Wolfsschanze & Mauerwald
Day Ten - The Baltics - 2024
Visiting the places where the scum of humanity witnessed the beginning of their end.
Editor’s Comment: The terms “Baltics” and “Baltic” are complicated: geopolitically, the “Baltic states” refer to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the “Baltic region” refers to those states which border the Baltic Sea, and the “Baltic peoples” are those who speak Baltic languages, primarily Latvian and Lithuanian. I apply the term “Baltics” in this travelogue to apply to those states of Baltic region I traveled through, in this case Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Additionally, certain characters have been transliterated to be compatible with the fonts used on this website.
1. RSD and SS Barracks Building
Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair) served as Adolf Hitler’s Eastern Front headquarters from June 1941 to November 1944.
The following morning we made our way to two World War II sites before making our way back to Lithuania. First we visited Wolfsschanze, also known as Wolf’s Lair, which was Hitler’s headquarters during Operation Barbarossa. It was also here that the so-called 20 July Plot occurred in 1944.
Wolf’s Lair was first visited by Hitler two days after the commencement of Barbarossa, 24 June 1941, departing for the last time in November 1944 having spent over 800 days here during that period. In total, over 200 buildings were built on the site, including 80 brick and concrete structures of which 50 were bunkers.
The site of the complex was chosen due to its remote location in what was then East Prussia; in fact, the site’s location was so well selected the Soviet Union almost certainly didn’t know it existed until they discovered it in 1945. The complex was located near the town of Rastenburg (now Ketrzyn) and was sometimes referred to metonymically as such.
Here we see the site’s main guard station.
2. Situation Room
Due to the extreme heat on 20 July 1944, Hitler’s daily military briefing was moved from his bunker to this above ground briefing structure.
The first significant location you come across at Wolfsschanze is the former above ground conference room building. Here was the location of the failed assassination attempt, but we will talk more about that in a bit.
3. Typists’ Bunker
Shortly thereafter, we passed the bunker of the typing pool for the complex.
4. Bormann’s Bunker
Of all the members of Hitler’s inner circle, Martin Bormann was certainly the most insidious, using his status as Hitler’s personal secretary to restrict access and cause intentional infighting amongst Nazi Germany’s senior military and civilian leadership.
Naturally, the man who practically invented gate-keeping -Martin Bormann- would have ensured that his bunker lie along the path between Wolfsschanze’s entrance and Hitler’s quarters.
Bormann lived like a rat and died like a rat, committing suicide while trying to escape the advancing Red Army in May 1945 Berlin; he was buried unceremoniously in an unmarked shallow grave and forgotten about for decades.
5. Hitler’s Bunker #1
Naturally the largest of the bunkers at Wolfsschanze, Hitler’s bunker had steel reinforced concrete walls 2 meters / 6.5 feet thick.
This was not the first bunker Hitler had constructed at Wolfsschanze, as he occupied a smaller bunker from June 1941 until summer 1944. After Operation Barbarossa’s failure, Hitler was increasingly paranoid about Allied air raids against the site and his original bunker was replaced with the massive one you can see today.
No Allied bombing ever occurred at Wolf’s Lair; as mentioned, it is unlikely the Allies knew the complex existed until it was captured. The only practical end result of Hitler’s paranoia was that the Germans were unable to fully destroy the bunkers as they deserted Wolfsschanze in 1944, and this is why so many buildings appear mostly in tact to this day.
Two more photographs of Hitler’s Bunker follow.
6. Hitler’s Bunker #2
7. Hitler’s Bunker #3
8. Keitel Bunker
Wilhelm Keitel served as the Chief of the German Armed Forces High Command (OKW) for the duration of World War II.
If Martin Bormann refined gate-keeping into a high art, so did Keitel with sycophancy. Reviled by his military colleagues for being Hitler’s yes-man, even being referred to as “Lakeitel”, a German portmanteau of his surname and the word for lackey. Unlike Hitler, Bormann, or Hermann Göring, Keitel at least had enough courage to stand trial and face the gallows; he took 24 minutes to die by hanging.
