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 the Neckar
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 detainees brought back to the Reich up to the last day
10. Underground airplane production plant:
Muehldorf on the Inn: 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:
Castle "Fuerstenstein" ("Stone of Prince")
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 Stuttgart: Killesberg
29. Bunker system at Obersalzberg:
"Berghof": almost 6 km bunker systems completed
29.1. Bunker at Obersalzberg:
The Bormann family
29.2. Bunker at Obersalzberg:
Bunker for Eva Braun
29.3. Bunker at Obersalzberg:
Preparation for Hitler's last fight
29.4. Bunker at 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 gigantic engineering projects of
human history: Bomb safe production plants for the Third Reich.
[Foto:
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 over 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 "Fuehrer".
[Foto: Armament minister Speer with a task force]
|
Introduction:
Hitler with entourage |
The remnants of the
mammoth project can be seen only by few people today.
[Foto: Tunnel caretaker in a tunnel].
|
Introduction: Tunnel
caretaker Heinz
Rabe |
100s of
millions
of Reichsmarks were expended to undercut whole mountains. Production
plants for strategic armaments should be installed in long tunnel
systems for miles.
[Fotos: Tunnel caretaker in a tunnel system with a water basin].
Introduction: Basin in the tunnel system |
Basin in the tunnel system with tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe |
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 [Fotos: Tunnel workers with pit and shovel moving some stones
in a tunnel].
Introduction: Pickax on rubble 01 |
Introduction:
Pickax on rubble 02 |
Introduction: Forced laborer moving the rubble 01
|
Introduction:
Forced laborer moving the rubble 02 |
But how near
were the
Nazis at the triumph of the crazy project? What had been when the
armament production underground would have performed on full speed? Had
Hitler's war of extermination required some millions more death
victims? [Fotos: tunnels, armament production, e.g. cartridges,
concrete-lined hall].
Introduction: Encasing works 01
|
Introduction:
Encasing works 02 |
Introduction:
Lorry in a tunnel 01
|
Introduction:
Lorry in a tunnel 02 |
Introduction: 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
|
Text flash of
the title
of the film:
"The Underground Reich. The Secret Worlds of the Nazis. A Film by
Michael Kloft."
(orig.:
"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
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 Oberammergau.
[Foto:
Slope]
Hidden from the view of curious people there is a mysterious tunnel
system built by the Nazis [and the detainees]. The only
entrance is closed by a concrete plombage. Only a mining expert of
the state can open it because in a rhythm of some years he has to make
an
inspection.
[Foto: Opening a concrete wall at the entrance with tophat
drillings in a circle order so at the end there is falling out a big
peace of concrete giving free 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: Sight through the hole. |
For about 20
underground
tunnel systems in South and East Germany Heinz Rabe has the
responsibility. He has to control if the safety of the 60 years old
systems is guaranteed yet.
[Foto: Heinz Rabe entering the tunnel]
Oberammergau: Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe 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, rotting wooden casing |
Oberammergau: Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe seen from the back
|
Heinz Rabe,
tunnel
caretaker in S and E 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 construction. According
to the plans there were 3 or 4 entrances to the plant. We just opened
one of them, the other ones had been shot 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 which then served the bomb save
production plant."
[Foto: 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 |
3.
The
dimension of the tunnel constructioning: 340 building sites, 400
pseudonyms, 800 projects
Speaker:
340 building sites were known to the allies already
before the end of the war. In the Third Reich over 400 plants had got
pseudonyms already. The plans of armament department tell us of about
800.
Nazi leadership had hesitated for a long time beginning with the
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 put the weapon
production underground systematically.
|
Meeting of Nazi leadership 03
|
First industry was against this change
although the horrendous costs were taken over by the Reich. The plans
seemed to be conceived too poorly, and the performance seemed to be too
chaotic.
|
Nazi leadership walking to the conference
|
The conference making the Hitler salute before the Nazi leadership
|
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 the Neckar
Speaker:
First the Nazis had
enlarged mines which already existed.
