from:
Spiegel
TV history: Film "Das unterirdische Reich" from Michael Kloft.
Authors:
Michael Kloft,
Michael Foedrowitz. Cooperation: Lars. T. Andersen,
Frank Gensthaler; speaker: Peter Buchholz, Kay Siering,
Robert Wortmann; sound mixing: Jens Burfeind; u.a. ; Spiegel
TV 2003 (Information about staff members gives the press
office of Spiegel TV, tel. 0049-(0)40-30 10 80); delivery of
the film on DVD (ISBN no.: 3-937163-35-2) at Polarfilm (tel.
0049-(0)2542-95 13 13), or in the internet
http://www.polarfilm.de
Content: Chapters
1. Introduction
2. Underground airplane production
plant in Oberammergau (Bavaria):
pseudonym "Neustadt" ("New Town") - caretaker Heinz Rabe
3. The dimension of the tunnel
constructioning: 340 building sites, 400 pseudonyms, 800
projects
4. Underground jet fighter production plant at Neckarzimmern on Neckar River
5. The dimensions of the tunnel
constructioning: 80% of the warfare industry shall be
brought into bunkers
6. Underground fuel deposits near
Bremen: working until today
7. The dimensions of the tunnel
constructioning: "High pressure" - forced labor in Kahla:
"Lachs" ("Salmon")
8. Underground airplane production
plant: Walpersberg near Kahla,
pseudonym "Lachs" ("Salmon")
9. Dimensions of the tunnel
constructioning: 100,000s of detainees brought back to the
Reich up to the last day
10. Underground airplane production
plant: Muehldorf on Inn River: approx. 2,000 deaths
11. Dimensions of the tunnel
constructioning: last transport into CCs in April / May
1945, e.g. to Dachau
12. Underground tunnel system in the
dogger work near Hersbruck for
BMW motor production, pseudonym: "Esche 1" ("Ash Tree
1") - approx. 3,500 deaths
13. Underground rocket production after the
bombing of Peenemünde: for V2
(A4): Nordhausen: Kohnstein: 10,000s of deaths
14. Underground rocket silos (rocket
launching pads) for V2 in Watten
15. Underground rocket silos (rocket
launching pads) for V2 in Viserne: "La coupole" - British "Tallboy" bombs
16. Bunker constructioning: Underground
rocket silos for V3 at Mimoyecques
17. Falkenhagen near Berlin:
Chemical plant with the aim of sarin production
18. Underground rocket production
plant for intercontinental rocket A9: Ebensee near Salzburg, pseudonym: "Zement"
("Cement")
19. The concrete encased and then blasted
Wolfsschanze - a table is saving Hitler's life
20. Bunker constructioning in the
Eulengebirge (Owl Mountains) for a new leader's headquarter:
example: Gluszyca: "Säuferhöhen"
("heights of drunks")
21. Bunker constructioning in the Eulengebirge
(Owl Mountains) for a new leader's headquarter: example:
Wolfsberg (Wolf Mountain)
22. Owl Mountains: Suspicion that there are
more tunnel systems
23. Bunker constructioning in the Eulengebirge
(Owl Mountains) for a new leader's headquarter: example:
"Fuerstenstein Castle" ("Stone of Prince Castle")
24. The German population does not know
anything about the tunnel systems - is living in ruins
itself
25. "Axes of coordinates" and motorway tunnel
in Berlin - use of the bunker as a fabrication hall
26. Bunker town under Dortmund
27. Kaiseroda / Merkers (Thuringia): loot was
placed in the bunker systems - the secret evacuation by the
allies
28. Bunker plant of Stuttgart: Mount Killesberg
29. Bunker system at Mount Obersalzberg:
"Berghof":
almost 6km of bunker systems completed
29.1. Bunker at Mount
Obersalzberg: the Bormann family
29.2. Bunker at Mount Obersalzberg:
bunker for Eva Braun
29.3. Bunker at Mount Obersalzberg:
preparation for Hitler's last fight
29.4. Bunker at Mount Obersalzberg:
Eva
Braun's rooms
1.
Introduction
Das
unterirdische Reich (The Underground Reich), start
of the film |
Das
unterirdische Reich (The Underground Reich), start
of the film with the text "Spiegel special"
|
Speaker:
It was one of the most giant engineering projects of
human history: bomb safe production plants for the Third
Reich.
[Photo: Rocket remnants in a
flooded tunnel].
Introduction:
Tunnel system |
Introduction:
Remnant of a V2 rocket at Kohnstein in a flooded
tunnel. |
So called "wonder weapons"
should bring death and destruction
to the enemies, huge underground factories should deliver
supplies for the Wehrmacht.
Introduction: Installation of a V2 rocket |
Introduction:
Tunnel system at Oberammergau with electric car.
|
Armament minister Speer
had begun the monstrous project for the "Führer".
[Photo: armaments minister Speer with a task
force] |
Introduction: Hitler
with entourage |
The remnants of the
mammoth project can be seen only by few people
today.
[Photo: a tunnel caretaker with pocket lamp and
mining lamp in a tunnel]. |
Introduction: Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe |
100s of
millions of Reichsmarks were spent to undercut complete
mountains. Production plants for strategic armaments
should be installed in long tunnel systems for miles.
[Photos: a tunnel caretaker in a tunnel system with the
sight to a water basin].
Introduction:
water basin in a tunnel system |
Water basin in
a tunnel system with tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe
(left) |
100,000s
of slave workers had to compass the work for the Nazis.
How many lost their lives is not sure. Up to the last day
of the war there was feverish work in the tunnels [Photos:
Tunnel workers with pit and shovel moving some stones in a
tunnel].
Introduction:
a pickax on some rubble 01 |
Introduction: a pickax
on some rubble 02 |
Introduction:
forced laborer moving rubble 01 |
Introduction: forced
laborer moving rubble 02 |
But how
near were the Nazis at the triumph of the crazy project?
What would have passed when the underground armament
production would have had performed on full speed? Had
Hitler's extermination war required some millions more
death victims?
[Photos: tunnels in preparation for armament production,
at the end cartridges are coming out from a concrete-lined
hall].
Introduction:
encasing works 01 |
Introduction: encasing
works 02 |
Introduction: a lorry
moving in a tunnel 01 |
Introduction:
a lorry moving in a tunnel 02 |
Introduction:
a tunnel |
Introduction:
weapon production in a tunnel 01 |
Introduction: weapon
production in a tunnel 02, cartridges |
Introduction:
weapon production in a tunnel 03, cartridges zoom |
And now comes the title of the film:
"The Underground Reich. The Secret Worlds of the Nazis.
A Film by Michael Kloft."
(original German: "Das unterirdische Reich - Die
geheimen Welten der Nazis. Ein Film von Michael Kloft.")
Title of the
film: "The Underground Reich. The Secret Worlds of
the Nazis" (orig.: Das unterirdische Reich. Die
geheimen Welten der Nazis") |
"A film by
Michael Kloft" (orig.: "Ein Film von Michael
Kloft") |
(It
seems strange that the co-producer, tunnel system
historian Michael Foedrowitz, is not indicated here).
2. Underground airplane
production plant in Oberammergau (Bavaria):
pseudonym "Neustadt" ("New Town") - caretaker Heinz
Rabe
Speaker:
A slope near the Bavarian community of
Oberammergau.
[Photo: a slope]
Hidden from the view of curious people there a
mysterious tunnel system can be found being built by
the Nazis [respectively by the detainees]. The only
entrance is closed by a concrete plombage. Only a
statal mining expert can open it because in a rhythm
of some years he has to make a regular inspection.
[Photos: a concrete wall at the entrance is opened
with tophat drillings in a circle order so at the
end a big piece of concrete is falling down leaving
a big hole].
|
A slope near
Oberammergau |
The tunnel
entrance in Oberammergau is drilled out 01
|
The tunnel
entrance in Oberammergau is drilled out 02
|
The tunnel
entrance in Oberammergau is drilled out 03
|
Tunnel
caretaker Heinz Rabe, profile |
The drill
chuck |
A crowbar is
put into the drilled holes. |
The drilled
hole is pushed open 01 |
The drilled
hole is pushed open 02 |
The drilled
hole is pushed open 03 |
The drilled
hole is pushed open 04 |
Oberammergau:
the view by the hole looking out |
Mr. Heinz Rabe is responsible for
about 20 underground tunnel systems in South and East
Germany guarding safety of the 60 years old systems.
[Photo: Heinz Rabe entering the tunnel]
Oberammergau: tunnel
caretaker Heinz Rabe walking in the tunnel
After the end of the war the Americans had searched all,
also in Oberammergau.
[Better: They stole all and have used it for their own
armament development].
Since then the tunnels are empty. The wainscots are rotten.
At any moment stones can fall from the ceilings.
Tunnel
caretaker Heinz Rabe in the tunnel, seen from the
back |
Oberammergau:
tunnel with rotting wooden casing |
Oberammergau:
Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe seen from the back
|
Heinz
Rabe, tunnel caretaker in South and Eeast Germany:
Oberammergau: tunnel
caretaker and mining expert Heinz Rabe is telling.
"During the war the plant's owner was Messerschmitt AG. It
was a bomb safe production and development plant for
aircraft constructioning. According to the plans there were
3 or 4 entrances to the plant. We just opened one of them,
the other ones had been closed by blasts at the end of the
war. And there are two parallel tunnels of a length of about
80, 90 m which are connected by crossways serving as a bomb
save production plant."
[Photo: Former production hall in the mountain; tunnel in
bare brickwork].
Oberammergau:
tunnel caretaker Heinz-Rabe in the tunnel |
|
Oberammergau:
Tunnel caretaker Heinz-Rabe in the tunnel with
pocket lamp and mining lamp |
3. The dimension of the tunnel constructioning:
340 building sites, 400 pseudonyms, 800 projects
Speaker:
Before the end of the war the allies knew
about 340 buildding sites. During the Third Reich's
perios over 400 plants had got pseudonym names
already. The plans of the armament department
indicate of about 800.
Nazi leadership had hesitated for a long time with
hte beginning of the building of these underground
factories. |
Meeting of Nazi leadership 01
|
[Supplement:
This hesitating habit was because in 1942 and 1943
the half of the world believed yet that the NS
troops would win rapidly against the Red Army
because one did not want to quit the idea of the
weak Red Army which lost against Finland;
In: Valentin Falin: Second Front] |
Meeting of Nazi leadership 02
|
| Only in summer 1943 -
when the Allied bomber squadrons were more and
more successful against Germany Hitler's armament
minister Albert Speer gave the order to install an
underground weapon production systematically. |
Meeting of Nazi leadership 03
|
| First the representives
of industry were against this change although the
horrendous costs were payed by the Reich. The
project seemed having been conceived too poorly, and the performance
seemed to be too chaotic. |
Nazi leadership meeting, walking to the conference
|
The conference making the Hitler salute when the
Nazi leadership came in
|
"Conference" of Hitler's leadership: the speaker
comes |
The speaker of the Nazi leadership is taking a seat.
|
4. Underground jet fighter
production plant at Neckarzimmern on Neckar River
Speaker:
First the Nazis had enlarged mines which already
existed.
[Photo: a slope at Neckar River]. |
Neckarzimmern: slope at Neckar River |
| At the board of Neckar
River one of the first projects was performed,
pseudonym "Neustadt" ("New Town"). 120m deep under
the vineyard there is hidden the a huge
underground tunnel system today. |
Neckarzimmern: slope at Neckar River, zoom |
Already 150 years before
there was plaster won there. During First World
War there was an explosive production plant
installed in the tunnels. Since 1937 the tunnels
were an ammunition deposit.
[Photo: a tunnel caretaker in the tunnels]. |
Neckarzimmern:
tunnel |
It's not clear if the
latrines are from workers from Second World War
because the tunnel system belongs to the rare ones
which is in use until now.
[Photo: 2 latrines in a tunnel in bare brickwork]. |
Neckarzimmern:
tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe in the tunnel passing
latrines
|
The iron
door is leading to an underground town.
[Photos: concrete-lined, white painted tunnels with tarred
lanes].
Neckarzimmern:
tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe walking in the
tunnel seen from the back in front of a big door
|
|
Neckarzimmern:
tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe stepping through the
big door
|
Neckarzimmern:
tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe walking on a tunnel
road |
| Under the whole mountain
there is a trafficable road net of 34 km. |
Neckarzimmern:
tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe walking on the
tunnel road
|
| On 130,000 m2
a gigant weaponry should have been created, |
Neckarzimmern:
tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe is passed by a
military vehicle with an Y number
|
and
since
spring 1944 it was partly put into operation.
|
Neckarzimmern:
view to a tunnel crossing
|
Today
the
plant is comprising a surface of 170,000m2.
[Photo: parked bicycles in an illuminated tunnel].
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Neckarzimmern:
view into tunnel no. 9 with parked bicycles
|
|
Since decades units of
[German NATO army] Bundeswehr has its' base at
Neckarzimmern.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Neckarzimmern: electric transport vehicle in the
tunnel
|
Neckarzimmern: the tunnel door
leads to workrooms of German NATO army
"Bundeswehr"
|
Holger
Glatz, Oberammergau: [talking about the situation from
1939 to 1943, and since 1957]:
Neckarzimmern:
lieutenant colonel Holger Glatz is telling:
"During Second World War there were two production
plants installed here: one was for ammunition packaging
materials for an ammunition factory not far from here, and
second was the ball bearing production from a factory which
had been at Schweinfurt first. Since 1957 the tunnel system
was enlarged within the situation of the Cold War. In case
of a possible confrontation such constructions were wanted
which were e.g. also safe against atomic bombs, for deposits
of parts of high value and for repair works, also under
heavy conditions of a performed war."
