The Wolf’s Lair: Hitler’s HQ on the Eastern Front

Every villain worthy of this name needs its seat of power, its base of operations, a fittingly formidable and impregnable location in which dastardly schemes are hatched. Fictional baddies have their Death Stars, their Mount Dooms, their Lexcorps, their Latverias—but also real-life supervillains laid out plans for super secure bases, where they could plan the largest land invasions in history and oversee the extermination of entire populations, while dodging assassination attempts—or enjoying tea and pastries with their secretaries.

In this article, we travel to the most iconic military headquarters of the Third Reich, a sprawling maze of concrete bunkers, nested deep into a swampy woodland. Welcome to the Wolf’s Lair, Adolf Hitler’s HQ on the Eastern Front.

Location, Location, Location

The Wolf’s Lair, or in German Wolfsschanze [Volf-shants-ay], was the largest of many headquarters used by Adolf Hitler and his military leadership throughout WWII. Each base fulfilled a specific function. In this case: directing Operation Barbarossa from as close as possible to the Eastern Front.

The invasion of Stalin’s Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941, but military planners had been hard at work since the previous summer. Nazi Germany and Moscow were formally allies, according to the Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact, but Adolf Hitler was never one to allow a piece of paper to get in the way of his goals. As part of the preparations, in the summer of 1940, he instructed his Minister for Armaments and Munitions, engineer Fritz Todt, with a delicate mission: building a secure forward base from which the dictator and his generals could plan their operations.

Todt set off for East Prussia, in an area some 80 km from the Soviet border. As a reminder, back then the Soviet Union stretched well into modern-day Poland, following the latter country’s invasion by the two totalitarian powers. Todt and his adjutant, Captain Engel, identified a promising site deep inside the forest of Görlitz, 8 km east of Rastenburg, today the Polish town of Kętrzyn.

Todt’s and Engel’s main concern was security: the location had to be well-protected from both land and air attacks, and the Görlitz forest fitted the bill. It was shielded to the east by the Masurian Lakes system, a 70 km-long natural barrier against armoured divisions. If that wasn’t enough, the area was already heavily garrisoned by several barracks and military installations, including four fortresses, anti-tank trenches and lines of barbed wire fences.

Another consideration was that the area was sparsely populated and traversed by only a small network of roads. This would make it very easy to control movements in and out of the future base, as well as to maintain secrecy around its construction.

Hitler liked the idea, and on November 15, 1940, ordered the construction of the base later known as The Wolf’s Lair.

Three Rings to Ward Them All Off

Fritz Todt and his state-owned firm, Organisation Todt, began work in earnest. To maintain secrecy, the building plans were conducted under the pretence of laying out a factory, the “Askania Chemical Works.”

This cover allowed Organisation Todt to order building material from unsuspecting contractors, such as concrete structures and ventilation systems ordered from all over Germany. Next, Todt recruited his workforce, estimated between two and five thousand workers.

Organisation Todt was infamous for exploiting forced labour throughout the war. But according to the curators of the Wolf’s Lair archaeological and touristic site, no sources confirm that slave labour was employed at the site. It appears instead that the builders were a professional, paid workforce. Each one of them was thoroughly vetted by the RSD, the Reich Security Service, itself part of the SS. And to maintain secrecy, workers’ brigades were frequently rotated in and out of the Görlitz forest.

These builders started their work by clearing the forest of all buildings and inhabitants within a “forbidden zone,” 10 km in radius. The zone was then surrounded by barbed wire fences, camouflaged watch towers, trenches, wooden barracks and a minefield 150 metres wide.

Then, the workforce laid out dozens of buildings, sturdy, squat structures built in wood, concrete and brick, with windows shielded by steel shutters. The ten main bunkers were entirely in concrete, with walls and roofs a metre thick, designed to resist the impact of half-ton bombs. Their doors were thick with steel, lined with rubber seals to prevent poisonous gases from seeping in.