[Foto: Slope at the Neckar]. |
Neckarzimmern: Slope at the Neckar |
At the board of the
Neckar one of the first projects was performed, pseudonym "Neustadt"
("New Town"). 120 m deep under the vineyard there is hidden the a huge
underground tunnel system today.
|
Neckarzimmern:
Slope at the Neckar, zoom
|
Already before 150 years
there was plaster winning there. During First World War there was an
explosive production plant installed in the tunnels. Since 1937 the
tunnels were an ammunition deposit.
[Foto: 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.
[Foto: 2 latrines in a tunnel in bare brickwork].
|
Neckarzimmern: Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe in the tunnel from the back
|
The iron door
is leading
into an underground town [Fotos: Concrete-lined, white painted tunnels
with tarred lanes].
Neckarzimmern:
Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe in the tunnel from the back in front of a
door |
Neckarzimmern: Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe stepping through the door
|
Neckarzimmern:Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe walking on a tunnel road
|
Through 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
there should have been created a gigantic weaponry,
|
Neckarzimmern:
Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe and a military vehicle with
an Y number
|
and
partly it was
put into operation since spring 1944.
|
Neckarzimmern: Sight on a tunnel crossing |
Today
the plant has
a surface of 170,000 m2.
[Foto: Parked bicycles in an illuminated tunnel].
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Neckarzimmern: Sight into tunnel no. 9, parked bicycles
|
|
Since decades units of Bundeswehr have their
bases at Neckarzimmern.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Neckarzimmern: Electric transport vehicle in the tunnel
|
Neckarzimmern: The tunnel door leads to workrooms of the Bundeswehr
|
Holger Glatz,
Oberammergau:
[talking about the Situation 1939-1943, and since 1957]:
Neckarzimmern: Lieutenant colonel Holger Glatz is telling
<During Second World War there were installed two
production
plants here: One was for ammunition packaging things of 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 provide for
supply of
weapons and spare parts.
|
Neckarzimmern: Bundeswehr in tunnel 01, workroom 01 |
Defense department is
charging the maintenance for 1.6 mio. Euro per year.
|
Neckarzimmern: Bundeswehr in tunnel 02, workroom 02 |
| [Fotos: workrooms
without windows]. |
Neckarzimmern: Bundeswehr in tunnel 03, workroom 03 |
Holger Glatz
[situation today (2003 apr.)]:
<Today here is the deposit for theft-prone
material,
above all material worth being protected in this underground plant, for
deposit and being reinstalled.
|
Neckarzimmern: Bundeswehr in 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, the humidity is
constant, and by this we have only little expense for conservation or
packages.
|
Neckarzimmern: Bundeswehr in tunnel 05, measuring instrument
|
Add
to this this plant
can be protected easily with some few entrances and fresh air tunnels.
So, also the expense for protecting for this big plant is little
compared to others.>
[Foto:
Workshops without windows, stockrooms without windows]. |
Neckarzimmern: Bundeswehr in tunnel 06, inscription "Zutritt verboten"
("access prohibited")
|
Speaker:
Where today is a deposit for the peace missions in Kosovo and
Afghanistan there should have been armament production 60 years ago.
|
Neckarzimmern: Bundeswehr in tunnel 07, military equipment 01 |
The expansion should cost at
least 50 mio. Reichsmark. Almost half of it was ready at
the end of the war.
|
Neckarzimmern: Bundeswehr in tunnel 08, military equipment 02 |
5.
The dimensions of the tunnel constructioning: 80% of the warfare
industry shall be brought into the 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 to stop
the supply for Hitler's Wehrmacht was not achieved first. [Fotos:
Bombings].
Allied air attack against Schweinfurt 01, bombers |
Allied
air attack against Schweinfurt 02,
bombers let fall 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.
[Fotos:
damaged house front, burnt motor station, burnt fuel deposit station,
burnt tank station].
Bombed armament industry 01: The hall is damaged and under
reconstruction
|
Bombed armament industry 02: Burnt motor station
|
Bombed armament industry 03: Burnt fuel station
|
Bombed armament industry 04: Burnt tank station
|
6.