Speaker [situation today
(2003)]:
720 humans are working here [today (2003)]
underground and are providing supply of weapons
and spare parts. |
Neckarzimmern:
Bundeswehr in the tunnel 01, workroom 01 |
| Defense department is
charging the maintenance for 1.6 mio. Euro per
year. |
Neckarzimmern:
Bundeswehr in the tunnel 02, workroom 02 |
| [Photos: workrooms
without windows]. |
Neckarzimmern:
Bundeswehr in the tunnel 03, workroom 03 |
Holger Glatz [about the
situation of today (2003 apr.)]:
"Today this is a deposit for theft-prone
material, above all material worth being protected
in this underground plant, for deposit and being
reinstalled. |
Neckarzimmern:
Bundeswehr in the tunnel 04, relay station |
| And the
big advantage - when I may add this - is that we
have special climate conditions here. The air
temperature is constant, humidity is constant, and
by this we have only little expense for conservation
or packages. |
Neckarzimmern:
Bundeswehr in the tunnel 05, measuring instrument |
And this
plant can be protected easily with some few
entrances and fresh air tunnels. So, also the
expense for protecting of this big plant is not much
compared to others."
[Photo: workshops without windows, stockrooms
without windows]. |
Neckarzimmern:
Bundeswehr in the tunnel 06, inscription "Zutritt
für Unbefugte verboten. Der Kommandant"
("access prohibited for not authorized. The
Commander") |
Speaker:
When we see today a deposit for the peace missions
in Kosovo and Afghanistan there should have been
armament production 60 years ago. |
Neckarzimmern:
Bundeswehr in the tunnel 07, military equipment 01 |
| The final tunnel
construction should cost at least 50 mio.
Reichsmark. Almost half of it was
done at the end of the war. |
Neckarzimmern:
Bundeswehr in the tunnel 08, military equipment 02 |
5. The dimensions of the
tunnel constructioning: 80% of warfare industry
shall be installed in these bunkers
Speaker:
Above all the ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt
were the target of the allied bomber squadrons. Despite of
heavy losses the Americans could raze the factories to the
ground. But the aim stopping any supply of Hitler's
Wehrmacht was not achieved first.
[Photos: allied bombings of Schweinfurt].
Allied air
attack against Schweinfurt 01, bombers |
Allied air
attack against Schweinfurt 02, bombers letting
fall their bombs |
Allied air
attack against Schweinfurt 03, the bombs are
falling |
Allied air
attack against Schweinfurt 04, the bombs are
exploding |
Up to 80 percent of the strategic key
industries should be brought underground. Aside the ball
bearing factories these were the production plants for
airplane motors, fuel deposits as well, and the secret
rocket program of the SS. Only about 20% was put into
operation at the end.
[Photos: damaged house front, burnt motor station, burnt
fuel deposit station, burnt tank station].
Bombed German armament industry 01: the hall is
damaged and under reconstruction
|
Bombed German armament industry 02: burnt motor
station
|
Bombed German armament industry 03: a fuel station
has burnt down
|
Bombed German armament industry 04: a tank
production plant has burnt
|
6. Underground fuel deposits
near Bremen: it's working until today
Speaker:
Some facilities were rated as "decisive for the
outcome of the war" and had an especially good camouflage
withdrawing them from the views of the allied spy planes.
So, already in the mids of the 1930s the fuel deposits of
Nazi Germany were brought underground. Near Bremen there is
such an underground fuel deposit which is working until
today, over 60 years later.
Fuel deposit
near Bremen 01: a grove at the entrance |
Fuel deposit
near Bremen 02: entrance, upper part |
Fuel deposit
near Bremen 03: entrance with lane |
Fuel deposit
near Bremen 04: corridor 01 |
Fuel deposit near
Bremen 05: corridor 02 |
Fuel deposit
near Bremen 06: station attendant |
The
state's owned facilities have to be controlled and cleaned
periodically. Only trained staff is allowed to go down
into the tanks. The huge tanks can contain 4,000 m3
of fuel and are built of 12mm thick ship steel, being
covered by a 1m thick concrete ceiling. All in all there are
80 tanks.
Fuel deposit
near Bremen 07: descent 01 |
Fuel deposit
near Bremen 08: descent 02 |
Fuel deposit
near Bremen 09: the inner of a tank, total view
|
7. The dimensions of the tunnel constructioning:
"High pressure" - forced labor in Kahla: "Lachs"
Speaker:
In all parts of the Third Reich the construction works
underground were pushed on by high pressure.
The NS propaganda film of 1944 says:
"The aim of the enemies to smash the German armament by
massive bombing has failed. Strategic production plants
were put underground in time and with Teutonic
thoroughness."
[In the propaganda film are missing
-- the scaled-down detainees with their illnesses and the
deads
-- torture by the SS guards
-- the blasting operations in the tunnels].
Forced
laborers at Kahla 01: entry of a tunnel portal
|
Forced
laborers at Kahla 02: the slaves going up a stone
stairs. |
Forced laborers at
Kahla 03: the slaves put their bags down. |
Forced
laborers at Kahla 04: a pickax on some rubble |
Forced
laborers at Kahla 05: the stone is falling |
Forced
laborers at Kahla 06: shoveling work, the stones
are removed |
Forced laborers at
Kahla 07: measuring works
|
Forced
laborers at Kahla 08: slaves moving wood |
Forced laborers at
Kahla 09: concrete mixer device
|
Forced
laborers at Kahla 10: casing works on a wooden
structure |
Speaker:
The
propaganda film is called "Weapons - hands -
hearts" [orig. German: "Waffen - Hände -
Herzen"]. This is one of the rare film documents
showing some of the underground building sites.
The film was made in Kahla in Thuringia
where an airplane production plant should
be installed. The pseudonym name was: "Lachs"
("Salmon").
|
Lorry at Kahla
moving through a tunnel |
Walpersberg
near Kahla 01, tunnel |
8. Underground airplane production
plant: Walpersberg near Kahla, pseudonym "Lachs"
("Salmon")
Above all foreign forced
laborers had to carry out the filthy job under inhuman
circumstances.
Paul Baert, former Belgian detainee (translation):
Walpersberg near Kahla 02, Paul Baert is telling
giving his testimony
<The first day we were classified. A German officer made
a speech and told us: "You will work until you will fall
down to death." In the tunnels 3 persons had to drill holes
with a drilling machine, other 3 were shoveling, and one
brought the filled wagon out.
From a structure there were drilled holes of 2 1/2 to 3 m of
depth into the ceiling and filled with dynamite. Then all
was exploding and at once after this we had to go on working
and shoveling. We could not see us because of the dust and
the gases. But there was no mercy, we had to go on.>
Speaker:
After 12 hours in the
mountain 10.000 slave workers got a scanty
meal. In the beginning of February 1945 even 14
and 16 year old pupils were drafted to help at
the building site.
[Photos: tunnel labyrinth in bare brickwork]. |
Walpersberg
near Kahla 03, tunnel |
Walpersberg
near Kahla 04, tunnel |
Herbert
Roemer, former detainee in Walpersberg near Kahla:
Walpersberg near Kahla 05, Herbert Roemer is telling
giving his testimony
"The technical concept was rationally elaborated for sure,
and with respect to the air dominance of the allies over
Germany it was substantial. The methods were of a sheer
madness, of course. It could be foreseen that the war
machine which was kept always under fire was
reaching it's brink, which whould be the end of the Third
Reich. And this was happening under inhumanities, as a
normal thinking human being with a normal feeling one cannot
understand this any more."
[Photos: tunnel labyrinth in bare brickwork]
NS propaganda film 1944:
"The German leadership announced: German sky has to be
liberated."
[Photos: Jet fighter]
Walpersberg
near Kahla 06: jet fighter ME262 production, sight
from the side |
Walpersberg
near Kahla 07: jet fighter ME262 production,
frontal view |
The film says:
"Our inventors and constructors will withstand and
counterattack the masses of enemy terror bombers, they will
unconditionally win in the defense and in the attack." -
[photo: Engine]
[Supplement:
Hitler
ordered
first not to use the jet fighter he had already in 1939
because of possible brain damage for the pilots.
Then Hitler ordered that this jet fighter should be
reconstructed into a jet bomber. This costed 1 1/2 years
development time and at the end Third Reich lost the war
instead of having the jef fighter.
In: Nicolaus von Below: Als Hitlers Adjutant [As
Hitler's Adjutant] 1937-1945, Mainz 1980, S./p.355
Well, Hitler had his brain
damage (Parkinson) becoming a second Napoleon also
without having performed a flight in the jet fighter. Hitler
was under mind control of Zionist Rothschild family since
1913 and he was manipulated to lead Germany into the ruins.
In: Hitler Was A British Agent]
Speaker:
One of the most secret new developments of the air
force was built in Kahla: the jet fighter [jet
bomber] Me-262. The first plane was ready to start in mid of
February 1945. [Photo: Airfield with jet fighters]
Walpersberg
near Kahla 11: jet fighters ME262 on an airfield
|
Walpersberg
near Kahla 12: jet fighter ME262 is rolling
|
Walpersberg
near Kahla 13: people on a wing of a jet fighter
ME262 |
Paul
Baert,
Belgian detainee at Walpersberg near Kahla (translation):
Walpersberg near Kahla 14: Paul Baert telling,
testimony
"The airplane was looking like a fish. It was constructed
very modern, very slim and as it seemed it was very fast. We
had heard rumors that 1,200 jet fighters should be
constructed per month. We just could not believe this. But
it was performed under our eyes. We were very afraid of it
because it was clear for us: When the war was going on we
would not survive."
Speaker:
In 1945 US air force is taking these air
fotos of Kahla. There can be seen
explicitly the bunkered entrances
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Walpersberg
near Kahla 15: air foto of 1945 of the bunkered
entrances. |
and a freight
elevator on the slope leading to the top of the
mountain.
[Photo: back of the hill with a freight elevator]. |
Walpersberg
near Kahla 16: the freight elevator in 1945
|
|
The project was to
install a tunnel system of 30km in this hill. At
the end of the war almost half of it was blasted
into the hill.
[Photo: tunnel caretaker marching in a tunnel]. |
Walpersberg
near Kahla 17: tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe
walking in a tunnel
|
The not
completed tunnels were leading to the real core of the
plant: there were 4 huge underground halls where the work
on 27,000 m2 should be performed.
Heinz
Rabe, tunnel caretaker in South and East Germany:
"We are here in one of the big
halls which were foreseen for the final production of the
jet airplanes, the Me-262. Here the airplane could be
composed completely and then it was torn through the big
tunnels out and was torn up the hill by the freight
elevator, and then it could start."
Walpersberg near
Kahla 18: tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe in a hall |
Walpersberg
near Kahla 19: the other end of the hall |
Walpersberg
near Kahla 20: tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe is
telling |
Speaker:
On the totally hollowed hill the Germans had even
built a runway. The serial production of the jet fighters
was only a question of time. But only few were starting yet.
[Photo: the back of the mountain with a runway]
Walpersberg
near Kahla 21: the runway on the ridge of the
mountain 01 |
Walpersberg near Kahla
22: the runway on the ridge of the mountain 02
|
Herbert
Roemer, former detainee at Walpersberg near Kahla:
Walpersberg near Kahla 23: Herbert Roemer is telling
his testimony:
"I can remember two starts of the Me-262 yet. We were busy
with open air working at a place where we could see what was
happening on the mountain. We all looked up and some were
even pointing to the horizon. And then we saw a thing which
was flying really fast. And one could really - well - to
classify this as a wonder weapon category."
[Hitler's air defense under Himmler wanted to defend Germany
with Me-262 fighters since 1942, but Hitler did not want it.
There are heavy indications that Hitler had Parkinson
respectively was under mind control of London Zionist family
of Rothschild for leading Germany back to Stone Age].
9. Dimensions of the tunnel
constructioning: 100,000s detainees brought back to
the Reich up to the last day
[The forced detainees had
been brought to Eastern Europe from 1940 to 1942. Now in
1943 all left detainees had to be brought back to the
Reich for underground tunnel constructioning].
Speaker:
The Nazi leadership had big hopes for the much
conjured "wonder weapon". But at the end the ultramodern jet
fighter could not do anything against the superiority of the
allied air forces.
[Supplement: because of lack of jet fuel].
Jet fighter
ME262 flying 01 |
Jet fighter
ME262 flying 02 |
Jet fighter
ME262 flying 03 |
Despite
of this up to the last day hundreds of thousands of
concentration camp CC detainees were brought from the
death camps in the east to the Reich to build up the new
airplane production plants.
Jet fighter
ME262 flying 04 |
Jet fighter
ME262 flying 05 |
Jet fighter
ME262 flying 06 |
[So, death did not come always in the death camp in Poland,
but in the tunnel constructioning, but some also survived
this].
10. Underground airplane
production plant: Muehldorf on Inn River: approx.
2,000 deaths
Speaker:
In February 1945 Max Mannheimer came from
Auschwitz to Muehldorf on Inn River.