Work at the site never really stopped, even after its inauguration, with added layers of protection added up until 1944. By the end of the war, all buildings at the Wolf’s Lair were protected by 4 metre-thick shells in layers of concrete, steel and sand or basalt to absorb the shock from explosions. These reinforced structures were described in awe by Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries:

“Instead of the low-built little bunkers, heavy, colossal structures of concrete and iron rose above the trees, there was nothing to be seen from above. Grass had been planted on the flat rooftops, trees grew from the concrete, some of them real and some artificial, and from the plane you would have thought the forest stretched on unbroken.”

The general layout of the headquarters included some 80 buildings, covering an area of 6.5 square km, arranged along three concentric security zones. The outer circle was Security Zone III, surrounded by a fence and defended by an armoured unit of the Heer, or land army [sounds like “Hair”]. This was the Führer-Begleit-Bataillon—or FBB [Begleit sounds like “Beg-Light”]—a force of 1,277 men, distributed across trenches, watch-towers and checkpoints. These men clearly meant business, but even before facing them, an attacker would have to negotiate sparse, narrow roads protected by outward gun emplacements, to say nothing of the swampy lands surrounding the Masurian Lakes.

These swamps surely added to the defences of the HQ, but caused endless misery amongst Todt’s workers as they were infested by ferocious mosquitos. Only in June 1941, when initial work was almost completed, did Todt call for an exterminator to deal with the problem. Apparently, he failed miserably.

Years later, in 1943, a second attempt at eradication was carried out, by pouring gallons upon gallons of kerosene into the swamps. The solution worked, at least at the beginning, as it killed off all the larvae of the mosquitoes. But it also exterminated the local population of frogs. Eventually, the mosquitoes made a comeback—with a vengeance, causing the fury of the Führer. Apparently, he ranted:

“Have you seen idiots like that? They got rid of the frogs, the mosquitoes stayed! The frogs catch thousands of mosquitoes every day.”

Well, he sure knew a thing or two about extermination.

The second inner circle of the Wolf’s Lair was the aptly named Security Zone II. Here Todt had placed the bunkers of the Armed Forces Joint Staff, and the offices of the commandant of the base, Lieutenant Colonel Gustav Streve. The personnel here had access to their own dining and accommodation facilities, and were not subjected to additional levels of security. Their main job was to digest reports from all theatres of war, to be then forwarded to Hitler and his most senior officers at the site, General Alfred Jodl and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.

The innermost circle was Security Zone I. This area was secured by a steel fence, and guarded by two units both belonging to the SS: the RSD, or Security Service, and the Begleitkommando des Führers [Begleit = Beg-Light], Hitler’s personal bodyguard. Security Zone I contained eleven buildings, including the Führerbunker, and bunkers for Hitler’s closest collaborators, such as private secretary Martin Bormann, Hermann Göring, Jodl, and Keitel.

The security measures described thus far were clearly designed to fend off a land invasion or deter daring assassination attempts. But what of attacks from the air?

The high rising trees of the Görlitz forest contributed in part to shielding the squat buildings of the HQ from aerial reconnaissance. But the forest was only 2 km in width, and some patches had to be cleared of trees to make room for the buildings. Hence, such patches had to be covered with camouflage nets, stretching from one bunker to the next.

The buildings themselves had to be cleverly camouflaged, similarly to what was described by Traudl Junge. They were not placed parallel to each other, nor at right angles, a ploy which maintained the natural appearance of the woodlands if observed from above. Then, the walls of the installations were covered in a mixture of seagrass and green dye, to give them a more natural tint. Finally, the roofs were topped by a layer of 30 cm of soil, on which a gardening company from Stuttgart planted shrubs, grass and even artificial trees.

But to be on the safe side, the site was protected also by an anti-aircraft regiment, who took position on June 6, 1941.

This set of precautions worked a treat, as the HQ was never seriously targeted by the Allies’ bombers. It appears that the Soviet air force was not even aware of its existence. But the Western Allies, through their code-breaking and communications interception, knew about the location of Hitler’s largest headquarters.

