construction began in the spring of 1940. On all maps and plans, the object was displayed as Chemische Werke Askania (Askania Chemical Plant). Construction was carried out by the organization Todt. Approximately 2-3 thousand workers were building. There were three main periods in construction: 1940-41, 1942-43, and the last - spring, winter and early autumn 1944 The work schedule was designed to strengthen the Fuhrerbunker and other powerful bunkers. Wolfsschanze was Hitler's largest headquarters, and practically represented real city. More than eighty bunkers and fortified structures were built in the middle of a dense forest, located on a protected area of 250 hectares and surrounded by several rings of barbed wire, minefields, observation towers, machine gun and anti-aircraft positions. The width of the minefields was 50-350 m. Almost until 1956, the demining operation lasted. Approximately 54,000 mines and approximately 200,000 ammunition were found. To protect against detection from the air, mock trees and a camouflage net were used. It was changed 4 times a year, in accordance with the environment, therefore, there was no difference between the objects and the environment. The walls of many bunkers were lined with algae and then painted green or grey colour. The entire area was photographed from the air in order to test the camouflage. The entrance to the territory was possible only through three security posts. In 1944, about 2000 people served the Wolf's Lair - 300 field marshals, generals and adjutants; 1200 soldiers of Hitler's escort battalion; 150 intelligence service and SS guards; 300 administration workers, drivers, electricians, mechanics, stenographers and secretaries, waiters, hairdressers, etc. Hitler first came here on June 24, 1941 after the attack on the Soviet Union. The evacuation of the German command from Wolfsschanze came suddenly, when the Red Army had already come too close. January 24th, 1945, just before the arrival Soviet troops(January 27, 1945) Field Marshal Keitel ordered the destruction of the Wolfsschanze so that no one else could use it. There was not a single deliberate attempt to destroy the Wolf's Lair, although its existence and exact location were known to American intelligence as early as October 1942.
Plan of the entire territory of the Wolf's lair. We are located in the central part:
Plan of the central part:
The only fully preserved object. It was used by the SS escort. Now there is a restaurant and a hotel. Here we spent the night and had breakfast before going to see everything that will be discussed further:
Former SS barracks and intelligence services:
Summer bunker of light type. Conferences and meetings were mainly held here. On July 20, 1944 Colonel Staufenberg arrived here. In a suitcase, he brought a bomb activated by chemical explosives. The bomb went off as planned, but instead of Hitler, four other people were killed:
Stauffenberg had direct access to Hitler's headquarters, thanks to his promotion to the rank of colonel and appointment as commander-in-chief of the reserve army headquarters. On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg, using tongs, broke an ampoule containing acid to set a timer on a bomb and hid it in his briefcase. He did not have time to activate the second bomb, as he was interrupted by the announcement of the beginning of the meeting with Hitler. Only one of the two prepared explosives was activated, the second remained in the assistant Heften's briefcase. Staufenberg walked 300 meters to the barracks, where meetings were always held, put his briefcase next to Hitler, on the right near the table leg and left under the pretext of a telephone conversation. Between 12:45 and 12:55 the bomb exploded. Four people were mortally wounded, others were injured. Hitler himself was slightly wounded. Staufenberg and his assistant managed to leave the Wolf's Lair in a staff car. At night, the plot was revealed. Staufenberg, as well as the deputy commander of the reserve army, General Olbricht and Colonel Merz von Kvirnheim, were shot. Hitler immediately convened a special committee, known as the Sonderkommando, to clarify the circumstances and all those involved in the assassination. As a result, about 5,000 people were arrested, many were subjected to severe torture, then shot or hanged with extreme cruelty, the rest died in concentration camps or committed suicide.
I did not write in detail about the assassination attempt, those who are interested can watch the film "Operation Valkyrie"
The memorial plaque was erected 48 years after the assassination attempt. The three sons of Stauffenberg attended the opening ceremony.