Mühldorf on
Inn River 01: former Auschwitz detainee Max
Mannheimer being seen from a distance |
Mühldorf on
Inn River 02: former Auschwitz detainee Max
Mannheimer |
Max Mannheimer, former
Auschwitz detainee at Mühldorf on Inn River:
Mühldorf on Inn River
03: former Auschwitz detainee Max Mannheimer is telling
giving his testimony:
"We
knew
that
an underground airplane production plant should be
built there. And - eh - this was known for sure. And
also the reason was known: because the above-ground
armament production plants were all bombed.
[Supplement: The allied only bombed some armament
production plants, but normally bombed the civil
population, only]. |
Mühldorf on
Inn River 04, hall |
Then the decision was
made that all should be installed underground.
Here for example there should be the plant 3
levels under earth. So, to me this was appearing
like a building site in old Egypt when the
pyramids were built: a huge mass of humans, going
forth and back, driven by kapos. Because this was
a project which should be completed very fast."
[Photo: building site with a wide stone wall] |
Mühldorf on
Inn River 05, building site |
Speaker:
On a length of 400m a 5m thick concrete shell
should be built up as a hall for a production hall.
About 2,000 detainees were dying during the works. |
Mühldorf on
Inn River 06, the hall, sight from the side |
Max Mannheimer, former Auschwitz detainee
at Mühldorf on Inn River:
"The main works consisted in earth
movements, carrying iron and cement. This was
really the worst commando, and it was
feared. |
Mühldorf
on Inn River 07, armoring irons for further
construction were already set
|
| In those times the SS
doctors were calculating like this: A detainee who
had to work hard like this had a lifespan of 60 to
80 days. And this was also the truth." |
Mühldorf on
Inn River 08, tunnel approach with rail track |
Speaker:
Max Mannheimer's weight at the end of the war was 37kg. Many
of his fellow sufferers could not see the liberation any
more.
11. Dimensions of the tunnel
constructioning: last transport into CCs in April
/ May 1945, e.g. to Dachau
Speaker:
They had been evacuated shortly before folded in box
wagons to other camps and in the direction of Dachau. The
pictures of the deads and the survivors were shocking the
whole world.
[Photos: Dachau concentration camp with people in detainee
uniform, cooking in the street, searching barrels]
CC of Dachau
at the end of the war 01: arrival of a freight
train with a guard |
CC of Dachau
at the end of the war 02: detainee lying on the
ground 01 |
CC of Dachau
at the end of the war 03: detainees almost dead in
a box wagon |
CC of Dachau
at the end of the war 04: detainee lying on the
ground 02 |
CC of Dachau
at the end of the war 05: walking detainees |
CC of Dachau
at the end of the war 06: detainees cooking a soup
in the street |
CC of Dachau
at the end of the war 07: a detainee spooning his
soup |
CC of Dachau
at the end of the war 08: a man searching a barrel |
|
12. Underground tunnel system in the dogger work
near Hersbruck for BMW motor production, pseudonym:
"Esche 1" ("Ash Tree 1") - approx. 3,500 deaths
Speaker:
In a forest north east of Nuremberg: There is a
hidden tunnel portal. Normally it's closed by a concrete
wall. Mining engineers opened it to perform safety works.
There is a signboard over the tunnel portal saying:
<Feldhaus Bergbau "Glückauf"> (Engl.: <Country
house of mining "Good luck">)
Doggerwerk
near Hersbruck 01: portal of a tunnel, upper part
with a shield "Feldhaus Bergbau" ("Field House
Mining") |
Doggerwerk
near Hersbruck 02: entrance with lane |
Speaker:
The dogger work near Hersbruck is classified as
one of the bigger underground plants which had
been built by the Nazis [resp. by the detainees].
|
Doggerwerk near Hersbruck 03: road tunnel |
| Until
now
(2003) the population in the neighboring villages on
the Franconian Alb does not know how big the
mysterious tunnel system in the mountain really is.
The casing of the tunnels partly was complete, but
as it seems these tunnels were never used. |
Doggerwerk near Hersbruck 04: tunnel crossing |
[Photo: construction machine in the
tunnel]
Speaker:
Under the Nazi authorities the plant had the
pseudonym "Esche 1".
Speaker:
Over 9,000 detainees from the CC of Flossenbuerg
were forced to work here under inhuman conditions to
complete the tunnels as fast as possible. About 3,500 have
died by this.
Heinz Rabe, tunnel caretaker in South and East Germany, is
showing a plan with the tunnels in a rectangles' pattern:
"There was projected a plant of a total of good 100,000m2
and about 15,000m2 of it were
realized. The whole plant should have drifted forward here.
One can see this on these beginnings. The tunnels are all
built in distances of 20 m and should serve as production
plants.
Doggerwerk
near Hersbruck 16: tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe
showing the plan 01 |
Doggerwerk
near Hersbruck 17: tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe
showing the plan 02 |
This
plant had begun in March 1944, and the drift was performed
until May '45, and about 7.5km of tunnels had been
realized, and a part of it, about 10 percent, had got a
concrete casing already, and the rest was left practically
in a raw state yet.
The plant should be ready for motor production, for BMW
motor production for airplanes, to put the production from
over-ground into bombproof underground rooms."
Speaker:
The slave workers had taken out half a million m3
dogger sandstone from the mountain. But airplane motors have
never been produced here.
Doggerwerk
near Hersbruck 18: tunnel |
Doggerwerk
near Hersbruck 19: tunnel crossing |
Speaker
[about the situation after 1945]:
After the war following the order of the American
occupation forces the tunnel portals were walled up. The
left plant was forgotten. From time to time CC detainees
come here to remember their murdered fellows.
[Supplement:
There is the question why the allied media have
"forgotten" all death places of tunnel constructioning.
They made propaganda that Jews were "gassed" - but many of
them died in the tunnels in fact].
13.
Underground rocket
production after the bombing of Peenemünde: for V2
(A4): Nordhausen: Kohnstein: 10,000s of deaths
Speaker:
Above all from one branch of service the Nazi leadership
hoped for the decisive turnaround of the war. In the
propaganda style of the Third Reich is was named V2, V for
"Vergeltung" (Engl.: recompense). - [photos: a V2 rocket
is set up]
Rocket V2,
ground with rocket wings of a V2 rocket |
Rocket V2, top
of the rocket V2 with a worker
polishing the top of the rocket |
|
The rocket technician
Wernher von Braun had developed the new missile
type of A4 and had brought it to production.
[Photo: Wernher von Braun on a meeting]. |
Wernher von Braun
|
With the V2 one wanted to destroy
targets in England and to terrorize the British civil
population.
[Photo: liftoff of a V2 rocket].
Rocket V2 at
liftoff 01 |
Rocket V2 at
liftoff 02 |
Rocket V2 at
liftoff 03 |
Despite
of many failures - the V2 was ready for operation in
summer '44.
[Photos: a V2 rocket cannot get it's liftoff but is
falling and exploding on the launching pad].
Rocket V2,
liftoff failure 01, the rocket begins to incline
|
Rocket V2,
liftoff failure 02, the rocket is falling |
Rocket V2,
liftoff failure 03, the rocket is striking on the
ground |
Rocket V2,
liftoff failure 04, the rocket is exploding on the
ground 01 |
Rocket V2,
liftoff failure 05, the rocket is exploding on the
ground 02 |
There is an unimpressive back
of a mountain in the Harz Mountains.
[Photo: a back of a hill].
Kohnstein Hill 01, the
back of the hill
In the middle of April of 1945 American troops reached the
town of Nordhausen. In the shadow of Kohnstein Hill they
find a concentration camp with cadaverous detainees and
many dead bodies.
[Photos: GIs entering the camp; men sitting in the sun,
one
can see the ribs sometimes, about 8 human bodies on a
barrow, covered with clothe or blanket, partly one can see
the heads].
Kohnstein 02,
detainees in the sun |
Kohnstein 03,
Ami soldiers with a detainee |
Kohnstein 04,
Ami soldier leaving the detainee |
Kohnstein 05, two
detainees xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Kohnstein 06,
dead bodies |
Kohnstein 07,
a detainee is reporting to an Ami soldier |
Survivors
of the camp of Mittelbau-Dora are reporting to the
liberators about the mysterious tunnel system in the
mountain, about a very secret rocket factory where they
had to work as slave workers of the SS.
[Photos: GIs in the V2 production plants].
Kohnstein 08,
Danger sign "Gefahrenzone" ("danger area")
|
Kohnstein 09,
Ami soldiers with a rocket head |
Kohnstein 10,
Ami soldier near a tunnel entrance |
But the
winners know since a long time that here is one of the
most important weapon production plants of the Third
Reich. After a devastating bomb attack of the British
against the development plant in Peenemuende the Nazis
decided to put the rocket production underground in August
1943 into an existing fuel deposit. The detainees of
concentration camps had to begin with the extension at
once - under horrible conditions.
[Photos: tunnel in raw state with wooden intermediate
floor].
Kohnstein 11, tunnel with a wooden intermediate
floor 01 |
Kohnstein 12, tunnel with a wooden intermediate
floor 02 |
Jens-Christian Wagner, historian of the
memorial place Mittelbau-Dora:
Kohnstein Hill 13, historian Jens Christian Wagner telling
"The 10,000s of detainees were sheltered in 4 crosswise
tunnel systems. That means: they were sheltered where they
had to work. The detainees were clothed absolutely
inadequately for this forced labour they had to do. They had
thin, striped detainee uniforms in the cold. It was very
humid. This lead to lung illnesses rapidly. And it's no
wonder that - em - many of the 3,000 deaths in the first 5
months were killed by TBC and other lung diseases, all other
[of the later time when the detainees were no more forced to
eat and to sleep in the tunnels] - em - they died because of
exhaustion, invalidation, death by hunger, death by cold,
and - one has to consider - by the maltreatment by the SS
personal, but also by civil employees of the Mittelwerk."
Speaker [situation today]:
Today the 250.000m2 wide tunnel
system of Kohnstein Hill is mostly closed because any stay
in the unsafe tunnels is dangerous for life. Only men from
mining safety are passing in from time to time controlling
the plant. But there are always treasure seekers or criminal
souvenir hunters trying to intrude here. Because: Original
parts from the rocket mountain are extremely wanted in the
collectors' scene.
[Photos: tunnel with oxidizing rocket parts, partly in
seepage water].
| Peter Wolff was brought from
Auschwitz to Mittelbau-Dora. As a Jewish
detainee he got the camp number 105,065. He does
not want to enter the tunnel any more, the
remembrance is too awful. |
Kohnstein
20: former Auschwitz detainee Peter Wolff seen
from a distance
|
Kohnstein 21: former Auschwitz detainee Peter Wolff
|
Peter
Wolff, former Auschwitz detainee:
Kohnstein 22: former Auschwitz detainee Peter Wolff is
telling, testimony
"Every morning we - the detainees - were brought by railway
from the barracks of Nordhausen to the tunnel system. We
were considered the "death commando" and we also called us
like this. The work outside was - let's say - eh - easier -
eh - than inside because inside one was more under the
control of the SS, under the constant control of the SS.
People were continuously beaten.
Before our times the people had seen no daylight because
they were enclosed in the tunnel. They were sleeping, eating
and working in the tunnel. The conditions were murderous.
The brutality of the SS, this cannot be reflected in words
at all. Many, so, many have died."
Speaker:
Today only the remembrance is witness of the
incredible suffering of the SS slaves. The inner
of the mountain is an expanse of rubble. It is
hardly imaginable that there was a complete
factory here.
[Photo: tunnel with broken parts]. |
Kohnstein 23:
march in a tunnel with broken parts 02 |
| All in all the armament
department had projected 200 million Reichsmark
for creating this gigantic underground industrial
area on 600,000m2.
The V weapon production was the core. |
Kohnstein 24,
excavated material |
| 1,000 of them, this was
the ambitious plan, should be produced every
month. In April 1944 the capacity was 450 rockets.
But even this number was hardly reached because
the production was only seldom working fluently. |
Kohnstein 25,
marching through a tunnel with broken parts 03 |
[Photos: broken parts from a rocket and
from the production plant in the tunnel, partly in seepage
water].
Kohnstein 26,
tunnel with broken parts of a rocket production
plant, a wheel on an axis 03 |
Kohnstein 27,
tunnel with broken parts of a rocket production
plant, tanks |
Jens-Christian Wagner,
historian of the memorial site of Mittelbau-Dora:
"This was not a normal factory, because
there were produced products which were not ready
yet to go into production. That means: almost
daily changes were ordered almost daily by the
development office of the A4 rocket at Peenemuende
- changes were ordered for the production and
these orders were incorporated into the ongoing
production process with the corresponding
consequences that over the half of the rockets did
not work."
|
Kohnstein 28:
rockets are set up in a file
|
Speaker:
.
Seldom color photos, taken by Hitler's cameraman
Walter Frentz.
[Photos: detainees composing rocket parts].
Kohnstein 29:
detainees working at a rocket |
Kohnstein 30:
detainees working on electronics for the rocket 01
|
Kohnstein 30: detainees
working on electronics for the rocket 02
|
Under the instruction of German
technicians the elected detainees were composing the rockets
of about 45,000 single parts.
Kohnstein 32:
detainees with rocket parts |
Kohnstein 33:
work with a rocket wing |
Kohnstein 35 and 36,
a rocket is
set up
|
|
|
Kohnstein 34:
a detainee working at a rocket engine |
|
The
complete V2 was brought to tunnel no. 41 for a final
control. Today the 15 meters high test station is almost
completely under water. From here the rockets were loaded
on trains and were brought to the launching bases in North
Germany and in the occupied Holland.