The British Royal Air Force, and later the US Army Air Force, considered the option of dropping a “blockbuster” bomb on the base. But they had no certainty of when the facility would be actually occupied by the Führer and his acolytes. Plus, the mission would carry too many risks: it could be accomplished only by the heaviest bombers, at such a distance to out-range fighter escorts, thus multiplying the chances for horrible losses.

Life at The Lair

Two weeks later, on June 22, Barbarossa kicked off. And on the 24th, Hitler arrived at his new Rastenburg headquarters on his special armoured train, the “Amerika.” Upon arriving, the Führer himself chose a catchy nickname for the base. The name “Adolf” in Old High German means “noble wolf.” Hence, in his early political days, the future Führer would use the alias “Herr Wolf” [pronounced “Volf” in German]. It made narcissistic sense to dub the HQ Wolfsschanze [Volfs-Shants-Ay]. By the way, “Schanze” in German means “Entrenchment.” So, a correct translation would be “The Wolf’s Entrenchment.” But one must agree that “Wolf’s Lair” has a more sinister ring to it.

From 1941 to 1944, Hitler spent a total of 800 days at his Lair, longer than in any of his many other HQs. All witnesses agree that the tyrant conducted a very modest lifestyle, living in rather spartan conditions within the Führerbunker. The dictator’s apartment consisted of a study, a briefing room, bedroom, toilet with shower and quarters for his servants.

Hitler’s valet, Heinz Linge, was not impressed by the sparse décor:

“If a stranger to Wolfsschanze did not know better and saw Hitler’s bedroom with its military-issue field bed, he would have thought it to be the dormitory of a subaltern.”

Hitler’s bedroom later received an upgrade, and was furnished with some extra items: a crate for Hitler’s German shepherd Blondi to sleep in; a gramophone, blaring out Strauss, Beethoven and Wagner; and a single bookshelf, which held two lonely tomes on stomach disease.

Besides the apartment described, the Führerbunker hosted a maze of smaller rooms and corridors, populated by Hitler’s four secretaries, his bodyguards and adjutants. For security reasons, the windows were small and seldom opened, hence oxygen had to be fed through pipes, from canisters buried outside.

The routine inside the Führerbunker was of course dictated by the habits of the big man in charge.

Hitler’s dreamy eyes opened at 10am, when Linge showed up for wakey wakey. The dictator then had a light breakfast, mostly warm milk with rye bread, oatmeal or muesli. At 10:30am, an adjutant handed in the morning brief, consisting of personal mail and news clippings curated by Minister of Foreign Affairs Von Ribbentrop.

The morning continued with a military report, delivered by Hitler’s generals in a dedicated map room.

Next, Hitler followed the orders of his private physician, Dr Morell, and went for a relaxing stroll with Blondi. It seems Hitler greatly enjoyed this “me time” with his beloved Blondi, teaching her all sorts of tricks and acrobatics. What he did not enjoy was the company of other humans, and even bodyguards were instructed to watch him at a distance lest they be seen.

Blondi was not the only star pet at the Wolf’s Lair, as in early 1942 the HQ’s garrison adopted a cat, called Peter. The Führer had a dislike for cats, but he eventually warmed up to the feline, becoming jealous if it sat on someone else’s lap.

Blondi and Peter were later joined by an unnamed young deer, a favourite with the RSD. Trooper Rochus Misch was apparently more preoccupied with the woodland animal than with his boss:

“Besides Hitler, we also had time to look after a young roe fawn, which came to us one day. We fed it peanuts, and the crafty animal soon knew exactly where we kept these and was soon helping itself. It would also come up the steps to the hut, push open the door with its snout and lick up the peanuts from the floor. We would leave the door open intentionally, and often the fawn would come up to our beds for assistance if it failed to find what it was looking for.”

Unsurprisingly, Hitler was way more fussy than the fawn when it came to food.