9. Göring Bunker
In many ways, Hermann Göring was everything Hitler was not -a decorated and well-respected World War I veteran, a member of the aristocrat class, and a man of many vices- but his membership in the Nazi Party gave the movement legitimacy, especially in its early days.
Hermann Göring led a life of extreme highs and lows. Serving as a World War I fighter ace, he received Imperial Germany’s highest military decoration and led the fighter squadron once led by the Red Baron. After the war, he became an early member of the Nazi Party and was integral in the party’s organization. He was injured during the failed Beer Hall Putsch, and became addicted to morphine. Critical in establishing many of the Nazi government’s political organs, such as the Gestapo, he was also made Chief of the German Air Force in 1935. He was designated Hitler’s successor in 1939 and became the highest ranking member of the German military in 1940.
In April 1945, Göring infamously sent a telegram to Hitler in an attempt to establish the latter’s ability to lead the government from his Berlin bunker in the face of the Soviet Red Army’s advance on the city, implying that if he received no reply he would assume Hitler incapacitated and would assume control of the Reich. Bormann spun this as a coup attempt and Göring was removed from power. He preferentially surrendered to the United States a few weeks later, and faced trial at Nuremburg. Rather than face the hangman, he committed suicide by cyanide, the events surrounding which are controversial to this day.
Göring’s bunker at Wolfsschanze proved difficult to destroy, and the explosives primarily had the effect of lifting the great building’s ceiling and shifting it.
10. The 20 July Plot
Of the several plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler during World War II, the last serious attempt was the 20 July Plot of 1944 during which Oberst Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to kill Hitler by detonating a bomb in a briefcase placed beside Hitler during a staff meeting at Wolf’s Lair; the plot failed as the briefcase was moved inadvertently by a conference attendee to the opposite side of one the table’s large wooden legs, which deflected the blast.
During his time as Germany’s leader, Hitler faced several dozen assassination attempts in varying stages of implementation and execution, each time being saved by luck or happenstance. Some of these include:
In 1932, an attempted poisoning was likely non-fatal due to Hitler’s vegetarianism,
In 1933, a poisoned letter sent to Hitler from a Bavarian politician was intercepted,
In 1938, an attempted shooting was foiled by a large crowd obstructing the assassin’s view at the right moment,
In 1939, a parade diversion steered away from explosives placed by assassins along the roadside,
In 1939, a bomb intended to kill Hitler detonated after he unexpectedly left the venue early,
In 1943, bombs placed into the cargo hold of Hitler’s airplane failed to detonate in flight due to cold temperatures,
In 1943, a planned “death embrace” of Hitler using time delayed explosives was undermined when he departed the venue early,
In 1943 and 1944, two separate attempts at killing Hitler with a concealed mine during a uniform inspection were not possible when the inspections were canceled at the last minute, and,
In 1944, it was planned to assassinate Hitler using a pistol during a meeting; however, the assassin was denied entrance to the meeting unexpectedly.
None of these attempts are as well known and notorious as the so-called 20 July Plot, during which a briefcase bomb placed in close proximity to Hitler was inadvertently moved behind a large table leg prior to explosion, thus deflecting the blast.
This event, in concert with those events above the Nazis were aware of, probably had two conflicting effects on Hitler’s mind: one of invincibility and one of paranoia. As we know, nobody is invincible and ultimately Hitler’s paranoia won out, demanding his body be cremated after one last -and, finally, successful- assassination attempt so his remains would not fall to the Soviets.
The executor of the 20 July Plot was Oberst Claus von Stauffenberg, a Catholic officer of aristocratic stock who joined the German military prior to the Nazi’s rise to power, he served during the Invasion of Poland and in Tunisia, where in 1943 he was severely injured during a Royal Air Force bombing run. During his recovery, he became involved in the fomenting resistance movement amongst some senior German military officers and was placed as a staff officer working on the so-called “Replacement Army.” This position gave him routine access to Hitler, Göring, and Heinrich Himmler, whom the plotters intended to assassinate at the same time.
