Wolfs Lair Tour - Wolfsschanze

Block 13. Hitler's shelter.

The largest building in the complex.

Ferroconcrete walls have a thickness of 7 meters and the ceiling has 8 meters thick.

The bunker was resistant to all common during World War II bombs and missiles.

Albert Speer described the shelter:

"If something as a symbol of current time can be expressed in the form of buildings, it is this shelter: externally similar to an ancient Egyptian tomb, was actually a big concrete block, no windows, no direct air supply, the structure whose concrete walls was much more bigger than the usable space. In this tomb he lived, worked and slept. "

Wolf's Lair. Block 12 - Bunker of antiaircraft defense.

From memories of a guard:

"Our company was responsible for protecting the area of accommodation covered by enlargement. This meant the service within 48 or even 72 hours. It was as follows: 3 hours of watch and 3 hours of break, and so, in turns, after 24 hours of time off.

Soldiers, which had guard duty, were armed with a machine gun with 6 magazines and two hand grenades. About 16:00 was a change of watch, then maintenance of weapons, dinner, exit.

We stayed in the 50-man barracks, which was located next to the first security zone, near the shelter of Hitler. In the morning at 7.00, an appeal took place and after it lessons and exercises.

There was not military tattoo. In our free time, we could ride by a trolley to Kętrzyn. (...)

With the air raids actually we did not reckon. Firstly, because there was a strong anti-aircraft defense, and secondly - the area of accommodation was well camouflaged and difficult to detect by existing measures.

I think that for British and American bombers it was unreachable. It is difficult to imagine that the British and American intelligence services were not aware of the existence of the Wolf's Lair.

I remember that we were constantly warned about the possibility of initiating action by partisans of the forests in Bialystok."

By the way: I think for a completely nonsense an information contained in one of guides of the headquarters, that camouflage nets were changed and the color matched to the respective seasons. Explicitly I say that they were in the green color.

Wolf's Lair. A commemorative plaque in the site to make an attempt on Hitler's life.

An inscription on the symbolic book pages in Polish and German:

"In this place stood a barrack, where at 20 July 1944 Count Claus von Staufenberg made assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. Both he, and many others who resisted the Nazi dictatorship, paid for it with their life."

In case of successful of the assassination, Stauffenberg proposed to maintain the annexed by Germany in 1938 Austria, annexed in 1939 part of Czech Republic and part Poland, and on the other borders - German line from 1914.

Stauffenberg his offer put forward only to the Western countries.

The war against Stalin would continue.

In the case of a truce, he excluded surrender of German war criminals to Allies.

His view about Poles he expressed in a letter to his wife:

"The population is nameless mob, so many Jews and hybrids.

It's the people who feel good only under the lash.

Thousands of prisoners of the war will serve us well in agricultural work."

Volkswagen 181 Courier.

We will travel this car or something bigger ...

Military light off-road vehicle (known in the UK as a Trekker, in the US as a Thing, and in Mexico as a Safari) was a continuation of the famous war Kübelwagen, or off-road version of the popular Beetle.

After the war, it was produced mainly for the German army but also, for military purposes, used it such countries as, among others, Mexico, Morocco, Turkey, and even the US, UK and France.

Engine capacity is 1.5 liters. Power of 32 kW. Transmission: 4-gear, manual. Total weight of 910 kg. The maximum speed of 110 km / hour.