His bunker was equipped with a dedicated kitchen, where meals would be cooked by an Austrian dietician, Helene von Exner. Her cooking was a favourite with the dictator—that is until the RSD found out she had a Jewish grandmother, dismissing her in May 1944.

But while Exner was in charge, she took care of preparing strictly vegetarian meals, using produce grown at Hitler’s Alpine retreat, the Berghof. The fruit and veg imported from Bavaria were of good quality, but most importantly they were grown under strict supervision, thus reducing the risk of poisoning.

Such risk was further minimised by the employment of Margot Woelk [sounds like “Velk”] and fourteen other young female tasters. Woelk recalled how she and her colleagues had to taste Hitler’s meals every day between 11am and noon. Lunch was served only at 2pm, thus allowing some time to spot the symptoms of poisoning. Margot also gave a glimpse of the type of food served at the Wolf’s Lair:

“There was asparagus in season once with a wonderful Hollandaise sauce… Then there were vegetable broths with little semolina dumplings, roasted red peppers, rice, salads, and vegetable stews once a week… It wasn’t like we were given a spoonful or a forkful. We were given plates of the stuff to eat.”

After lunch, Hitler and his commanders attended a second military briefing, which lasted until 5pm, time for tea. The Führer in fact asked for his four secretaries to join him for tea, coffee and pastries, encouraging the young women to gorge themselves with cake. Hitler and his young employees indulged in sweets and banter until 7pm, time for dinner.

After the meal, Hitler would rejoin his generals in a conference room, for a lengthy evening situation report. Typist Christa Schroeder remembered how these sessions would drag on forever, as the dictator discussed strategy with the officers, or, more often than not, subjected them to endless bouts of verbal diarrhoea:

“The sessions last a ridiculously long time and one is by then—if not actually ready to drop—at least enervated and bereft of energy.”

All the military discussions, however long and rambling, had to be transcribed verbatim on Hitler’s orders. This task was carried out by a team of at least two dozen stenographers, who had their own dedicated barracks. These stenographers worked in pairs, taking shifts so as to cover the entirety of the long working hours.

This type of clerical work was of fundamental importance, to accurately capture and convey Hitler’s orders for the conduct of the war on the Eastern Front. And accuracy was key here, as the Führer’s communication style was not exactly straightforward. As pointed out by his valet Heinz Linge:

“[When] ‘thinking aloud’ he would bring to light individual problems from all directions and make simple procedures into the most insoluble problems. He presented each position in such a way that an uninitiated listener who was not familiar with his methods could often not know what he actually wanted. He would wander off the subject, talk about irrelevancies and confuse people who were following his explanations closely.

Mostly, he left it to his listener to put the right ‘weight’ on a thing and so understand what it was he had been talking about. Even the military, who are normally used to terse and clear commands, sometimes had to endure an hour or two of explanations and they would still be uncertain what he really wanted.”

Whether those officers were certain or not, they had to convey the boss’ orders to the front. To do so, they made good use of a sophisticated communications system. It consisted of a telephone exchange, a telegraphy post, and an army signals unit, employing encrypted telex and radio communications. This unit consisted of 36 men, working 24/7 on a three-shift rota.

This signals unit must have been the most hardworking team at the Wolf’s Lair, but they also enjoyed some perks—at least according to former member Karl Otto Wendel:

“The [signals] rooms felt unpleasant and stuffy. Those who worked here for a long time suffered from cardiovascular disease. Smoking was also popular and excessive drinking of black coffee too. We received coffee, as well as excellent food, good wines and cognacs from the casino staff and some important personalities of the Wolf’s Lair, who in this way repaid us for private, in principle prohibited phone calls to their friends or families.”

Besides these radio operators on the brink of a heart attack, it appears that everybody else at the Wolf’s Lair enjoyed a manageable workload, thanks to a well-structured routine.

Well, at least for the first six months in operation.

In December 1941, Hitler dismissed Marshal Von Brauchitsch as commander in chief of the land army, and replaced him with… well, himself.

