Führerbunker
The Führerbunker (or "Fuehrerbunker") is a common name for a certain complex of subterranean rooms in Berlin, Germany where Adolf Hitler committed suicide during World War II. The bunker was the last of Hitler's Führerhauptquartiere or Fuehrer Headquarters (another was the famous Wolfsschanze).
The complex was in the north-east grounds of the Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellory). 10 m below ground and protected by approximately 4 m of concrete, the 20 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 section and by February 1945 had been appointed with high quality furniture taken (or salvaged) from the chancellory building along with several framed oil paintings.
Hitler moved into the Führerbunker on January 16, 1945. He was joined by his senior staff, Martin Bormann, Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels with all his family. Two or three dozen support, medical and administrative staff were also sheltered there. These included Hitler's secretaries (with his favourite, Traudl Junge among them) a nurse named Erna Flegel and telephonist Rochus Misch.
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. Many witnesses later spoke of the constant droning sound of the underground complex's ventilation system.
Many of the bunker staff left between April 22-23, before Berlin was wholly encircled by Russian forces. Hitler had chosen to stay until the end and committed suicide in the bunker by gunshot and cyanide on April 30. The Goebbels murdered all of their children and committed suicide the next day. Most of the bunker's remaining occupants left within hours thereafter, trying with varying success to break through the lines of the encircling Red Army, which by this time was only a block or two away in any direction. A very few people remained in the bunker and were captured by Russian troops on May 2nd.
Soviet intelligence operatives investigating the complex found more than a dozen bodies of suicides along with the cinders of many burned papers and documents.
The Reichskanzlei was leveled by the Soviets in 1945 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. 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 Reichskanzlei was situated at the corner of Wilhelmstraße and Voßstraße. Other parts of the Reichskanzlei 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 consistantly 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 mini mall while the emergency exit point for the bunker (which had been in the Reichskanzlei gardens) was occupied by a car park.
- In 2005 the last living occupant of the Führerbunker was said to be Rochus Misch, a military telephone operator who was attached to Hitler's staff.
- The controversial 2004 German film Der Untergang 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 survivor's memoirs, and other verified sources.
Bibliography
- The Last Days of Hitler, by Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper. University Of Chicago Press; paperback edition 1992 (orig. pub. 1947). ISBN 0226812243
- The Bunker by James O'Donnell. Da Capo Press, reprint 2001, (orig. pub. 1978). ISBN 0306809583
- Inside Hitler's Bunker : The Last Days of the Third Reich by Joachim Fest, ISBN 0374135770
Sources
- Beevor, Antony, Berlin - The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2004
- Ryan, Cornelius, The Last Battle, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1966
- After the Battle, No.61 Special Edition, Battle of Britain International Ltd, 1988, London