Underground fuel deposits near Bremen: working until today
Speaker:
Facilities which were considered as "decisive for the
outcome of the war" had an especially good camouflage to withdraw them
from the views of the allied reconnaissance planes. So, already in the
mids of the 1930s the fuel deposits of Nazi Germany were brought
underground into the bunkers. Near Bremen there is such a deposit which
is
working also today, over 60 years later.
Fuel deposit Bremen 01: Grove at the entrance |
Fuel
deposit Bremen
02: Entrance, upper part |
Fuel
deposit Bremen
03: Entrance with lane |
Fuel
deposit Bremen
04: Corridor 01 |
Fuel
deposit Bremen
05: Corridor 02 |
Fuel
deposit Bremen
06: Station attendant
|
The state's
owned
facilities have to be serviced periodically. Only trained staff is
allowed to go down into the tanks. The huge tanks can contain 4,000 m3
fuel and are built of 12 mm thick ship steel, covered by 1 m thick
concrete. All in all there are 80 of them.
Fuel
deposit of Bremen 07:
Descent 01 |
Fuel
deposit of Bremen 08:
Descent 02 |
Fuel
deposit of Bremen 09:
Tank, total perspective |
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.
NS propaganda film 1944:
"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
-- the torture by the SS guards
-- the blasting operations at the rocket].
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:
Pickax on 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
|
Forced
laborers at Kahla 08:
Slaves bearing wood
|
Forced
laborers at Kahla 09:
Concrete mixer
|
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 should be installed an airplane production plant. The
pseudonym was: "Lachs" ("Salmon").
|
Lorry at
Kahla in 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.
[Fotos: 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
<For sure the technical concept was rationally elaborated, and with
respect to
the air dominance of the allies over Germany it was substantial. Of
course the methods were of a sheer madness. The machinery which was
kept
always under fire always could be foreseen that it was coming to the
brink, that was the end of the Third Reich. And this was happening
under inhumanities which were performed, one cannot understand this any
more as a normal thinking human being with a normal feeling.>
[Fotos:
tunnel labyrinth in bare brickwork]
NS
propaganda film
1944:
"The German leadership announced: The German sky has to be liberated."
[Fotos: Jet fighter]
Walpersberg near Kahla 06: Jet fighter ME262, sight from the side
|
Walpersberg near Kahla 07: Jet fighter ME262, front view
|
Our inventors and
constructors, they will through airplanes against the mass of enemy
terror
bombers which will unconditionally win in the defense and in the
attack." [Foto: Engine]
Walpersberg near Kahla 08: Jet fighter ME262 is composed |
Walpersberg near Kahla 09: Jet fighter ME262, engine |
Walpersberg near Kahla 10: Jet fighter ME262 with mechanic |
[Supplement:
Hitler
ordered that this jet fighter was reconstructed into a jet bomber. This
costed 1 1/2 years development time.
In: Nicolaus von Below: Als Hitlers
Adjutant [As Hitler's Adjutant] 1937-1945, Mainz 1980, S./p.355
And: This jet fighter was developed in 1939 allready but Hitler did not
want it in his wars indicating that the high acceleration of the jet
fighter would harm the brain of the pilotes.
In: Nicolaus
von Below: Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937-1945; Hase
& Koehler-Verlag, Mainz 1980; Pour le Mérite - Verlag für
Militärgeschichte, Postfach 52, D-24236 Selent, 1999.
Well, Hitler had his brain damage
(Parkinson) also without having performed a flight in the jet
fighter...]
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. [Foto: Airfield with jet
fighters]
Walpersberg near Kahla 11: Jet fighter ME262 airfield |
Walpersberg near Kahla
12: Jet
fighter ME262 is rolling by |
Walpersberg near Kahla
13: Entrance into the 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 rumours that every
month should be constructed 1,200 jet fighters. 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.>
The not
completed tunnels
were leading to the real core of the plant: 4 huge underground halls
where should be performed the work on 27,000 m2.