These extra duties completely threw the routine out of the window, not just for the dictator, but the entire staff at the Wolf’s Lair. The Führer did not wake up before noon, lunch could be served as late as 6pm, and the evening situation conference did not start before 9pm. As per the beloved tea and cake sessions, these started after midnight, and ended with Hitler falling asleep on a sofa, with everybody else sitting in silence lest they wake him up.

Recreation and Assassination

As the war progressed, the German armed forces experienced progressively heavy setbacks, especially on the Eastern Front. This contributed to an increasingly gloomy and desperate atmosphere at the Wolf’s Lair, but some residents always found time to enjoy a life of leisure.

Chief amongst them was Hitler’s chief secretary Martin Bormann. Known for his luxurious lifestyle in Berlin, Bormann managed to replicate it in Rastenburg. He had his own private house, located next to a more secure bunker, which he kept always stocked with the finest food and wines. Far from being greedy, Bormann made sure to share this wealth with his own secretaries, all young and attractive girls. Mrs Gerda Bormann was well aware of her husband’s affairs at the Lair, but took the philandering with philosophy:

“My husband needs it.”

Other residents at the Lair enjoyed more simple pleasures, such as the ‘kino’ or movie theatre on site. Shows took place every night, at 8:15 and 10:15pm, always preceded by propaganda newsreels. The stock of available films was exhausted, eventually, and the bored spectators had to make do with old silent movies. One of the military adjutants was in charge of reading out loud the captions, but Hitler, always the micromanager, would butt in to correct the script, making rewrites on the fly.

For the more sporty types, the nearby Lake Moysee [Moy-say] offered a much welcome vent from the stress of fighting the Soviets. The lake was equipped with a sandy beach, a bathing jetty, a diving platform, a refreshment hut and even changing rooms. Surprisingly, the young men of the Wehrmacht would be joined by local girls from Rastenburg, who made it to the supposedly secure area without any restriction.

This shows that the tight security measures at the Wolf’s Lair were formidable on paper, but could actually be breached. The HQ in fact was the backdrop to the assassination attempt which arguably came closest to eliminating the Führer: this was the plot carried out on July 20, 1944, by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

Stauffenberg and his allies had been inspired by General von Tresckow, active on the Eastern Front. Despite their nationalism, these officers were disgusted by the Nazi atrocities committed against civilians, Jews and other undesirables. Moreover, they were disillusioned with Hitler’s increasingly erratic and desperate conduct of the war.

Even before the ‘big plot’, Stauffenberg and friends made several attempts to “put the hit in Hitler” at the Wolf’s Lair. The first scheme took place on November 16, 1943, when Major Bussche [Bush-Ay] was expected to perform a sort of catwalk, displaying new winter uniforms. Bussche may have looked like the stereotypical Aryan superman, tall, blonde, blue-eyed and ridiculously good-looking. But the man despised the Nazis, and volunteered to blow himself up in Hitler’s presence.

But a British bombing raid blew up the train carrying the uniforms, and the fashion show was postponed to February 1944. By then, Bussche had lost a leg in battle. A new model slash assassin, Captain von Kleist, volunteered for the action, but the dire situation in the East prompted Hitler’s aides to cancel the event.

But luck was on Stauffenberg’s side. The Colonel had lost one eye and one arm in battle, and was thus assigned to a desk job: Chief of Staff of the Reserve Army, a role which would require him to hold briefings with the Führer. On July 15, Stauffenberg was invited to the Wolf’s Lair, a meeting which he attended with fellow conspirator General Stieff. Tucked inside his briefcase, Stauffenberg carried his weapon of choice: two kilos of plastic explosives.

The Colonel was a decorated war hero, with the battle scars to prove his dedication to the Reich. As such, he breezed through security controls at the Wolf’s Lair.

But this attempt failed completely due to a misunderstanding. Stauffenberg wished to eliminate Hitler, Himmler and Göring in one go, but the latter two officials were not at the meeting. The Colonel slipped out of the conference room and rushed to the communications barrack. There, he placed a call to Berlin, seeking instructions from his co-conspirators.