Failing to find an opportunity where all three were in conference at the same time, von Stauffenberg focused on killing Hitler, and attempted to do so on 20 July 1944. He retreated, as planned, to Berlin to initiate Operation Valkyrie, the takeover of the German government initiated by Hitler’s planned death. This having failed, von Stauffenberg was arrested and executed.
Our contemporary view of the 20 July Plot, the plotters, and -especially- von Stauffenberg is one of what-about-ism and borderline romanticism; even visiting Wolfsschanze, you are greeted with multiple displays and signboards (such as the one depicted above) discussing or depicting von Stauffenberg’s actions on that day in a positive light. In many ways this is acceptable: we can all agree the world would have been better off without Adolf Hitler in it.
But I think this modern perspective clouds many inconvenient elements of the entire situation, particularly the motivations of the plotters and von Stauffenberg, as well as the viability of Operation Valkyrie. The plotters, especially von Stauffenberg were not motivated by a restoration of the full participation democracy that Hitler undermined; rather, they wished to return to a form of government similar to that of Imperial Germany which placed power in the hands of aristocrats and the military elite. The replacement of Christianity with neo-pagan beliefs by especially Himmler worried the devout Catholic von Stauffenberg, but do not confuse this with idealism about freedom of religion as none of the coup plotters were, as far as I can tell, openly against the proceedings of the Holocaust. Finally, the plotters -having witnessed the successful invasion of Western Europe on D-Day- realized certainly that Germany was doomed and that a negotiated peace with the United States, United Kingdom, and France which allowed them to retain captured lands was the only way the German people could maintain political supremacy on the continent. The fanciful notions by both the plotters and people today that Hitler’s death would have led to peace is somewhat farcical, as Operation Valkyrie was not guaranteed to be successful and very likely could have triggered a civil war.
11. Information Bunker
Making your way back towards the entrance of Wolfsschanze along the site’s large clockwise loop, you can stick your head into a partially demolished bunker for a quick look (if you dare!)
Next, we made our way to the nearby Mauerwald bunker complex.
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12. Somewhere Near Radzieje #1
Along the way, we passed the truly beautiful Polish fields blooming with rapeseed.
Two more field photos follow.
13. Somewhere Near Radzieje #2
14. Somewhere Near Radzieje #3
15. Mauerwald #1
Mauerwald served as the Eastern Front headquarters of the German Land Forces Command from 1941 to 1944.
20 kilometers / 12.5 miles away from Wolf’s Lair is Mauerwald (alternatively, Mamerki) which served as the headquarters of the German Army on the Eastern Front. The facility was built in 1941 and consisted of some 200 buildings and 30 bunkers. The reason it was separated from Wolf’s Lair was two fold: first, and perhaps most obviously, so that an attack would not take out both facilities at the same time, and, second, because political forces (especially Bormann) were leery of the military being in routine close contact with Hitler.
What makes Mauerwald worth visiting is that, unlike the Wolf’s Lair, it was no destroyed by the retreating German forces in 1944 and is, thus, mostly in tact.
17. Mauerwald #2
The site is, broadly speaking, divided into three sections: a small underground bunker and tunnel section (photograph 17 shows the entrance to this part of the facility), a museum (which loosely covers aspects of the Eastern Front and has -very confusingly- a full-size model U-Boat and various Wunderwaffe on display), and the so-called Giant Bunkers across the main road.
18. Mauerwald #3
The Giant Bunkers are similar to the ones constructed at Wolfsschanze, but -unlike those- you can roam through these ones. Despite signs saying not to do so, you could theoretically climb on top of them, as well.
19. Mauerwald #4
After departing Mauerwald, we made our way back to Lithuania by shooting through the so-called Suwalki Gap. We stayed at a spa in Birstonas which I probably should have enjoyed better than I did, but I think I was just worn out from a long couple of days.