Speaker [about the robbery of technique by the allies in
1945]:
After the end of the war first British and American
commandos robbed all what they could use. Then the Soviets
came and robbed what was left yet. But in tunnel no. 29
there are remnants of the underground rocket production
until now. Engines and other parts of the V2 are oxidizing
in the water.
[Photos: oxidizing rocket parts in the seepage water].
Kohnstein 37,
a rack in the water |
Kohnstein 38,
a rocket engine in a water slop in a distance
|
Kohnstein 39,
a rocket engine in a water slop |
Kohnstein 40,
a pipe of a rocket engine
|
These
are the last remnants of the mad idea to put the armament
production of the Third Reich underground. It's not sure
if a high number of intact rockets had had any influence
on the war. In Kohnstein Hill the production was almost
invulnerable.
[Photo: oxidizing rocket parts in the seepage water].
Kohnstein 41,
broken parts reflecting in the water 01 |
Kohnstein 42,
broken parts reflecting in the water 02 |
[Supplement
from:
The underground Reich - part 1:
Speaker:
At Nordhausen in the Harz Mountains there died 10,000s of
slave workers].
Jens-Christian Wagner, historian of the memorial site of
Mittelbau-Dora:
"The allied services had far going and very detailed
information about what was happening here. The essentials
were air fotos. For example air shafts of Kohnstein Hill
were detected on the photos to a meter, and one has - eh -
thought about it during a long time to bombing them e.g.
with phosphor bombs or similar things passing the air
shafts. By this the underground production plant - em -
would have been bombed or made unusable."
Speaker:
Films of the US army from 12 April 1945. In the Boelkle
Barrack which suffered a heavy damage by a British bombing
action the liberators see the whole horror of the camp
system of Mittelbau Dora.
[Photos: Boelkle Barrack and detainees in detainee
uniforms, partly they look well nourished].
Kohnstein 43, Boelkle Barrack 01 |
Kohnstein 44, Boelkle Barrack 02 |
Kohnstein 45, Boelkle Barrack, a barrack
entrance |
Kohnstein 46, detainees upright
|
Kohnstein 47, detainees sitting |
Kohnstein 48, detainees lying |
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Kohnstein 49, well nourished detainee sitting |
|
The cadaverous SS slaves were brought
here to die. Destruction by working.
Peter Wolff, former detainee:
"The many deaths which one can see
[Photo: human bodies on the floor, partly the ribs are
well visible, obviously dead]
Kohnstein 50, dead detainees 01 |
Kohnstein 51, dead detainees 02 |
Kohnstein 52, dead detainees 03 |
|
one accustoms to it
some time. There was a roll-call inspection
early in the morning. Of course - many had died
during the night - these had to be brought and
put aside.
|
Kohnstein 53,
a detainee spooning an egg |
Kohnstein 54,
former Auschwitz detainee is telling giving his
testimony |
Also the deads were count yet, isn't
it? Everybody was glad for reaching the evening alive. I was
often asked: <Why was there no resistance against the SS
men?> and so on. then I always have to say: <When we
were alive in the evening yet we had performed resistance
during the whole day long already>."
The V2s are hitting
England - Goebbels's logic against England
NS newsreel 1944:
<We present to you the first photos of the V2 on it's
flight to England. Secrecy affords that the photos are
taken from a farer distance. So there is only a weak
impression of the real proportions of this V2. In a raving
velocity the slender steel is going up reaching the
stratosphere.>
[Photos: V2 rocket in the sky, with dramatic orchestral
music]
NS newsreel
1944 01, V2 rocket liftoff 01 |
NS newsreel
1944 02, V2 rocket liftoff 02 |
NS newsreel
1944 03, V2 rocket liftoff 03 |
NS newsreel
1944 04, V2 rocket liftoff 04 |
NS newsreel
1944 05, V2 rocket liftoff 05 |
|
Speaker:
The target of the lethal weapon was above all London. On
September 7, 1944 the first V2 hit the center of the
British capital.
[Photos: ruins and rescues in London].
London 1944
01: Tower Bridge seen from a distance |
London 1944
02: ruins after a German rocket impact |
London 1944
03: search groups going into the ruins |
London 1944
04: there is an arm giving a sign |
London 1944
05: a person on a barrow is brought away |
London 1944
06: a person on a barrow is covered 01 |
London 1944
07: a person on a barrow is covered 02 |
London 1944
08: a person on a barrow is covered 03 |
London 1944
09: a person on a barrow is brought away, total
view
|
The Nazi
leadership wanted to launch 10,000s of them. Propaganda
minister Joseph Goebbels triumphed. At the home front the
first successes with the wonder weapon were ruthlessly
instrumentalized.
[Supplement: the allies did the same when they bombed
German towns].
Goebbels'
speech 1944 01: mass greeting with a Hitler salute
01 |
Goebbels' speech 1944
02: mass greeting with a Hitler salute 02
|
Goebbels'
speech of 1944 03: Goebbels speaking |
Goebbels'
speech 1944 04: public is applauding |
Goebbels' speech in a stadium
1944:
<After the heavy
attacks against Berlin, our capital of the Reich, I had
declared: "There will come the hour when we will pay this
back to the English." The following day the English press
attacked me very hardly and was mockingly asking if the
new weapon that I had announced would have been invented
in the propaganda department instead of in the armament
department. Then I thought this would not be my task to
put the English right but I was convinced: The more they
would believe that it would not come the better it is.
Because the surprise is also a weapon.>
14. Underground rocket silos (rocket launching
pads) for V2 in Watten
Speaker:
The first plan of the Nazi leadership was that the V
weapons would be launched from huge launch bunkers. By
this since May 1943 there was built a long concrete
colossus in Watten in north western France, 40m large and
75m long. The German engineers believed that the 5m thick
concrete ceiling would be impenetrable. In summer 1944
British special forces proved the contrary.
[Photos: ruins in concrete].
Launching pad bunker in Watten 01, corridor
|
Launching pad bunker in Watten 02, the concrete
ceiling 01 |
Launching pad bunker in Watten 02, the concrete
ceiling 02 |
Launching pad bunker in Watten 04, a passway in the
ruins
|
The incomplete plant was heavily
damaged by bombs and was unusable for launching V weapons.
After the attack the inner of the giant plant was changed
into a plant of fuel production.
[Photo: high halls of concrete with intermediate wooden
floors, the ground is partly under water].
Launching pad bunker in Watten 05, ruins in the
water 01 |
Launching pad bunker in Watten 06, ruins in the
water 02 |
Launching pad bunker in Watten 07, hall 01 |
Launching pad bunker in Watten 08, hall 02 |
Launching pad bunker in Watten 09, hall 03 |
Launching pad bunker in Watten 10, portal of the
hall |
There is a well proportioned model of a
V2 remembering of the original purpose.
[Photo: a model of a V2 in two dimensions is fixed on a
wall, the ground is under water].
Launching pad bunker in Watten 11, a rocket model in two
dimensions being installed on a wall
The Wehrmacht said that the
destruction of Watten was a strategic mistake of the
allies because by this they provoked new developments. The
rockets, this was the plan being supported by professor
Braun, were launched by many mobile gun carriages. These
were easy for camouflage and could not be detected by the
enemy in time. For the bomber pilots such targets were
heavy to find.
[Photos: transport of V2 rockets on railway wagons and on
single carriages].
NS film: a V2
rocket is loaded 01 |
NS film: a V2 rocket
is loaded 02 |
NS film: a V2
rocket is placed on a carriage |
|
Bob Knight, British
bomber pilot of the special unit "Dambusters":
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"We precisely knew
about the danger, above all when the V2 was
coming. They were launched from the continent
and hit England just somewhere."
[Photo: erected V2 on a carriage ready for
launch].
|
NS film: a V2
rocket is erected on a carriage |
NS
film: a V2 rocket is set up upright on a
carriage
|
[Stalin's
armament
industry
developed parallely the "Stalin Organ" with several
rockets being installed on one single carriage].
Bob Knight is telling:
The British former bomber pilot Rob Night is telling giving
his testimony
|
"This is really
horrible. For the people who knew more about it
- e.g. Winston Churchill - it [the destruction
of Watten] was decisive because they had to
worry about the moral in the population. For us
this [the bombing of Watten] was simply a job
which we fulfilled. We knew about the
significance but we had no idea of the further
effects.>
[Photo: British bomber squadron].
|
GB bomber squadron,
sight from the cockpit |
Speaker:
The so called "Dambusters", the 617 squadron of the Royal
Air Force, were always put into action when the British
secret service had identified military point targets, and
the launching pads of the V weapons were such one.
15. Underground rocket silos (rocket launching
pads) for V2 in Viserne: "La coupole" - British
"Tallboy" bombs
Speaker:
In Vizernes in Northern France there is - as can
be said - the most spectacular underground bunker
plant from which a big part of the so called
"recompense weapons" should be launched. |
Launching pad bunker of Vizernes 01, the dome |
The
local
population
call the gigantic roof "La coupole" (engl.: "the
dome").
[Photo: Dome and construction plan of the dome]. |
Launching pad bunker of
Vizernes 02, total view of the dome
|
Inside it was planned
that the warheads were installed on the rockets
as
on an assembly line.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Launching pad bunker of
Vizernes 03, construction plan of the hall
|
| The missiles ready for
action - this was the project of the Nazis - could
be shifted outside to a former stone pit and could
be launched immediately. |
Launching pad bunker of
Vizernes 04, plan of the corridor to the launching
pad
|
|
There was planned a storage capacity of
500 rockets.
[Photo: struck tunnel].
|
Launching pad bunker of Vizernes 05, struck tunnel
|
From the old stone pit
1,000s of forced laborers had to blast kilometers
of tunnels into the mountain under inhuman
conditions.
[Photos: Long tunnels, long tunnels in raw state,
filled wagons, tunnel with wooden casing]. |
Launching pad bunker of Vizernes 06, wagons |
The heart of the
machinery should be protected by a 5 m thick,
55,000 tons heavy, concrete dome. The mining works
in the inner had begun. Here should be erected the
rockets for the final assembly of the warheads.
The octagonal hall is 13 m high.
[Photo: The hall which was begun: The core of the
hall is of stone existing yet]. |
Launching pad bunker of Vizernes 07,
unfinished hall 01 |
| But just shortly after
the start of construction the British secret
service got news from the production plant and
ordered the "Dambusters" to destroy it. |
Launching pad bunker of Vizernes 08,
unfinished hall 02 |
Bob Knight, British
bomber pilot of the special unit "Dambusters"
(translation):
<It was necessary that we disharmed this
plant
[Photo: Dome and concrete rubble, exterior view], |
Launching pad bunker of
Vizernes 09, total view of the dome
|
before they could
launch on us these awful weapons. We were prepared
intensively to this operation, we were provided
with all disposable informations. The basic idea
was to "trench" the target. By this one could have
a doubled effect. When there was a direct hit the
aim would burst into 1,000 pieces. At the same
time the base of the plant would be destroyed.> |
British
Tallboy bombs |
Speaker:
For this project there was developed a really
special bomb: The 12,000 pound heavy "Tallboys"
could smash also concrete walls which were meters
thick. On 17 July 1944 they were used against
Vizernes.
[Photos: Transport of "Tallboy" bombs on a lorry]. |
Two British
Tallboy bombs on a lorry |
The
617th bomber squadron could not hit the dome. But after
the attack the production plant was unusable.
[Photos: Rectangular, deep bomb craters around the dome].
Launching pad bunker of Vizernes 10, bomb
crater 01 |
Launching pad bunker of Vizernes 11, bomb
crater 02 |
Launching pad bunker of Vizernes 12, bomb
crater 03 |
Bob
Knight, British bomber pilot of the special unit
"Dambusters" (translation):
<Informations about this how an attack was performed were
available fairly fast because the reconnaissance plane were
making fotos of the spot shortly after the attack. Then we
were said if we were successful or if we had to go there
another time. But when the Tallboys had hit this normally
was not necessary.>
16. Bunker constructioning: Underground rocket
silos for V3 at Mimoyecques
Speaker:
Eleven days
before, the "Dambusters" also had attacked the
little village Mimoyecques, few kilometers from
the Channel coast in the South of Calais.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Launching pad of bunker of
Mimoyecques 01,
view of the village
|
In summer 1943 also here had begun the
building site for an underground plant for a weapon by the
command of armament minister Speer - as it was the V2
- which should reach London directly.
[Photo: ruins of concrete]
Launching pad of bunker Mimoyecques 02,
concrete ruins 01 |
Launching pad of bunker Mimoyecques 03,
concrete ruins 02 |
Launching pad of bunker Mimoyecques 04,
concrete ruins 03 |
The danger for England
seemed to be so great that the British premier
Winston Churchill was thinking about Mimoyecques
also 8 months after the liberation.
[Photos: Big Ben; Churchill walking with
entourage] |
London, Big Ben, the tower clock |
He
could
not allow that this plant would threaten the safety
of his country further on, he wrote in a secret
memorandum. So, also the intact tunnels of the V3
were blasted by British pioneers.
[Photo: Churchill in a car in front of the
Buckingham palace]. |
Churchill, an alcoholic in a car with a cigar |
Did Churchill know more about what the
Nazis were planning as is known until today?
17. Falkenhagen near Berlin:
Chemical plant with the aim of Sarin production
A dead track is leading to a
no man's land: Falkenhagen, in the south east of Berlin.
The British documents about the little spot in the
countryside of Brandenburg are partly unaccessible today
because here should be produced one of the most dangerous
weapons of mass destruction of military history.