The mission was still a go, but when the Colonel returned to the briefing bunker, his briefcase was gone. Luckily it was in the safe hands of General Stieff, who had also left the room. But the conference was drawing to a close, and Stauffenberg had lost the occasion to ignite the fuse of his bomb.

Stauffenberg was summoned again on July 20. Thus he flew to Rastenburg with conspirator Werner von Haeften, carrying two explosive devices in his briefcase. The plotters’ plan was to attend a meeting with Hitler at 1pm, but the conference was brought forward to 12:30. With only 5 minutes to spare, Stauffenberg and Haeften discreetly managed to activate only one bomb and walked towards the meeting barracks. Along the way one Major Freyend offered to carry his briefcase, which Stauffenberg accepted.

This simple act of kindness saved Hitler’s life: as they entered the cabin, Freyend placed the briefcase carrying the bomb under the large conference table, against one of its thick wooden supports.

The fuse was running: only 10 minutes before the blast. Stauffenberg had to slip out of the room just moments before the explosion, leave the Wolf’s Lair complex and return to Berlin, so as to activate ‘Valkyrie’, a plan designed to neutralise the SS and take over the government.

And so he did. The colonel calmly walked out with an excuse, reunited with von Haeften, and drove out of the HQ.

At 12:42, the bomb went off. Stenographer Heinz Buchholz witnessed the explosion, remembering it as:

“A clap of thunder connected with a bright yellow flash and ever-increasing thick smoke. Glass and wood splintered through the air. The large table on which all the situation maps had been spread out and around which the participants were standing… collapsed. After a few seconds of silence… shouts and screams of pain arose.”

Four officers attending the meeting had died, but an uncanny luck had saved the Führer’s life: the thick oak support of the table had deflected the blast of the explosion. In Hitler’s own words:

“The heavy table leg diverted the explosion. The stenotypist sitting near me had both legs blown off. I had extraordinary luck! If the explosion had happened in the bunker and not in the wooden hut, nobody would have survived it. But haven’t I always anticipated that happening?”

News of Hitler’s survival spread to Berlin, despite the conspirators’ best attempts to carry out the Valkyrie plan. Major Otto Ernst Remer, commander of the Grossdeutschland Guard Battalion in Berlin, took the initiative to surround the Bendlerblock, an office building used as a base by the plotters. After an intense firefight, Stauffenberg, von Haeften, and other conspirators were marched into the courtyard of the block and executed by firing squad.

Other members of the anti-Nazi plot were hanged in the Plötzensee prison with piano wires, a macabre scene that was captured on film. According to Albert Speer, the scene was projected at the Wolf’s Lair movie theatre, to the Führer’s delight:

“Hitler loved the film and had it shown over and over again.”

Later Days

A direct consequence of the Stauffenberg Plot was a tightening of security measures. A mere hours after the bomb had gone off, units of the elite Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler division arrived at the base, sealing off Security Zone I and guarding all key buildings. The role of regular Army units in protecting the Wolf’s Lair was greatly diminished, in favour of the more loyal and fanatical SS. These troopers were now ordered to thoroughly search the briefcases of all officers in the presence of the Führer, but this did not prevent a further assassination attempt from taking place.

This was carried out by Hitler’s ear, throat and nose specialist, Dr Giesing. His services were sorely needed, as the Führer’s health had progressively declined after the Stauffenberg blast, despite the superficial wounds initially suffered. The dictator had become increasingly withdrawn and irritable, and could no longer stand the incessant noise generated by the construction work, which never really stopped at the Lair. Thus, to calm his nerves, Giesing was summoned to administer regular doses of liquid cocaine.

On October 1st, 1944, Giesing found himself alone with the dictator, while administering the treatment. Suddenly, Hitler’s eyes fluttered, a sign that he might be overdosing. On the spur of the moment, Giesing decided to douse him with more cocaine, and get rid of him for good. As he wrote in his diary:

“At that moment, I did not want such a man to exist and exercise the power of life and death in his purely subjective manner.”