Heinz Rabe,
Tunnel
caretaker in S and E 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: hall, the other end |
Walpersberg near Kahla
20: Tunnel caretaker Heinz Rabe telling |
Speaker:
On the totally hollowed out back of the mountain 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. [Foto: Back of
the mountain with runway]
Walpersberg near Kahla
21: Runway on the back of the mountain 01 |
Walpersberg near Kahla
22: Runway
on the back of the mountain 02 |
Herbert
Roemer, former
detainee at Walpersberg
near Kahla:
Walpersberg near Kahla 23:
Herbert Roemer telling, testimony
<I can remember two starts yet of the Me-262. 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 peculiarly 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...]
9.
Dimensions of the tunnel constructioning: 100,000s detainees brought
back to the Reich up to the last day
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, the death did not come allways in the death camp in Poland, but in
the tunnel constructioning, but some also survived this].
10.
Underground airplane production plant: Muehldorf on the Inn: approx.
2,000 deaths
Speaker:
In February 1945 Max Mannheimer came from
Auschwitz to Muehldorf on the Inn.
Mühldorf on the Inn 01: Former Auschwitz detainee Max Mannheimer from a
distance |
Mühldorf
on the Inn 02: Former Auschwitz detainee Max Mannheimer |
Max
Mannheimer, former Auschwitz
detainee at Mühldorf
on the Inn
Mühldorf
on the Inn 03: Former
Auschwitz detainee Max Mannheimer is
telling giving his testimony
<We
knew
that there should be built up an underground airplane production plant.
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 the Inn 04,
hall |
Then there was made the
decision that all should be put underground. Here for example there
should be the plant 3 levels under the earth, 3 levels over the earth.
So, this was appearing to me 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.>
[Foto: Building site with wide stone wall] |
Mühldorf
on the Inn 05,
building site
|
Speaker:
On a length of 400 m should be built up a 5 m thick
concrete shell as a hall for a production hall. About 2,000 detainees
were dying during the works.
|
Mühldorf
on the Inn 06,
the hall, sight from the side
|
Max Mannheimer, former
Auschwitz detainee at Mühldorf on the Inn:
<The main works consisted in earth movements,
carrying
iron and cement. This was really the worst commando, and it was
feared.
|
Mühldorf
on the Inn 07,
armoring irons for the further construction were already set
|
In these 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 the Inn 08,
tunnel approach with rail track |
Speaker:
Max Mannheimer's weight at the end of the war was 37 kg.
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.
[Fotos: Camp with people in detainee uniform, cooking in the street,
searching barrels]
CC Dachau at the end of the war 01: Arrival of a freight train with a
guard
|
CC
Dachau at the end of the war 02: Detainee lying on the
ground 01 |
CC
Dachau at the end of the war 03: Detainees almost dead
in a box wagon |
CC
Dachau at the end of the war 04: Detainee lying on the
ground 02
|
CC
Dachau at the end of the war 05: Walking detainees
|
CC
Dachau at the end of the war 06: Detainees cooking a
soup in the street
|
CC
Dachau at the end of the war 07: A detainee spooning
his soup
|
CC
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.
Signboard
over the tunnel portal: <Feldhaus Bergbau "Glückauf"> (Engl.:
<Country house mining "Good luck">)
Doggerwerk near Hersbruck 01: Portal, upper part
|
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 [by the detainees].
|
Doggerwerk near
Hersbruck 03:
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 they
were never used.
|
Doggerwerk near
Hersbruck 04:
tunnel crossing
|
[Foto: Construction
machine in the tunnel]
Speaker:
Under the Nazi authorities the plant had the pseudonym
"Esche 1".