[Photo: Track ending on street of paving stones; beginning
of a turnout]
Chemical plant of Falkenhagen 01, railway track
|
Chemical plant of Falkenhagen 02, railway track with
forest aisle |
NS propaganda film 1944: "Kampfstoffe"
("combat agents"):
NS film "Kampfstoffe" ("combat agents") 01
|
Film (translation):
"Gas is - as we understand it - a product of
chemical industry which can be used as chemical
combat agents in actions with the aim to have
effect on the enemy and to incapacitate him. By
this the chemical weapon was developed in First
World War already to an effective war
instrument. So, we also have to expect that the
enemy is using it in the present people's
fight."
[Photos: Chemical workshop with shaking facility].
|
NS film
"Kampfstoffe" ("combat agents") 02, research
facility |
Speaker:
A film for education of the Wehrmacht. One shows Hitler's
soldiers the effect of chemical weapons "Lost" and "Hydrogen
cyanide" at the living object.
[Photo: An monkey in a glass cage: There is given something
not visible into the case. The monkey is soon gasping for
breath and then is collapsing].
NS film
"Kampfstoffe" ("combat agents") 03, gas
experiment, there is given gas into the cage
|
NS film "Kampfstoffe"
("combat agents") 04, a monkey is sitting in a
glass cage |
NS film
"Kampfstoffe" ("combat agents") 05, the monkey in
the glass cage is falling in mortis |
NS film
"Kampfstoffe" ("combat agents") 06, notice
reporting the experiment |
| Great Britain, USA and
Soviet Union had huge quantities of these combat
agents in the Second World War. |
NS film "Kampfstoffe" ("combat
agents") 07, gas is given into a glass cage
|
| Also Nazi Germany had
about 55,000 tons of them. |
NS film "Kampfstoffe" ("combat
agents") 08, a cat sitting in the glass cage
|
|
The lethal
weapons were not used. The
remembrance of the horror of the First World
War was too cruel.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Photo: Cat
gets efflux from the mouth]. |
NS film "Kampfstoffe" ("combat
agents") 09, saliva is coming out of the cat's
mouth
|
Dr. Hoffmann, former physician at the
academy of sciences of GDR occupied himself with the history
of Falkenhagen since decades.
[Photo: Dr. Hoffmann opens an oxidized iron door].
Chemical plant of Falkenhagen 03, Dr. H. Hoffmann
coming |
Chemical plant of Falkenhagen 04, Dr. H. Hoffmann
opens the door
(the shield says: No enter, danger of life)
|
Protected from curious viewers the army
ordnance office had hidden the plant in a wide peace of wood
in 1938. Under the pseudonym "Seewerk" ("Sea plant") there
were developed above all burning agents. Uncompleted parts
of the building are witnesses of a project which had begun
here in 1944.
[Photo: Long hall with big bays, only one floor, grass is
growing on the roof].
Chemical plant
of Falkenhagen 05, front 01 |
Chemical plant
of Falkenhagen 06, front 02 |
The supreme army command had given the
territory to the IG Farben to produce here a completely new
chemical agent. 44 mio. Reichsmark was projected the
building. There was a huge combined heat and power station
completed in bricked work.
[Photo: concrete building, about 15 m high].
Chemical plant
of Falkenhagen 07, heat and power station in
bricked work |
|
Chemical plant
of Falkenhagen 08, heat and power station, zoom
|
The
chemists had brought their laboratories to Falkenhagen
already.
Dr. Hoffmann, local historian:
Chemical plant of Falkenhagen 11, homeland researcher
Dr. H. Hoffmann is telling.
"There was a new process of production, this was the combat
agent of Sarin. And this combat agent should be produced
here in Falkenhagen in a world-scale plant.
[Photo: interior view of the incomplete production hall, the
heat and power station in bricked work in the background].
Chemical plant of Falkenhagen 09, view into the
inner 01 |
Chemical plant of Falkenhagen 10, view into the
inner 02 |
Sarin has got an effect especially
against the air ways system. Persons being in contact with
this combat agent - and one droplet evaporating in one m3
of air is enough already for example - so, this
provokes suffocation within 6 minutes with a beating heart.
Respiration is stopping."
Speaker:
Up to these times chemical weapons had been foreseen for the
soldiers on both sides. So, the action with gas masks was
always exercised. But sarin was new. One could not see it,
nor smell it, nor taste it. Death came without any warning.
[Photo: NS film: Fighting scene; soldiers with gas masks].
It's said that Hitler had forbidden the use of gas because
he himself had almost become blind in Word War I. But he
himself ordered the production of sarin. Would he have
hesitated to use this new weapon when it had be available
for him? With a monthly production of sarin the Nazis would
have had been able to depopulate a large city like London.
[Photos: Hitler with entourage, meeting upright; a follower
is handing out a little case to another follower with a Nazi
armlet].
When
the Red Army reached the Third Reich in the
beginning of 1945 the German chemists were
removing their facilities from Falkenhagen.
Nothing should remind the winners of the
project.
[Photo: empty halls
with a window line] |
Chemical plant of Falkenhagen 13,
interior view with empty halls
|
|
|
Sarin was never produced here. The
Soviet conquerers used the factory hall for pig breeding.
Dr. Hoffmann, local historian:
"After the war the population was absolutely surprised
seeing what catastrophe was prepared here. The combat agent
was a pure German development which was not at all known to
the allies. 500 tons a month is very much, and this had been
for grenades or bombs, and it had been possible to
exterminate whole territories. And there was no difference
between civilians or soldiers."
Speaker:
An 80m long, underground corridor is the rest of the half
finished bottling plant for sarin. IG Farben had projected
the beginning of production to their employers in summer
1945. How realistic this was cannot be cleared today.
[Photo: corridor half underground in concrete walls]
Chemical plant of
Falkenhagen 14, entrance to a corridor half
underground |
Chemical plant
of Falkenhagen 14, sight through the corridor half
underground |
18. Underground rocket production plant for
intercontinental rocket A9: Ebensee near Salzburg,
pseudonym: "Zement" ("Cement")
Speaker:
American tank groups on their invasion in Austria at the
beginning of May 1945. The sad remnants of the Wehrmacht
have capitulated and are marching into captivity. Photos
from the end of the war near Salzburg, taken by a
cameraman of the US army.
Ebensee 01,
invasion of the Amis 01 |
Ebensee 02,
invasion of the Amis 02 |
Ebensee 03,
guard at Ebensee with a tank in the background
|
On 8 May the war reporters reach the
concentration camp CC of Ebensee which had been liberated
two days before. They are documenting the suffering of the
survivors. CC detainees and forced laborers from Ebensee
were deployed by the SS in a secret tunnel system not far
from the camp. Pseudonym: "Zement" ("Cement").
[Photos: detainees with ribs heavily standing out; detainees
covering deads, carrying deads away].
Speaker
[about the situation of today (2003) and in 1943]:
Today [in 2003] one time a day there is coming a diesel
engine to the mountain to transport the lime which is won
there. 60 years ago the family enterprise was expropriated
and was given to the SS for the production of the
spectacular new development concerning armament. The plant
was never taken into action. But above all in the former
tunnel "A" the former destination can be recognized yet.
[Photo: a red diesel engine is arriving at the two laned
tunnel and wagons are connected].
Ebensee11, a
cargo locomotive is coming |
Ebensee12, the
cargo locomotive is joint to a wagon train in the
tunnel |
30m high
are the halls where even intercontinental ballistic
missiles were assembled under leadership of SS supreme
group leader Hans Kammler.
[Photos: 30m high hall with concrete casing]
Ebensee13,
hall 01 |
Ebensee14,
hall 02 |
Ebensee15,
hall 03 |
So, the latest model, the 26 m high
rocket A9, would have even reached the USA. This was the
ambitious plan of the Nazis.
20 rockets per month should be assembled here in Ebensee.
[Photo: wagon train in the tunnel]
The rocket A9 was not tested any more. After the end of the
war the inventor Wernher von Braun could go to the USA
without any problem devoting his rocket research to "new
bosses". The precise number of victims of his work in duty
of Hitler is unknown. [Photo: a wagon train is leaving the
tunnel].
19. The concrete encased and then blasted
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) - a table is saving
Hitler's life
Speaker:
Newsreel pictures of the Wolf's Lair near Rastenburg in
summer 1944. Hitler says goodbye to dictator Benito
Mussolini.
[Photo: Newsreel: Mussolini in the train]
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 01: Hitler with Mussolini
with entourage |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 02: Hitler with Mussolini
|
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 03, Mussolini looking
through the window of a train, Hitler in front of it
01 |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 03, Mussolini looking
through the window of a train, Hitler in front of it
02 |
In
Eastern Prussia on 250 hectares the Fuehrer's
headquarters and the operational headquarters of the
Wehrmacht was sheltered. It was protected by three
trap circuits which were heavily guarded. The
railway tracks on which the allied of the Third
Reich came for visiting these headquarters are
overgrown today.
[Photo: overgrown railway tracks] |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 05, the track to the
Wolf's Lair today (2003) |
Of this former Wolf's
Lair only rubble has left [Photo: big concrete
ruins aside of the tracks]. Before their
withdrawal the Germans blasted all buildings. The
rest was
done by the Red Army. Hitler's private bunker is a
shapeless block. In 1944 yet all important
buildings in the core of the trap circuit had been
arched over by massive ferro concrete buildings
[Photo: blasted concrete bunker].
|
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 06, a big bunker |
Since the end of 1944
Rochus Misch hasn't been in Rastenburg any more.
As a member of the so called Fuehrer's assisting
commando he had also been one of the persons being
always near Hitler.
[Photo: Mr. Misch coming out from concrete ruins].
The return after 60 years is performed in another
way than it was expected by the former dictator's
bodyguard. There are difficulties to recognize
something in the ruins. |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 07, former bodyguard
Rochus Misch is coming
|
Rochus Misch, Hitler's bodyguard:
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 08, former bodyguard Rochus Misch
is telling, testimony:
"Oh my god, that's huge. They were... The former living
barracks, there were about two of them perhaps, at most
three meters high, and now there is such a colossus there. I
am shaken what has become of it because I am well
remembering how it had been normally, all buildings here
[photo: blasted concrete bunker]. This happened in a sudden
very fast procedure, incredible, but real. How fast they did
it. In some weeks the whole territory has changed here,
within some weeks. Before there were the flat barracks.
Entering here there was a [not understandable] to the right.
There was the big room with the briefings, a big table in
it, and this was fairly constrained. That was not big. The
huge element of this site had been created only afterwards."
[Photo: Fuehrer's barrack].
Speaker:
In midst of July 1944 when Hitler was coming with his
entourage from Berchtesgaden to his headquarter to Eastern
Prussia his private bunker was not complete yet. So he
lodged in the guest bunker ([Photo: high concrete wall].
The briefings were temporarily in a near positioned wooden
barrack, as it was also on midday of July 20, 1944 [photo:
soil]. Hitler had asked his generals for talks. Also some
adjutants and servants were in the room. On 16 minutes
before one o'clock the supreme commander [Hitler] was
bending over the big map table [photo: soil with
basement]. At this moment a bomb was exploding which had
been deposed by colonel von Stauffenberg under the table.
The explosive charge killed four persons and hurt seven
more heavily. The barrack was destroyed almost completely.
[But mad dictator Hitler survived].
[Photo: destroyed wooden barrack]
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 09, Fuehrer's barrack
after the assassination attempt of 1944 01 |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 10, Fuehrer's barrack
after the assassination attempt of 1944 02 |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 11, Fuehrer's barrack
after the assassination attempt of 1944 03 |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 12, Fuehrer's barrack
after the assassination attempt of 1944 04 |
Hitler was protected by the massive map
table and was only slightly injured. The coup in Berlin
failed in the same night yet. After the assassination the
safety precautions were severed only insignificantly.
Rochus Misch, Hitler's bodyguard:
"We were never anxious. We never recognized that somebody
was anxious. <There won't happen anything to me>.
[Photo: Hitler visiting injured in the hospital]
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 13, Hitler visiting
injured in a hospital 01 |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 14, Hitler visiting
injured in a hospital 02 |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 15, Hitler visiting
injured in a hospital 03 |
When he [Hitler] was warned by this and
that reason: <Well>, he said, <but there won't
happen anything to me>. There was no change basically,
nothing at all. All was running like before, like the day
before. July 20 had happened, and the next days were
performed normally. Mussolini was welcomed, then other
official receptions were going on, well, as nothing had
happened at all before."
20. Bunker constructioning in the Eulengebirge
(Owl Mountains) for a new leader's headquarter:
example: Gluszyca: "Säuferhöhen" ("heights of
drunks")
A long time ago the
dictator had ordered to replace the Wolfsschanze
(Wolf's Lair) by a new headquarter. It should be
safe against enemy paratroopers and should be
completely safe against bombings. The project was
even unknown to the closest assistants.
[Photo: huge concrete rubble of the Wolfsschanze
(Wolf's Lair)] |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 16, concrete expanse of
rubble |
The Owl Mountains,
[Photo: Owl Mountains in a distance] |
Owl Mountains
01, back of a mountain 01 |
an area in former Lower
Silesia. In the backs of the mountain near the
Polish little town of Gluszyca the really most
abnormal legacies of the Third Reich are hidden.
[Photo: landscape] |
Owl Mountains
02, back of a mountain 02 |
A Polish and a German
hobby historian made it their business to
investigate the extraordinary underground
construction. Somewhere in the forest of the so
called "Heights of Drunks" there is a mysterious
shaft of 48 m going down. It could be an elevator
shaft in raw state, experts say.