But as he was pouring the second dose, Hitler’s aide Heinz Linge walked into the room. The doctor was startled and did not carry out his deed.

As Hitler’s health deteriorated, so did the general situation on the Eastern Front and at the Wolf’s Lair. The Red Army steamroller moved closer and closer to the base, shaken every day and every night by the air-raid sirens.

By October 1944 the Soviets had reached the border with Eastern Prussia, and Hitler agreed he had to move back to Berlin. Even so, 2,000 workers from Organisation Todt were still toiling away at the site, pouring more reinforced concrete and laying out more secure bunkers. As General Walter Warlimont remembered:

“The concrete on the great towers of the Wolf’s Lair had hardly dried when Hitler left… for the final time on the morning of 20 November 1944, with the Soviets closing in.”

On the 22nd, Field Marshal Keitel initiated Operation Inselsprung, a self-destruct operation to prevent the HQ from falling into Soviet hands. The order was executed by Generals Eduard Hauser and Alfred Jacob, on the 24th and 25th of January, 1945.

The generals employed eight tons of TNT. Not in total, mind you, but to destroy every single bunker. The enormous blasts sent the slabs of concrete flying 20m away, cracked the ice on Lake Moysee, and even damaged the houses of Partsch, a village some 2km away. Hauser and Jacob also took care of destroying the nearby railway facilities and burned all documents archived at the Lair.

Two days later, the Red Army arrived, finding an eerie sight. The once mighty complex was now completely empty of human presence, silent and utterly destroyed.

Today the area is entirely safe, and the Wolf’s Lair is a popular tourist attraction. There is even a hotel inside one of the barracks once housing Hitler’s bodyguards.

The former HQ is also frequently visited by amateur archaeologists, such as those belonging to Fundacja Latebra, a team based in Gdańsk. In February 2024, the team was shocked to find four human skeletons, buried under the floor of a bunker once home to none other than Marshal Hermann Göring.

Forensic analysis found that the four skeletons belonged to three adults and a baby. According to Piotrek Banaskiewicz, one of the archaeologists, the first skeleton found presented visible deformities, including:

“A displaced jaw, a curved spine and a disfigured skull that didn’t have a visible eye socket, indicating whoever it was suffered from health issues.”

None of the skeletons presented traces of clothing or personal belongings, meaning that the bodies were probably stripped before their burial. Even more intriguing, the hands and feet of all skeletons were absent. Perhaps they had simply decomposed, but it is possible that their extremities had been amputated.

The Guardian newspaper speculated whether Göring was aware of the presence of these bodies, or if they had been buried after the war. Another possibility is that the four individuals were victims of a mass killing, not necessarily carried out by the Nazis.

On May 8, Assistant Professor Daniel Tilles, department of history, University of Cracow, reported that Polish prosecutors had:

“Announced that their investigation had found the remains most likely came from four people, three of them middle-aged men and the other a child of undetermined gender.”

The prosecutors also stated that the bodies did not present injuries indicating a criminal cause of death. As such, they:

“Announced that they will not proceed with a criminal investigation into the remains… while the remains can be dated to the period around the Second World War, it has been impossible to determine the cause of death.”

Zenon Piotrowicz, head of the Srokowo Forest District in which the Wolf’s Lair is located, suggested that the mysterious four:

“Could have been victims of Soviet troops who were stationed there after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Another possibility is that they were accidental victims of landmines that remained in the area for a decade after the war.”

At the time of writing, the conundrum is likely to never be solved. But one hopes that this macabre mystery will not deter history-loving visitors from visiting such an important relic of WWII, a memento to the madness of a genocidal regime and the banality that too often accompanied its evil deeds.

Today the site is entirely safe, and in fact the Wolf’s Lair is a popular tourist attraction. There is even a hotel inside one of the barracks once housing Hitler’s bodyguards. If you have already visited the site, please share your impressions. As for us, we’ll still be around… going places.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the Wolf’s Lair?