Heinz Rabe, tunnel
caretaker:
<We come now to the part of the heading. Here there
was planned to drift the tunnel. We see this because there are drill
holes
|
Doggerwerk
near Hersbruck 08: Tunnel caretaker
Heinz Rabe showing at drill holes |
| - you see here the black
spots - |
Doggerwerk
near Hersbruck 09: drill holes
|
have been prepared for
the explosive charges. And when one has luck one can find aside the
drill pipe which is sticking yet -
|
Doggerwerk
near Hersbruck 10: drill pipe
|
this is the original -
one can find yet in the drill holes -
|
Doggerwerk near Hersbruck
11: drill hole with explosive cartridge
|
here we have one -
explosive cartridges.
|
Doggerwerk near Hersbruck
12: explosive cartridge 01 |
So, the drilling holes
were already loaded.
|
Doggerwerk near Hersbruck
13: explosive
cartridge 02 |
So, it was ready to be
blasted,
|
Doggerwerk near Hersbruck
14: explosive
cartridge with powder
|
and from one to another
day it stopped, and they were left all here."
|
Doggerwerk near Hersbruck
15: Tunnel |
Speaker:
Over 9,000 detainees from the CC
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 S and E
Germany, is showing a plan with the tunnels in rectangles:
<There was projected a plant of a total of good 100,000 m2
and about 15,000 m2
were realized. The whole plant should have drifted forward here. One
can see this on these beginnings. The tunnels all are 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 7.5 km
tunnels had been realized, and a part of it, about 10 percent, already
got a concrete casing, and the rest was practically in a raw state yet.
The plant should be ready for the 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]:
On the order of the American occupation forces the tunnel
portals were walled up after the war. The left plant was forgotten.
From time to time CC detainees come here to remember of 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].
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 manner of the Third
Reich is was named V2, V for "Vergeltung" (Engl.: recompense). [Fotos:
rocket V2 set up]
Rocket V2, ground with rocket wings |
Rocket V2, top of the rocket with a worker
who is polishing the top of the rocket
|
|
The rocket technician
Wernher von Braun had developed the new missile type A4 and had brought
it to production.
[Foto: 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.
[Foto: starting 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.
[Fotos: A rocket cannot get it's liftoff, is falling and exploding on
the launching pad].
Rocket V2, failure 01, the rocket begins to incline |
Rocket
V2, failure 02,
the rocket is falling |
Rocket
V2, failure 03,
the rocket is striking on the ground |
Rocket
V2, failure 04,
the rocket is exploding on the ground 01 |
Rocket
V2, failure 05, the
rocket is exploding on the ground 02 |
There is an
unimpressive
back of a mountain in the Harz Mountains.
[Foto: a back of a mountain].
Kohnstein 01, the back of the mountain
In the middle of April in 1945 American troops reached the town of
Nordhausen. In
the shadow of Kohnstein mountain they find a concentration camp with
cadaverous detainees and many dead bodies.
[Fotos: GIs entering the camp; men sitting in the sun, one sees the
ribs, 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 at 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
Mittelbau-Dora are reporting to the liberators about the mysterious
tunnel in the mountain, about a very secret rocket factory where they
had to work as slave workers of the SS.
[Fotos: GIs
in the production plants].
Kohnstein 08, Danger sign "Gefahrenzone" ("danger area") |
Kohnstein 09, Ami soldier before a rocket head |
Kohnstein 10, Ami soldier before a tunnel portal |
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.
[Fotos: Tunnel in raw state with wooden intermediate floor].
Kohnstein 11, tunnel with wooden intermediate floor 01
|
Kohnstein 12, tunnel with wooden
intermediate floor 02 |
Jens-Christian
Wagner, historian of the memorial place Mittelbau-Dora:
Kohnstein 13, 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 what 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 illnesses, 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 from 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 250.000 m2
big tunnel system of the Kohnstein is mostly closed because the stay in
the unsafe tunnels is dangerous for life. Only men from mining safety
are going in from time to time to control 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 by the collectors.
[Fotos: Tunnel with oxidizing rocket parts, partly in the seepage
water].