It is written here:
This was the site of the barracks where Claus Schenk Earl von Staufenberg attempted to assassinate Hitler on July 20th, 1944. He and many others who fought against Hitler's dictatorship gave their lives for this attempt:
Monument to the sappers who died during mine clearing of the territory:
Huge guest bunker. Its length is 45 meters, width is 27 meters; the roof is 6.5 m. In all this pile of concrete there were only two rooms, with an area of 85 square meters. meters, the rest - walls, roofs and corridors:
Nothing from the interior was left, the Bunker was blown up from the inside. Pay attention to the thickness of the ceiling:
Most of the bunkers had double ceilings and walls.
Anti-aircraft artillery towers were installed on each heavy-type bunker. Birdhouses for bats on trees throughout the territory:
To the right is the former guest dining room:
Stenographers' office - almost 45 meters long:
This huge bunker is used as a guard for a sauna, an underground food storage and other nearby premises:
It’s dark inside and after 5 meters everything is littered:
Leftovers from Bunker Keitel - Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces. Caring visitors do not let the multi-ton wall fall and substitute sticks:
Dining room Keitel:
Hitler's bunker is visible ahead:
Hitler's bunker is the largest facility in the area. Its outer surface area is 2480 sq. m. In 1944 it was rebuilt and fortified. There were six entrances to the bunker, all on one side:
The dining room was attached next to the main bunker:
Everything inside is destroyed by the explosion. Roof thickness - 8.5 m.
In 1944, a group of German officers made an attempt on Hitler's life here. Main performer Claus von Stauffenberg arrived at headquarters from Berlin on July 20 for a staff meeting. He had a briefcase with him, which contained explosives. He placed the briefcase next to Hitler, and then went out to answer a prearranged phone call. Meanwhile, one of the officers, who was in the way of the briefcase, moved it to another place. As a result of the explosion, several people were injured or killed, but Hitler escaped serious injury. Von Stauffenberg and about 500 other people allegedly involved in the assassination were executed.
On January 24, 1945, when the Red Army was very close, the Germans blew up the headquarters, and most of bunkers was seriously damaged or completely destroyed. Nevertheless, you can still see huge concrete slabs, some up to 8.5 m thick, and crumpled reinforcement. All this looks especially impressive in winter under a thick layer of snow, and there are not so many tourists during this period.
Large map of the complex with marks on English language located at the entrance to the territory (Hitler's bunker was apparently assigned number 13 on purpose). Booklet (there are versions in English and German) , offering a self-guided tour of the bet, can be purchased at a kiosk in the parking lot. For 60zl you can hire a Russian-speaking guide.
Wilczy Szaniec; Tel: 89 752 4429; www.wolfsschanze.pl admission for adults/reduced 12/6zt; from 08.00 until dark.
In the autumn of 1940, in a deserted forest near East Prussian Rastenburg (now Polish Kentszyn), large-scale construction suddenly began to boil. Local residents were sure that a new chemical plant was being built next to them, but in fact, a secret facility of a completely different purpose was growing among the Masurian swamps. Behind the vast minefields, trenches, machine-gun towers and several barbed wire fences at once, there is the Wolf's Lair, the main headquarters of the Fuhrer of the German nation Adolf Hitler on the Eastern Front. In 1941-1944 he spent here in total over two years of his life. It was from here, and not at all from Berlin, that the operational management of all major battles with the Soviet Union. The birth, life and death of Wolfschanze, places where the fate of the world was decided - in this review *
*The review contains photos politicians Germany and a review of the scientific and technical review of the building art of the Third Reich and the insignia of those years. All photos are provided for informational purposes only, to show how the facility was before
Photo 2. The headquarters was named Wolfsschanze (“Wolf's Lair”). Hitler liked it very much, not only because he had a passion for wolves as such. "Wolf" (translated from German as "wolf") - this was his old pseudonym since the beginning of the struggle for power in Germany, and it is no coincidence that some objects associated with his activities received "wolf" names.