[Photo: roping down by a hole in the rocket into a
huge underground hall]. |
Owl Mountains
03, entrance into the shaft 01 |
Owl Mountains
04, entrance into the shaft 02 |
Owl Mountains
05, entrance into the shaft 03, action roping down
01 |
Owl Mountains
06, entrance into the shaft 04, action roping down
02 |
|
The Polish teacher
Jacek Duszczak and Juergen Mueller of the
association "Berliner Unterwelten" ("Berlin
Underground Worlds") are coming here since many
years for getting new perceptions.
And not only the giant hall with wooden casing
is a proof that the Nazis had planned here
something big.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Photo: a hall in the mountain, at least 8m high,
with wooden casing]
|
Owl Mountains
07, marching through a supported tunnel |
Owl Mountains
08, marching through a hall with wooden casing 01
|
Owl Mountains
09, marching through a hall with wooden casing 02
|
Owl Mountains 10,
sight through a long tunnel |
"Heights of Drunks": 7 [!]
cavern systems - and the sudden evacuation - pseudonym:
"Giant" ("Riese")
Juergen Mueller, from the
association of "Berliner Unterwelten" ("Berlin
Underground Worlds"):
Owl Mountains 11,
Juergen Mueller from "Berlin Underground Worlds" is
telling
"All in all there are 7 underground tunnel systems here.
From these only a little part - about one eighths - was with
a casing in concrete in some way. The rest are all tunnels
which are supported with wooden logs and wooden beams. About
40,000 humans were employed here in this area in the Owl
Mountains for forced labour practically.
Here in the tunnels
[Photo: tunnel]
was a temperature of about 8 degrees, and forced laborers
worked at an average of 12 and 16 hours a day. Add to this
food was bad. So you can imagine - well - that there were
many deaths here."
Speaker:
When the Soviets conquered Lower Silesia at the end of April
1945 they found the giant building site deserted. The
purpose of the plants was hidden to them first.
[According to the information of filmmaker Michael
Foedrowitz at the end shortly before the withdrawal 1,000s
of detainees were left into the tunnel systems, entrances
were closed by blast and the victims were buried alive and
the tunnel portals were camouflaged. There is presumed that
there are big mass graves in the tunnel systems yet].
[Photo: low tunnel supported
by wooden beams]
Owl Mountains
12, supported corridor |
Owl Mountains
13, room with concrete casing |
Jacek
Duszczak, local historian (translation):
Owl Mountains 14, homeland researcher Jacek Duszczak
is telling:
"Principally this object was always accessible since the end
of the war. All witnesses who had been here when the Germans
made their withdrawal were telling conformably that it
looked like as if the workers would make a lunch rest only.
In the walls one can see the drill pipes yet. There were
lying shovels all over the tunnels. Wagons were filled with
raw material. All looked as if they had only made a little
break for breath and then the workers would continue their
work."
Speaker:
Proofs how important this plant was are the rooms with
concrete casing for the guards and loopholes for
armored machine gun installations. Because since November
1943 under strong secrecy a new Fuehrer's headquarter was
built here. Pseudonym: "Riese" ("Giant").
[Photos: room with concrete casing with rifles; hatch in
concrete casing].
Owl Mountains 15,
storeroom in concrete casing |
Owl Mountains 16,
tunnel crossing |
Owl Mountains 17, raw
material |
Owl Mountains 18,
supported tunnel
|
"Heights of Drunks":
detainees from CC of Grossrosen and from Auschwitz - 50%
death rate
Hitler thought that the "Wolfsschanze" ("Wolf's Lair") was
not safe enough any more. The project was to create a bomb
safe underground world in the Owl Mountains for 20,000
humans. For this project armament minister Speer granted
130 million Reichsmark. In August 1945 the first 40,000 m2
should be ready for occupancy.
[Photo: Hitler with entourage on a briefing at a table].
NS film 01: Hitler and Speer on a briefing 01 |
NS film 02: Hitler and Speer on a briefing at a
table with a plan |
Many of the slave workers
for the building of "Riese" ("Giant") were drafted
from the concentration camp CC
of Grossrosen.
[Photo: area fenced by head-high barbed wire]
In the beginning of 1945 the camp counted
over 75,000 inmates. Around 13,000 of them were
sheltered in the outer camp in the Owl Mountains,
mostly Jewish detainees from Auschwitz.
About half of them [about 50%] have not survived the
murderous employment for the safety of the dictator.
|
CC of Grossrosen, fence 01 |
[Photos: barbed wire, loudspeaker,
barrack, gallows, outer sight of the portal with the
inscription: "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" ("WORK MAKES FREE")].
CC of Grossrosen, fence 02 with the main house from
the site
|
CC of Grossrosen, loudspeaker |
CC of Grossrosen 04, fence 03 with the view to the
front of the main house |
CC of Grossrosen 05, corridor |
CC of Grossrosen 06, portal of the main house with
the inscription "Work makes free" |
21. Bunker constructioning in the Eulengebirge
(Owl Mountains) for a new leader's headquarter:
example Wolfsberg (Wolf Mountain)
Speaker:
The forced laborers had digged three kilometers of tunnel
already into the Wolfsberg (Wolf mountain), the biggest
complex of the projected plants in the Owl Mountains.
Today the branched tunnel system stays partly under water.
[Photo: cruise in the tunnel system with an inflatable
boat]
Owl Mountains
19 and 20, Juergen Mueller and Jacek Duszczak
cruising in the flooded tunnels with an inflatable
boat 01 and 02
|
|
In November 1944
approximately 55% of the project was fulfilled.
The extension of the plants should begin
immediately. The original plans for the project
of "Riese" ("Giant") have been lost at the end
of the war.
|
Owl Mountains 21,
dripstone ceiling |
[Photo:
cruise with an inflatable boat].
Owl Mountains 22 and 23, Juergen Mueller und Jacek
Duszczak cruising in the flooded tunnels with an
inflatable boat 03 and 04
|
22. Owl Mountains: suspicion that there are more
tunnel systems
Jacek Duszczak and
Juergen Mueller are convinced that there are many more
tunnel systems which are not detected yet. Because
according to the few notes of the Nazis it also was
projected that a huge underground production plant for the
production of "wonder weapons" should be installed there.
But 60 years later it's not easy to separate facts from
rumors.
Jacek Duszczak, local historian (translation):
Owl Mountains 24, Jacek Duszczak is telling
"We have the information that at the end of the war all
detainees have been evacuated, up to these who should
camouflage the facilities. From these any track is lost, and
also from these who were their guards. Of course this is
unconfirmed information.
[Photo: low tunnel in bricked work supported by wooden
boles]
The Nazis had very much time to camouflage the tunnels. So,
it is very difficult to find the well hidden portals. They
were filled up, trees are growing on them. All tracks have
been destroyed."
23. Bunker constructioning in
the Eulengebirge (Owl Mountains) for a new leader's
headquarter: example: "Fuerstenstein Castle" ("Stone
of Prince Castle")
In former times on
Fürstenstein Castle ("Stone of Prince Castle") near
Waldenburg [English: Forest Fortress; Polish.: Walbrzych]
was residing the prince of Pless.
Fürstenstein Castle near Waldenburg 01: View to the castle
In 1940 the considerable possession of
the Churchill family members was put under forced
administration. Four years later considerable reconstruction
works began. The baroque jewel - as it was said - should be
transformed into a guest house of the Reich's government. In
real it was foreseen for Adolf Hitler and his entourage.
So, 35 architects from the "Speer building staff" were
working under most severe secrecy for an underground bunker
system with direct connection to the castle.
[Photos: castle, pompous interior view]
Fürstenstein
Castle near Waldenburg 02, interior view 01 with a
painted ceiling |
Fürstenstein
Castle near Waldenburg 03, interior view 02,
painted wall with imitated colums and giant doors
|
Fürstenstein Castle
near Waldenburg 04, interior view 03 of the hall
|
Fürstenstein
Castle near Waldenburg 05, interior view 04 of the
hall with a suite |
When
danger was coming an elevator should bring the leader
("Führer") 50m deep to private rooms into the hill. 3200m2
floor space were projected alone for the dictator and his
first entourage.
[Photo: tunnel, partly in bricked work, partly with
casing].
Waldenburg
castle Fürstenstein 06, breakthrough to the tunnel
|
Waldenburg
castle Fürstenstein 07, passing a corridor to the
castle bunker 01 |
Waldenburg
castle Fürstenstein 07, passing a corridor to the
castle bunker 02 |
Waldenburg castle Fürstenstein 09, the hall of the
castle bunker |
Juergen
Müller, association "Berlin Underground Worlds":
"The basic idea was among others that this should be the
last leader's headquarter. So, underground tunnel systems
were installed here for each of the leading personalities
of the Third Reich. For example Goebbels should have it's
own tunnel system. For Himmler should be an own tunnel
system. Of course also the supreme command of the
Wehrmacht - well - should move in here: with Keitel, with
Jodl. So, there were - well - precise - well - partition
plans who will get - well - m3
[?]."
24. The German population does not know anything
about the tunnel systems - is living in ruins
Speaker:
At the home front
these activities were absolutely unknown.
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[Photo: street bombed
out]. |
Home front of
Berlin 01: groups of people in a street |
The people's community
hardly saw the leader.
[Photo: bombed street with burnt tramway]. |
Home
front of Berlin 02: burnt tramway after an
allied bomb attack
|
| Almost every day and
night the humans fled to their bunkers from the
bomb attacks. |
Home front of
Berlin 03: road in ruins after an allied bomb
attack
|
Because the towns were
systematically razed to the ground.
[Photo: rubble women]
[The Zionist allies with Zionist Roosevelt and the
Committee of 300 in London were prolonging the war
deliberately for ruining all German towns to the
ground. Patton and Montgomery could have occupied
Germany until the end of 1943 already but the
Zionist leadership did not allow an early peace.
Bombing German towns to the ground also all Jewish
houses were destroyed which could have given back
to the Jews after the war. Zionists wanted to
destroy any German culture bringing Germany back
to Stone Age, and Zionists also wanted to destroy
any root of Jewish life in Germany driving all
German Jews to Palestine for a "Great Israel". The
executive of all this was mass murderer Eisenhower].
|
Home
front of Berlin 04: Women are forming a bucket
chain to remove the rubble (rubble women)
|
For the
propaganda camera Joseph Goebbels - the head of the
district of Berlin (gauleiter) - was demonstrating
confidence presenting himself in the ruins of the Berlin
Hedwig's Cathedral.
[Photo: Goebbels with entourage in ruins]
Home front of Berlin 05: Hedwig's Cathedral
in ruins, interior view |
Home front of Berlin
06: Goebbels in the ruins of the Hedwig's Cathedral |
|
Berlin is a
preferred target for the air raids. Almost the
whole glamor of the Third Reich has gone. The
works for rebuilding of the main town of the Reich
were stopped since a long time. The few complete
facilities were converted into war facilities.
[Photo: crossing in Berlin taken from a house being
converted into a fortress]. |
Home front of
Berlin 07: a big road with fortressed buildings
|
25. "Axes of coordinates" and motorway tunnel in
Berlin - use of the bunker as a fabrication hall
|
Somewhere
in the Tiergarten (zoo) there is a well
camouflaged entrance to a road tunnel from
Hitler's world main town "Germania".
[Photo: a shaft cover is opened]. |
Road tunnel system of Berlin 01, shaft cover in
the Tiergarten (zoo) |
Since
years nobody has been down there. Dietmar Arnold from the
"Association Berliner Unterwelten" ("Berlin Underground
Worlds") is daring the dangerous descent, because there
could be toxic gases there.
[Photo: descent on a ladder with helmet and pocket lamp].
Road tunnel system of Berlin 02, descent 01 |
Road tunnel system of Berlin 03, descent 02 |
Dietmar Arnold:
Road tunnel system of Berlin 04, Dietmar Arnold in the road
tunnel
Dietmar Arnold is
telling:
"Yes, we are here almost 9m under the Tiergarten
(zoo) in the so called western tunnel of the axes
of coordinates, projected as a motor way or motor
way tunnel, almost 90m long, 14m large, and 4.8m
high. These are to say the remnants from
"Germania". The axis of coordinates is the the so
called intersection of the planned east-west axis
and the north-south axis. Big parts of the
east-west axis have been completed. Today this is
the street June 17 / Unter den Linden (Under the
Lime trees), and the north-south axis has never
been completed. Yes, and this is the rest of these
pompous plans.
[Photo: tunnel which is staying approx. 20cm under
water] |
Road tunnel system of Berlin 05, staying
approx. 20 cm under water |
The tunnel was
rediscovered in 1967. The ceiling has been
refurbished once. This can be seen here, too. The
calculation is that it's cheaper maintaining this
facility than filling it up."
Speaker:
There were never cars passing this tunnel. As it
seems a partition wall was installed here during a
war. |
Road tunnel system of Berlin 06, somebody
installed a partition wall |
It's said that armament
factories have continued their bomb proof armament
production here. An oxidized lamp is all what is
remembering this.
[Photo: oxidized lamp on the ceiling] |
Road tunnel system of Berlin 07, old lamp |
In the last corner of the
tunnel Dietmar Arnold found indications that the
tunnel was also used by Berlin population as a
bomb shelter during the air raids.