The Wolf’s Lair, or ‘Wolfsschanze’ in German, was the largest of many headquarters used by Adolf Hitler and his military leadership throughout WWII. It was a sprawling maze of concrete bunkers nested deep into a swampy woodland in East Prussia, used to direct Operation Barbarossa from as close as possible to the Eastern Front.

Where was the Wolf’s Lair located?

The Wolf’s Lair was located in East Prussia, in an area some 80 km from the Soviet border, deep inside the forest of Görlitz, 8 km east of Rastenburg, today the Polish town of Kętrzyn.

Who built the Wolf’s Lair?

The Wolf’s Lair was built by Fritz Todt and his state-owned firm, Organisation Todt, beginning in earnest in the summer of 1940. The construction was conducted under the pretence of laying out a factory, the ‘Askania Chemical Works’.

What were the security measures at the Wolf’s Lair?

The Wolf’s Lair had three concentric security zones. The outer zone was defended by an armoured unit of the ‘Heer’, or land army. The second zone contained the bunkers of the Armed Forces Joint Staff. The innermost zone was secured by a steel fence and guarded by units of the SS, including Hitler’s personal bodyguard.

How was the Wolf’s Lair camouflaged?

The buildings at the Wolf’s Lair were camouflaged with a mixture of seagrass and green dye, and the roofs were topped by a layer of soil with planted shrubs, grass, and even artificial trees. The site was also protected by an anti-aircraft regiment.

What was the daily routine of Adolf Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair?

Hitler’s daily routine at the Wolf’s Lair included waking up at 10am, having a light breakfast, receiving a morning brief, attending military reports, taking a stroll with his dog Blondi, having lunch, attending a second military briefing, having tea with his secretaries, and then dinner followed by an evening situation report.

What was the significance of the Wolf’s Lair in WWII?

The Wolf’s Lair was significant as it served as Hitler’s main headquarters on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1944. It was from here that he directed Operation Barbarossa and other key military operations. It was also the site of the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

What happened to the Wolf’s Lair after the war?

After the war, the Wolf’s Lair was destroyed by German forces to prevent it from falling into Soviet hands. Today, it is a popular tourist attraction and a site frequently visited by amateur archaeologists.

What was the significance of the skeletons found at the Wolf’s Lair?

In February 2024, four human skeletons were found buried under the floor of a bunker once home to Marshal Hermann Göring. The skeletons belonged to three adults and a baby, and the cause of their death remains unknown. Polish prosecutors announced that they would not proceed with a criminal investigation due to the lack of evidence indicating a criminal cause of death.

What is the Wolf’s Lair like today?

Today, the Wolf’s Lair is a popular tourist attraction. There is even a hotel inside one of the barracks once housing Hitler’s bodyguards. The site is entirely safe and visited by history enthusiasts and amateur archaeologists.

Sources

• Original Places video: The Wolf’s Lair: Hitler’s HQ on the Eastern Front
• https://www.everand.com/book/617774299
• https://www.everand.com/read/658687852/The-Hitler-Assassination-Attempts-The-Plots-Places-and-People-that-Almost-Changed-History
• https://www.everand.com/read/363350568/Hitler
• https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/life-inside-the-wolfs-lair-where-hitler-hatched-his-holocaust-plan-0xf5r0nht
• https://wolfsschanze.pl/en/
• https://wolfsschanze.pl/en/location-and-construction/
• https://wolfsschanze.pl/en/protection-and-camouflage/#
• https://wolfsschanze.pl/en/local-residents-memories/
• https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/30/five-skeletons-wolfs-lair-home-hermann-goring-poland
• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/wolfs-lair-hitler-goering-latebra-skeletons
• https://www.warhistoryonline.com/news/wolfs-lair-wolfsschanze-skeletons.html/amp
• https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/05/08/poland-ends-criminal-investigation-into-human-remains-found-at-hitlers-wolfs-lair/
• Hero image source by Wolfmann / openverse, by-sa.