In total, about 250 hectares of the Görlitz forest were allocated to the Wolfschanze. The section was crossed by the Rastenburg-Angerburg railway (modern Polish Kentszyn and Węgorzewo, respectively), passenger traffic on which was immediately prohibited. On this branch, the necessary building materials were first delivered to the site, and then letter trains with Nazi bosses and their many guests. An alternative means of communication with the "Great Land" was a field airfield, located a few kilometers from the "Lair" in a meadow near the village of Wilhelmsdorf (modern Vilamovo). 
Photo 3. In total, the complex consisted of more than 80 buildings, of which approximately 40 were residential and utility buildings, 40 light reinforced concrete shelter bunkers and 7 massive fortified structures. The complex had bomb shelters, an officer's casino, a train station, its own power plant and two runways.
The inner perimeter of the complex was divided into three security zones, fenced off from each other by wire fences and electrical
wire. To cross the border of each of the zones, it was necessary to have three different kind passes restricting access to closed sectors. 
Photo 4. Early in the morning of June 24, 1941, on the way of the Görlitz station, lost in the East Prussian wilderness, a letter train arrived wearing strange name Sonderzug Amerika ("America Special Train"). It consisted of 15 cars: two with air defense guns, two baggage cars, two sleeping cars, two guest cars, two dining cars, one car with latrines and bathrooms, one staff car, one security car, one signalmen, but the heart of "America" was Führerwagen , in which there were personal premises of the leader of the Third Reich. It was the third day of the war with the Soviet Union, and Hitler came here, to a brand new front-line headquarters, to directly supervise the Barbarossa operation. In total, he had to spend more than 800 days and nights here - more than two years of life among the dense forest and hungry clouds of mosquitoes indifferent to the authorities. 
Photo 5. The choice of this particular site, located in the Görlitz forest, 8 kilometers east of Rastenburg, was apparently made personally by Fritz Todt, the Reich Minister of Arms and Ammunition, the man who headed the Organization Todt (a giant concern that was engaged in the construction of autobahns, "Western Wall", submarine bunkers and many other strategic structures of the Third Reich). At one time, Todt rested in a small hotel near Görlitz, and he remembered this area with its dense forests, swamps and numerous lakes. On the one hand, it was quite close to the Soviet border, on the other hand, it was relatively easy to organize its defense. Finally, the third an important factor was the availability of good access roads and relatively few people, which made it possible to ensure large-scale construction and the necessary degree of secrecy.
Works on new rate began in the fall of 1940, shortly before the official signing of Directive No. 21, which finally approved the blitzkrieg plan against the USSR. According to a legend spread among the local population, the Askania Nord chemical plant was to appear near Rastenburg. The same cryptonym was also used in official contracts with private contractors. At the same time, about 2-3 thousand builders worked on the site, but their composition was constantly changing so that the workers could not understand the real nature of the object they were building. According to experts, in total, up to 20 thousand people were employed in the construction of Askania Nord.
Photo 6. To protect against detection from the air, mock trees and a camouflage net were used. It was changed 4 times a year, in accordance with the environment, therefore, there was no difference between the objects and the environment. The walls of many of the bunkers were lined with algae and then painted green or grey. The entire area was photographed from the air in order to test the camouflage. The entrance to the territory was possible only through three security posts.
In 1944, about 2000 people served the Wolf's Lair - 300 field marshals, generals and adjutants; 1200 soldiers of Hitler's escort battalion; 150 intelligence service and SS guards; 300 administration workers, drivers, electricians, mechanics, stenographers and secretaries, waiters, hairdressers, etc. Hitler first came here on June 24, 1941 after the attack on the Soviet Union.
The evacuation of the German command from Wolfsschanze came suddenly, when the Red Army had already come too close. On January 24, 1945, just before the arrival of the Soviet troops (January 27, 1945), Field Marshal Keitel ordered the destruction of the Wolfsschanze so that no one else could use it.
There was not a single deliberate attempt to destroy the Wolf's Lair, although its existence and exact location were known to American intelligence as early as October 1942.