Dietmar Arnold, association "Berliner Unterwelten"
("Berlin Underground Worlds"):
"This is the accession stairs where the people
came down in former times. I find it really
interesting how deformed the stair steps are.
|
Road tunnel system of Berlin 08, used stairs |
So, there really must
have been masses of people coming down the small
stair steps saving their lives in the halls here.
And this could have been also an air defense
door."
[Photo: stairs, at the end a big metal frame] |
Road tunnel system of Berlin 09, used stair
step |
Speaker:
According to the so called leader's program since october
1940 air defense bunkers in all bigger towns were
installed for the population.
[Photo: population walking through ruins aside a bombed
street]
They should enforce the will of resistance. And despite the
looming defeat most of the Germans in 1944 were loyal to
their leader (Führer).
[Photo: posters on ruins of houses:
-- "Unsere Mauern brachen - unsere Herzen nicht" ("Our walls
fell - our hearts not")
-- "Die Kriegsstadt Berlin grüsst den Führer!" ("The war
town
of Berlin is saluting the leader!"
-- "Führer befiehl - wir folgen!" ("Leader give order - we
follow!")
-- "Unsere Mauern brachen, aber unsere Herzen nicht." ("Our
walls fell, but our hearts not").
Home
front of Berlin 08, shield: "Unsere Mauern
brechen, unsere Herzen nicht" ("Our walls fall,
our harts not")
|
|
Home front of
Berlin 09, shield: "Die Kriegsstadt Berlin grüsst
den Führer!" ("War town Berlin saluting the
leader!") |
Home front of
Berlin 10, shield: "Führer befiehl, wir folgen!"
("Leader give order, we follow!") |
|
Home front of
Berlin 11, banner: "Unsere Mauern brachen,
aber unsere Herzen nicht" ("Our walls fall, but
our hearts not") |
26. Bunker town under Dortmund
Speaker:
In Dortmund there seems to be the biggest underground air
protection system of the Third Reich which is stayed
intact until now. The accesses are camouflaged because for
the unwanted guests it would be much too dangerous. From
time to time a team of the building authority is
controlling the facility.
Bunker system
of Dortmund 01, stairs |
Bunker system
of Dortmund 02, passing a corridor with casing
|
Ulrich Reckinger, state's building
authority Dortmund:
Bunker system of Dortmund 07, Ulrich Reckinger is telling:
|
"In this section here
should be an entrance from over-ground [photo:
unfinished tunnel with incline]. They did the
works from the base. As one can see raw material
is still lying there. Here is the original stone
which remained after the blasts. It has been
there for 60 years like this."
Question from unknown side:
"And when was this given up here?"
|
Bunker system of
Dortmund 08, raw material at the unfinished
tunnel |
Ulrich Reckinger:
Bunker system of Dortmund 09, Ulrich Reckinger is telling:
"Directly at the end of
the war. So, one was working at the facility up to
the end of the war, this means: April '45. We have
calculation documents from this time where one can
see that there was work going on there. One can
also see the tools which were left here. The
workers left the building site like this as you
can see it here."
[Photo: oxidized putty knife, oxidized shovel].
|
Bunker system
of Dortmund 10, old tools |
Speaker:
Since November 1943 above all war prisoners and
forced laborers were the workers here. Under the
work forces were also detainees of an outpost of
the concentration camp CC of Buchenwald.
[Photo: lots of trafficable tunnels with casing,
with crossings] |
Bunker system
of Dortmund 11, tunnel crossing |
It's said that after
the end of the war criminals sometimes used the
tunnel systems as a shelter fleeing from the
police,
and the empty tunnel system
was also used as a storage room for stolen goods.
In the 1960s
a reutilization for civil air protection was
discussed but was rejected. |
Bunker system
of Dortmund 12, tunnel with casing |
| Today
the
facility is empty. |
Bunker system
of Dortmund 13, dripstone ceiling |
Ulrich Reckinger, state's
building authority Dortmund:
"We are coming now to the section of the wider
area "Kölner Platz" ("Cologne place") [photo:
tunnel]. Here we have a beautiful plan
[Photo: plan] |
Bunker system
of Dortmund 14, Ulrich Reckinger with
a plan 01 |
from the year of 1943.
There one can see now how the facility had been
expanded when it had been fully completed.
|
Bunker system
of Dortmund 15, Ulrich Reckinger with a plan 02 |
This room [photo: tunnel]
should be built in too floors,
[Photo: plan of the tunnel with wooden
intermediate floor]
with a casing in wood keeping off humidity a
little bit and designing the whole facility a
little bit warmer, then parted into corridors and
single cabins, |
Bunker system
of Dortmund 17, plan 01 |
| fresh
air
and exhaust air shafts. But this extension has never
reached as it seems. The end of the war has put an
end to the works. Yes, I think we will go ahead
here. There [not understandable]." |
Bunker system
of Dortmund 18, plan 02 |
Speaker:
A public use is not foreseen. The state's authorities are
providing that the tunnels are not collapsing.
27. Kaiseroda / Merkers (Thuringia): loot was
placed in the bunker systems - the secret evacuation
by the allies
Film: Universal Newsreel: Title: "German Loot Discovered";
by Ed Herlihy.
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 01: film cover "German Loot discovered"
|
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 02: film, view of Kaiseroda (or
Merkers?) in Thuringia |
[Photo: portal of the
storage area. Writing:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Gemeinschaftslager Merkers der Wintershall
Aktiengesellschaft Kaiseroda"
("Common storage Merkers of the Wintershall
limited company of Kaiseroda"] |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 03: film, portal of the storage area of
Merkers |
"At
Merkers, Germany, this salt mine kept one of
the strangest war secrets. the detection provoked a
destroying financial blow to Germany a short time
before the end of the war. Here GIs found a fabulous
hord of jewelry, silver, currency, bullion, and art
treasures. Much of it is accumulated loof of 5 years
of war.
|
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 04: film, suitcase with valuables |
Practicly every museum in
Europe is represented in these master peaces
encluding Raffaels, Rembrandts, Van Dycks, and
many others masters works. They are now 1,200 feet
below the ground. The Nazis considered this a safe
hiding place and a bomb proof shelter."
[Photos: jewelry, cutlery, paintings, but no gold,
no bank notes].
|
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 05: film, silver cutlery in a suitcase |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 06: film, robbed pictures (looted art)
01 |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 07: film, robbed pictures (looted art)
02 |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 08: film, robbed pictures (looted art)
03 |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 09: film, robbed pictures (looted art)
04 |
Speaker:
The tunnels of the former potash salt mine of Kaiseroda are going far
passing wide areas of South Thuringia. In the course of the
decades the miners have digged 100s of km of tunnels in
several floors into the salty earth. The far branched tunnel
system is similar to a labyrinth. People wanting to keep
something secret here hardly has to be afraid that it will
detected.
[Photo: a driver is driving with an off-road vehicle in the
salt mine tunnels passing salt mountains].
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 10: ride passing the salt tunnel
labyrinth 01 |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 10: ride passing the salt tunnel
labyrinth 02, the driver |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 12: ride passing the salt tunnel
labyrinth 03 |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 13: ride passing the salt tunnel
labyrinth 04, a long tunnel |
After the end of East
Germany (GDR) the salt business is hardly running
yet,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Photo: a big, yellow shovel excavator shoveling
salt]
because the owners are
expecting more profit from tourism. The history of
the sensational gold discovery in 1945 shall
stimulate the fantasy of the visitors. Perhaps
there is hidden something here yet. The history of
the sensational hiding was reconstructed without
any doubt.
|
Salt mine of Kaiseroda 14,
shovel excavator loaded with salt
|
Hartmut Ruck, mine driver from K+S
Merkers:
Salt mine of Kaiseroda
15 and 16, Hartmut Ruck is telling 01 and 02
"In the months of
February and March of 1945 this track which we are
passing now
[Photo: salt tunnel]
was witness of the
warehousing of the financial gold and foreign
exchange reserves of Nazi Germany. After the
devastating air raid of 3 February 1945 in Berlin
- according to the documents - the president of
the Reichsbank of that time, Mr. Funk, came to
Hitler and wanted the evacuation to a safe place.
The choice fell to the mine of Kaiseroda 2,3, so
today's Merkers. And here the reserves were stored
with transports of the Reich's railway until
beginning of March.
|
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 17, a salt runway in the salt mine
|
Big parts of the mine
staff of that time consisted of foreign workers.
At least three quarters of the security and safety
staff were Germans yet. So, in genral it can be
admitted that it was known
what was going on here beneath the foreign workers
and prisoners of war working here, and by this the
American
occupants could - after the occupation of Merkers
on 4 April - find out rapidly the tracks to the
deposit opening the gold chamber here."
[Photo: the off-road vehicle is moving in a salt
mine, at the end one can see old, oxidized wagons]. |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 18, the runway with old wagons aside |
Speaker:
Financial experts and art experts of the Americans began at
once to evaluate the treasures. Rapidly it came out that
these were the gold and foreign currency reserves of the
Third Reich, and the stock of the museums of Berlin.
[Photo: gold bars are taken out of transport bags]
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 19, film, money bunches 01 |
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 20, film, money bunches 02 |
The part of stolen cultural
goods was not high in this case.
Later in the mines of Southern Germany and in Austria were
found
many robbed pieces of art being robbed by the Nazis. Some
precious pieces are said to be lost until today.
[Photo: bank notes in packages]
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 21, film, a money bag of the Reichsbank
|
Salt mine of
Kaiseroda 22, film, an Ami soldier is counting
banknotes |
28. Bunker plant Stuttgart: Killesberg
Step by step the allied
armies were invading whole Nazi Germany. On 22 April 1945
the American and French units conquered Stuttgart.
[Photo: military vehicles in a street with trolley wire]
Stuttgart-Killesberg
01, invasion of the Amis 01 |
Stuttgart-Killesberg
02, invasion of the Amis 02 |
The rest
of the German troop units were not defending the town any
more but capitulated in front of the superiority.
[Photo: a German soldier sitting quiet in a tank].
Deep in the Killesberg
Hill
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Photo: tunnel system, inscription on the wall
"Lotsenfunkstelle Kommandostab" ("pilot mobile
station staff of command") with arrows] |
Stuttgart-Killesberg
03, corridor 01 with signpost |
has
been
conserved a tunnel system which can be a testimony
of the last fight. From this command post
[Photo: command post, inscription on the white
painted wall: "Nachrichtendienst" ("Intelligence
service")] |
Stuttgart-Killesberg 04, corridor 02 with a counter
"Nachrichtendienst" ("Intelligence service") |
as it seems the Wehrmacht leadership of
Stuttgart was coordinating the last fight without sense.
Intelligence advisors and radio assistants were given orders
which only reached a few soldiers.
[Photo: writings on the wall: "Befehlsraum
Verbindungsführer" ("order room connection leader"),
"Kommandostab Lotsendienst Nachrichtendienst" ("staff of
command - pilot service - intelligence service"), red arrow]
The halls give the impression of being
untouched as if there had ended the war only yesterday.
[Photo: tunnel with concrete casing, text on the wall: "In
diesem Raum muss Ruhe und Ordnung herrschen" ("In this room
has to be calm and order")].
Stuttgart-Killesberg
08, corridor 06 with the counter "Funkstelle"
("radio post") |
Stuttgart-Killesberg
09, corridor 07 with the text on the wall: "In
diesem Raum muss Ruhe und Ordnung herrschen"
("In this room has to be calm and order")
|
As it seems the bank safe was opened by
force.
[Photos: a big opening with four lock devices; text on
the oxidized door: "Lotsenfunkstelle. Eintritt
verboten" ("Pilot mobile station. Entry forbidden")].
Stuttgart-Killesberg
10, place of the bank safe |
Stuttgart-Killesberg
11, oxidized shield "Lotsenfunkstelle. Eintritt
verboten" ("Pilot mobile station. Entry
forbidden") |
The rests of a gas mask
lying on the floor.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Photo: oxidizing gas mask without glasses].
|
Stuttgart-Killesberg
12,
rotting gas mask |
The door
to the office of the safety police is screened by shots.
Was here a last gunfight with the myrmidons of the regime?
[Photo: oxidized door with holes, bullet holes and wall
damages at the door behind].
Stuttgart-Killesberg
13, door |
Stuttgart-Killesberg
14, holes in the door |
Somebody
wanted to give his life for the leader (Fuehrer) although
all was lost already?
29. Bunker system at Obersalzberg: "Berghof":
almost 6 km
of bunker system completed
Speaker:
For a long time the allies feared that Hitler
had entrenched himself with his last contingent
on Mount Upper Salt (Obersalzberg) where the
Nazi leadership was maintaining a hermetic
sealed refuge since the 1930s.
[The peasants families on Mount Obersalzberg were
expropriated step by step being deported partly
against massive resistance].
[Air photos and idyllic fotos of the region of the
Obersalzberg]. |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 01, air foto of approx. 1940 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
02, houses 01 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
03, pit |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
04, houses 02 |
The dictator came to Berchtesgaden from
again and again, also during the wars, always with his
entourage, and when the leader (Führer) lingered here in the
heights he was guarded by hundreds of his security forces
and by the SS.
[Photo: Hitler with entourage in the buildings of Mount
Obersalzberg, guards with Hitler salute]
Obersalzberg-Berghof
05, Hitler on a stairs |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
06, Hitler walking up the stairs |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
07, government building |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
08, government building, air foto |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
09, government building, portal |
|
Let's go down to the
underground worlds of the Nazi hill.
[Photo: people are preparing to rope down a
shaft].