Photo 7. Construction in the "Wolf's Lair" did not stop until the last moment- in total, more than 80 various structures appeared here. Hitler was constantly overcome by a paranoid fear for his life, the result of which was a permanent process of building ever more powerful bunkers. By June 1941, only light shelters and temporary structures were ready, only partly made of brick and concrete. The leadership of the Third Reich counted on the lightning-fast nature of the "Eastern Campaign" and did not plan to linger near Rastenburg. When the protracted nature of the war became apparent, and the Allies began to bomb German cities, the old buildings began to be gradually replaced by more and more capital ones. The apotheosis was the new Fuhrerbunker, put into operation in the summer of 1944, a few days after the famous assassination attempt on Hitler. 
Photo 8. Stauffenburg attempted to carry out an assassination attempt at one of the "situational" meetings that made up main point Hitler's life in the Wolf's Lair. With rare exceptions, each of the more than 800 days the Fuhrer spent in the Görlitz forest was similar to the previous one. He woke up quite late and after morning water procedures and breakfast usually walked with his dog Blondie. Speer describes it this way an important event Everyday life Nazi leader:
“During these walks, Hitler’s attention was drawn not to his companions, but to the Blondi sheepdog, which he was trying to train. After several exercises in fetching a stick, the dog had to balance on a log barely twenty centimeters wide and eight meters long. Hitler, of course, knew that dogs are recognized as their masters by those who feed them. Before giving a signal to the servant to open the door of the enclosure, he usually waited several minutes, and the dog, barking and whining with joy and hunger, rushed to the fence. Since I was in special favor, I was allowed to accompany Hitler several times to feed the dog, while everyone else had to be content with the view from afar.
“The sheepdog occupied the most important place in privacy Hitler, she was more important to him than the closest employees.
After walking Blondie, Hitler usually worked with his mail and the press, and at noon the first of the “situations” began - meetings at which they discussed what had happened on the fronts during the night and in the morning. Then it was time for lunch (for Hitler - vegetarian) in one of the dining rooms, after which in free time"Mr. Wolf" met with especially important guests who arrived at the headquarters, and then drank tea in a specially built house. Around six in the evening, the second “situation” took place, followed by dinner and entertainment - usually a movie and endless, sometimes late into the night, conversations with their “inner circle”.
“Evening tea parties, to which he invited to headquarters, gradually moved back to two in the morning, and ended at three or four. And he increasingly put off going to bed until early in the morning, so I once said: “If the war still lasts, then we will at least return to the normal daily routine and Hitler’s evening tea will be just our morning tea” ” Speer wrote after the war. 
Photo 9. In total, more than 2 thousand people were at the Wolfschanz on a permanent basis at the same time: in addition to the top leaders of the NSDAP and the army, there were dozens of staff officers, signalmen, hundreds of security people and service personnel from secretaries to chefs. Every day more and more new people from the fronts and from Berlin came here for reports. In the Wolf's Lair, Hitler met with the most important representatives of the Axis countries and its allies: Mussolini, Mannerheim, French collaborator prime minister Pierre Laval, Bulgarian Tsar Boris III, head of the Croatian fascists Ante Pavelić and many other less significant statesmen and military figures, each of who arrived in the Gerlitsky forest with his escort.
Thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of people knew about the existence of this headquarters, and the more striking is the fact that its location remained a mystery to the opposing side - and to Soviet Union, and for its Western allies. Despite Hitler's paranoia and his certainty that the Wolf's Lair would be bombed any day now, not a single bomb fell on it during the war. All the precautions, spent cubic meters of concrete and tons of steel, which cost Germany a fantastic 36 million Reichsmarks, turned out to be, in fact, unnecessary. As it turned out, the main danger for the Fuhrer was not at all a phantom threat from the air, but opposition to the Nazis within the Wehrmacht.
It was here, in the Wolfschanz, that the most famous attempt on Hitler's life, known as the July 20 Plot, took place. The chief of staff of the Wehrmacht reserve army, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, despite all the numerous checks and the checkpoint at the entrance to the headquarters, was able to smuggle explosive devices into its territory twice and detonate one of the bombs the second time. Only a chain of accidents saved Hitler from death.
Photo 10. Hitler practically did not appear on fresh air(regularly - only for walking with the dog), although it would seem that the surrounding forest contributed to such a vacation. Speer compared his life at the Wolfschanz to a prison:
“It was only here that I realized that Hitler's life had many similarities with the life of a prisoner. His bunker though then [ we are talking about the events of 1943] and did not acquire the size of a huge mausoleum, which was intended for him after July 1944, but still had powerful ceilings and walls of a completely prison-like appearance, steel doors and shutters blocked a few paths, his miserable walks behind barbed wire gave him no more air and nature than to a prisoner circling the prison yard. 
Photo 11 commemorative sign Now 
Photo 12. And in this, according to Speer, "stupefying little world of stakes" Hitler finally lost touch with reality, refusing to admit his own mistakes. The worse the position of Germany on the fronts became, the more aggravated the separation of Hitler's fantasies from reality.
Shortly after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 in Lower Silesia, in the Owl Mountains, construction began on a new secret object, which was called Riese (“Giant”). Hitler, who was in a protracted depression, apparently decided to change the place of his permanent deployment, moving from East Prussia, to which the front line was getting closer and closer, to a new bastion under the fortress city of Breslau (now Wroclaw). However, work on the "Giant" was too slow. On November 20, 1944, at 5:15 a.m., the Fuhrer boarded his special train again, by that time long renamed from "America" to "Brandenburg", and set off from the Görlitz forest to Berlin, never to return from there.
Photo 13. Despite the hopeless situation at the front, sluggish construction work in the deserted Wolfschanz continued for another couple of months. At the same time, on the personal order of the owner of the Lair, mining of its structures was carried out. On January 25, 1945, a series of grandiose explosions thundered near Rastenburg. Two days later, the former Führerhauptquartier was occupied by the troops of the 31st Army, Lieutenant General Pyotr Shafranov. 
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Photo 41. Stenographers' office - almost 45 meters long 
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Photo 43. . Dining room Keitel 
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Photo 48. Huge guest bunker. Its length is 45 meters, width is 27 meters; the roof is 6.5 m. In all this pile of concrete there were only two rooms, with an area of 85 square meters. meters, the rest - walls, roofs and corridors: 
Photo 49 Caring visitors do not let the multi-ton wall fall and substitute sticks
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Photo 58 post-war decade Polish sappers neutralized about 54 thousand mines left by the Nazis in the vicinity of the Wolf's Lair. Shortly thereafter, the gradual process of turning the site into a tourist attraction began. In its former form, only the barracks of the imperial security service survived, but the ruins of the bunkers, especially the main Fuhrerbunker, are probably even more impressive. Explosions of colossal force split the multi-meter walls and shifted the monstrous thickness of the roof, revealing to the public a tie of crippled Krupp reinforcement. 
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Photo 69. Nothing from the interior is left, the Bunker was blown up from the inside. Pay attention to the thickness of the ceiling 
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Photo 71. Hitler's bunker is the largest object on this territory. Its outer surface area is 2480 sq. m. In 1944 it was rebuilt and fortified. There were six entrances to the bunker, all on one side. 
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Photo 75. Everything inside is destroyed by the explosion. Roof thickness - 8.5 m 
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Photo 78 And we were waiting long road home 
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Photo 80. Anti-aircraft artillery towers were installed on each heavy-type bunker 
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Photo 82 ancient trees Fighting off the still vicious Masurian mosquitoes, for whom even a downpour is not a hindrance, you very quickly feel the atmosphere of the place where, on the staff map with a stroke of a pencil, millions were doomed to death month after month, but you had to find (but, alas, so did not find) only one person died. 
Konig Diggers wish the leader to burn in hell forever and this star will never happen again. Until then, until new reviews! 