A team of measuring
engineers is researching and measuring there
systematically the underground bunker
facilities. Directly in the documentation center
of Mount Obersalzberg a shaft is leading 30m
down into the hill. Nobody knows what precisely
is down there. The wooden stairs already
collapsed decades ago.
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
10,
roping down a shaft 01, preparation
|
[Photo: people are roping down
passing the shaft, the wooden stairs is only existing in
parts].
Obersalzberg-Berghof
11, roping down a shaft 02 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
12, roping down a shaft 03 |
The team
and the equipment are carefully let down by a complicated
electric elevator rope. On the ground of the shaft the
experts think that there could be an entrance to a half
complete bunker facility of the SS.
[Photo: roping down passing the shaft].
Obersalzberg-Berghof
13, looking down the shaft xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
14, sight up the shaft with the remnants of the
wooden stairs |
The men find 350 meters of unfinished
tunnel corridors. First caverns had been cased with bricks
already, the cable shafts are partly concreted. The drift is
ending 60m deep in the rock.
[Photos of the tunnel in raw state, with bricked vaults,
cable shafts].
Obersalzberg-Berghof
15, tunnel with rubble |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
16, marching on a tunnel board |
Florian
Beierl is one of the best experts concerning Mount
Obersalzberg. Since his youth he is researching it's
history asking many witnesses. Beierl knows that the inner
of the brown hill looks like a rabbit burrow. The tunnel
and bunker system is almost 6 km long. And even bigger
facilities seemed having been in project.
There was worked feverishly in a three shift system until
a short time before the end of the war. The drills of the
miners were regrinded around the clock to stand out the
pressure of time. There were so many workers employed that
they were hindering each other. And who was chickening out
of Sunday work this had the consequence of a threat of the
site manager being threatened with the safety service.
Florian Beierl, expert of Mount Obersalzberg:
"Basically this is the last part of Mount Obersalzberg
bunker systems which is not documented nor measured yet.
It's an SS bunker being installed in an enormous depth -
widely under the existing tunnel systems - and because of
this, because of the long shaft which was built down here,
it was not accessible.
[Photo: measuring works, plan with the text: "SS-Bunker
(unerforscht)" ("SS bunker (not researched)")].
Obersalzberg-Berghof
17, measuring of a tunnel 01 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
18, measuring of a tunnel 02 |
By the
digital precise measuring it's the first time that the
complete picture of the whole underground Obersalzberg is
drawn.
[Photo: plan, electronically in a laptop]
Obersalzberg-Berghof
20,
plan 02 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
21,
plan 03 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
19, plan 01 |
|
Studying the last documents of the
Mount Obersalzberg administration concerning the tunnel
systems, and considering the testimonies about this - eh -
there comes the conclusion that this whole bunker area here
was planned for about 400 men SS as a protection tunnel. At
the same time in these huge halls which we have detected
today, there had been installed relatively big ammunition
deposits for the defense of this
so called Alps fortification."
[Photo: tunnels with the withdrawing engineers, the tunnel
is about 4-5 m high].
Speaker:
Add to this the measuring gave the result that the bunker
system of Hitler's Berghof begins in a distance of hardly
10m. Should the SS being employed to defend the leader
(Fuehrer) also underground?
Florian Beierl, Mount Obersalzberg expert:
Obersalzberg-Berghof 22, Florian Beierl, an expert for Mount
Obersalzberg, is telling:
"All in all there were
3,000 workers busy with the tunnel works at Mount
Obersalzberg. Looking at this part [photo: laptop
with plan], so one finds - eh - tunnel works in a
raw state, this means that is fragile rock which
is dominating here yet, up to the half complete
final increment as we can see around us with the
drainage bricks.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Photo: vault with a brick casing]
With the same number of workers work was
going on here uring four to five months yet with the
project using this tunnel system as a complete air
raid shelter." |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
23, dripstone vault |
Speaker:
Hitler's notorious secretary, Martin Bormann, was
managing the construction of the underground air
raid shelter facilities for the leader (Fuehrer)
at Mount Obersalzberg.
[Photo: Hitler and Bormann on the terrace of the
Obersalzberg].
Bormann had a big family and let construct a wide
bunker for them. This Bormann's Bunker can be seen
today with a special permission. |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 24, Hitler with Bormann on the
terrace |
[Photo: Bormann's children]
Obersalzberg-Berghof 25, the Bormann children 01 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 26, the Bormann children 02 |
In
those
times 77 steps were leading directly from Bormann's
house to the underworld.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Photo: stairs] |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 28, the
stairs to Bormann's bunker with 77 steps
|
Passing
an almost 60 meters long corridor one reached the
private rooms. As for safety against hostile
intruders bunkered machine gun stands were installed
also here.
[Photo: vaulted portal, painted in white] |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
29, the 60m long corridor to
Bormann's bunker
|
Florian Beierl, Obersalzberg expert:
"The whole bunker complex of Mount Obersalzberg was
autarchik and self-supporting, and really absolutely
autarchik, concerning the supply: there were own water
deposits, there was a poison gas proof air condition, there
were food deposits, and it had been possible to stay here
for a longer time. The problem had been only this: it had
not been possible to protect the entrances from
outside but only from the inner side to the outer side.
There was no fortification outside. This means: During a
siege the enemy could intrude up to the MG nests and one had
been defended from there.
[Photos: vaulted corridor labyrinth, painted in white]
29.1.
Bunker at Mount
Obersalzberg: the Bormann family
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
30,
Florian Beierl in the bunker rooms of
Bormann, the room has a light brown colour
at the low level, and the switchers are on a
children's height
|
Now in
this area the Bormann family was sheltered. There were
three different chambers - one can say - for the children:
Bunk beds were installed here. The chambers were air
conditioned. The interesting thing is for example that
here was consciously elected a warm colour for the wall
painting,
[Photo: room, in the lower part painted in beige, in the
upper part painted in white]
so this existence underground - eh - should not be in a
too destructive way. Eh - the light switchs were installed
for the children consciously lower. So the level of the
light switchs is almost 50 cm lower than normal.
[Photo: deeply installed light switch hole].
There were wooden floors. One has to imagine this: here
were standing the bunk beds. And as you see: here were
even pictures installed here. One can see the nails yet.
[Maybe there were hanging also other things like a jumping
jack and so on].
The Bormann family was living in this bunker area for
weeks, of course not only down here. They were in the
house and here. But the war situation, let's say, the
danger at Mount Obersalzberg by hostile bombers increased
extremely since the end of '43. So, the Bormann family has
really arranged itself here."
[Photos: corridors, rooms, walls torn down, tiled walls
with white tiles]
Obersalzberg-Berghof
31, Bormann's bunker, corridors and rooms |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
32, Bormann's bunker, tiled corner |
Speaker:
Bormann's bank safe was taken out by the
Americans at the end of the war. The frame can
be recognized yet.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Photo: White wall with grey rectangle and a brick
basement before]. |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
33, Bormann's bunker, bank safe's place
|
There was an intelligence center with
the latest facilities to get the latest radio messages and
news from the fronts.
[Photo: old radio facilities, text: "Endstufe 20, Endstufe
10, Endstufe, Empfänger, ...lautspre...", ("power 20, power
10, receiver, ...loudspe..."), partly oxidized,
"Netzspannung", "Netz" ("line voltage", "net")]
Obersalzberg-Berghof
34, Bormann's bunker, radio station |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
35, Bormann's bunker, detail of the radio station
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
36, Bormann's bunker, detail of the radio station
02 |
29.2.
Bunker at Mount
Obersalzberg: the bunker of Eva Braun
|
Also
for Hitler himself and for his lover Eva Braun
there was an underground town managed by the
secretary [Bormann]. The total entourage of the
dictator should be brought under the Berghof for
being safe from air raids.
[Photo: meeting of Hitler and Eva Brown and others
upright]
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
37,
meeting between Hitler and Eva Braun |
29.3.
Bunker at Mount
Obersalzberg: preparation for Hitler's last fight
In the beginning of April
1945 stocks were brought into the bunker. Also the allied
secret services believed that the dictator would be on
Mount Obersalzberg already.
US newsreel:
"The supposed security of Berchtesgaden
[Air foto: with mountains]
Obersalzberg-Berghof 38, US film, bomber squadron
flying to Obersalzberg-Berghof |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 39, US bomber |
|
from where so much
of the world's tragedy was planned and directed
was shattered in April by forced allied heavy
bombers. Arriving at day break they attacked
Hitler's notorious mountain hideout and the chalet
in the valley below with 12,000 pound bombs fused
for deep penetration.
[Photo: launch of bombs] |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
40,
US film, bombs on houses of the
Obersalzberg-Berghof |
The SS barracks nearby also received
accurate attention."
[Air foto: barracks in a rectangle order; photos of
explosions, accentuated with string music].
Obersalzberg-Berghof
41, US film, explosion |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
42, US film, SS barracks bombed |
Speaker:
The bombs destroyed most of the buildings. The
Berghof was uninhabitable. The sad rest of
Hitler's royal household survived in the
bunkers. Then the Americans came .
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|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 43, US film, bombed houses |
US
commander Omar Bradley going sightseeing on Mount
Obersalzberg.
[Photo: Omar Bradley coming with two assists in
lockstep]
Obersalzberg-Berghof 44, US film, Ami invasion 01 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 45, US film, Ami invasion 02,
Omar Bradley 01 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
46, US film, Ami invasion 03, Omar Bradley 02
|
The destroyed Berghof became an
attraction for the winners.
[Photos: white shield fixed on beams, text: "HITLER'S HOME";
soldiers enjoying the view and a guard keeping watch].
Obersalzberg-Berghof
47, US film, Ami invasion 04, shield "Hitler's
Home"
|
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
48, US film, Ami invasion 05, Omar Bradley
enjoying the view
|
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
49, US film, Ami invasion 06, a soldier is
guarding the site
|
Also the mysterious bunker facilities
are a part of the soldier's sightseeing program. Curiously a
GI of the US army is entering the leader's bunker for the
camera.
[Photo: soldier in a vaulted corridor]
Obersalzberg-Berghof 50, US film, Amis are on
sightseeing tour for the bunker 01 |
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 50, US film, Amis are on
sightseeing tour for the bunker 02 |
On 1800m2
Hitler and his last entourage had been able to endure here
for weeks.
[Photos: rooms without windows, painted in white, with
wooden door frames].
Obersalzberg-Berghof
52, bunker entrance with a red arrow 01 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
53, bunker entrance with a red arrow 02 |
Florian Beierl, expert of Mount
Obersalzberg:
Obersalzberg-Berghof 54, bunker entrance, Florian Beierl is
telling:
|
"On Mount Obersalzberg
it was expected that Hitler would arrive up to
the last day. One was prepared, the bunkers were
all arranged, and - eh - there was even coming
the advance guard of the Chancellery of the
Reich from Berlin. And one can maintain for
sure: When Hitler had come here this had
extended the war yet for some time. From here it
would have been possible - considering the
logistics - to go on steering and leading the
heap of rubble which remained at that time."
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
55,
bunker room with wooden trash on the floor
|
When on May 1, 1945, the radio
announced Hitler's death above all security agents were
plundering the staying remnants of their boss. Later there
were local civilians of Berchtesgaden who could serve
themselves of the heaps of stocks with the permission of the
Americans.
[Photo: a soldier is marching through the corridors and
passing a book shelf].
Hitler's private archive had been burnt from one of his
adjutants in time yet. The staying library in the bunker,
the discs and the paintings were confiscated by the
Americans.
[Colored photos: vaults without windows, painted in white,
wooden floor, little stone heaps and pieces of wood on the
floor; old pictures in black and white: many paintings in
the deposit with GI; the same GI in another room with a
disc].
Obersalzberg-Berghof 56, US film, picture collection |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 57, US film, an Ami soldier
takes a file from a shelf |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 58, US film, an Ami soldier has
a record in his hands |
29.4.
Bunker at Mount
Obersalzberg: Eva Braun's rooms
|
Also
in Eva Braun's sleeping room there had been
unauthorized people
making wild parties at the end of the war.
[Photo: room with furniture in pieces, a GI]
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 59, US
film, the Ami soldier is entering the bunker room
of the leader's bunker (Fuehrerbunker)
|
In April 1945 the caverns were ready
for occupancy, filled with the considerable wardrobe and
with porcelain.
[Photo: room with a floor lamp on the floor, with books on
the floor,
a GI, a champagne bottle and a champagne glass on a
chest of drawers, the GI is "testing" the double bed,
wardrobe and porcelain are not shown].
|
By
special request of the leader's lover an own
bathroom with a bath tub was installed.
[Photo: a GI entering the bath room, the bath tub
is not shown].
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|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 63, US
film, sight to Eva Brown's bathroom in the
leader's bunker (Fuehrerbunker)
|
Today there cannot be
seen much any more.
[Photo: vault, painted in white, beautiful tiles
in the lower part]
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
64, the bath room of Eva Braun with a tiled wall |
The rooms are empty as
they were swept. But despite of this again and
again criminal treasure hunters are breaking into
the facility for searching the mysterious
labyrinth.
Right aside Eva Braun's cavern was the one of the
leader (Fuehrer). It's said to be arranged in a
spartanic way. The furniture was removed by the
Americans. The rest was falling into tourists
hands. Even the tiles of the bathroom [of Eva
Braun's bathroom] were taken as doubtable
souvenirs.
[Photo: vaulted room without tiles].
Hitler himself had been here only one single time.
He decided himself for the downfall in Berlin.
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 65, vaulted room
without tiles
|
^