Kohnstein 14: Broken parts in the tunnel |
Kohnstein 15: Marching through a tunnel with broken parts 01 |
Kohnstein 16: Tunnel with broken parts from the rocket plant 01 |
Kohnstein 17: Tunnel
with broken parts from the rocket plant 02, a wheel on an axis 01 |
Kohnstein 18: Tunnel
with broken parts from the rocket plant 03, a wheel on an axis 02 |
Kohnstein 19: Tunnel
with broken parts from the rocket plant 04 |
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 in a distance
|
Kohnstein 21: Former
Auschwitz detainee Peter Wolff |
Peter Wolff,
former Auschwitz detainee:
Kohnstein 22: Former
Auschwitz detainee Peter
Wolff is telling, testimony
<We
detainees were brought by railway from the barracks Nordhausen to the
tunnel system every morning. We were considered the "death commando"
and we also named 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. The 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.
[Foto: Tunnel with broken parts].
|
Kohnstein 23: March through a tunnel with broken parts 02 |
All in all the armament department had
projected 200 million Reichsmark
to create the gigantic
underground industrial area on 600,000 m2.
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 only seldom was working fluently.
|
Kohnstein 25, marching through a tunnel with broken parts 03 |
[Fotos:
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 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 there were
ordered changes by the development plant of the A4 rocket at
Peenemuende - there were ordered changes of production which were
incorporated into the ongoing production process with the corresponding
consequences: Over the half of the rockets did not function.>
|
Kohnstein
28: Rockets set up
|
Speaker: .
Seldom color fotos, taken by Hitler's cameraman
Walter Frentz.
[Fotos: Detainees composing rocket parts].
Kohnstein 29: Detainees working at a rocket
|
Kohnstein 30: Detainees working on electronics 01
|
Kohnstein 31: Detainees working on electronics 02 |
Under the
instruction of German technicians the elected detainees were composing
the rockets of about 45,000 single parts.
Kohnstein 32: Detainees on rocket parts
|
Kohnstein 33: Work on a rocket wing
|
Kohnstein 35 and 36, rocket
|
Kohnstein 34: Detainee on 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]:
After the end of the war first British and American 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.
[Fotos: Oxidizing rocket parts in the seepage water].
Kohnstein 37, rack in the water |
Kohnstein 38, rocket engine in a water slop in a distance
|
Kohnstein 39, rocket
engine in a water slop |
Kohnstein 40, rocket part, pipe |
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 the Kohnstein the production was
almost invulnerable.
[Foto: 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 at 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 the Kohnstein were detected on the
photos to a meter, and one has - eh - thought about it a long time to
through e.g. phosphor bombs or similar things through 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 the
liberators see the whole horror of the camp system of Mittelbau Dora.
[Fotos: The 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, 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 [foto: human bodies on
the floor, partly the ribs are strongly visible, obviously dead]
Kohnstein 50, dead detainees 01 |
Kohnstein 51, dead detainees 02 |
Kohnstein 52, dead detainees 03 |
|
one accustoms to it some
time. Early in the morning there was the roll-call inspection. 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 givin his testimony
|
They also were
counted, isn't ? One was always happy that one was alive in the
evening. I was asked many times: "Why was there no resistance
against the SS people?" and so on. Then I have to say always: "When we
were alive in the evening we had made enough resistance
during all day long".>
The
V2 hit England - Goebbels's logic against England
NS newsreel 1944:
<We present to you the first fotos of the V2 on it's flight
to England. Secrecy affords that the fotos are taken from a greater
distance. So there is only a weak impression of the real proportions of
the V2. In a raving velocity the slender steel is going up into the
stratosphere.>
[Fotos: Rocket in the sky, add to this dramatic orchestral music]
NS newsreel 1944 01, rocket liftoff 01 |
NS
newsreel 1944
02, rocket liftoff 02 |
NS
newsreel 1944
03, rocket liftoff 03 |
NS
newsreel 1944
04, rocket liftoff 04 |
NS
newsreel 1944
05, rocket liftoff 05 |
|
Speaker:
The target of the lethal weapon was above all London. On 7
September 1944 the first V2 hit the center of the British main town.
[Fotos:
Ruins and rescues in London].
London 1944 01: Tower Bridge, air foto |
London 1944 02: Ruins after 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 dead on a barrow is brought away
|
London 1944 06: A dead on a barrow is covered 01 |
London 1944 07: A dead on a barrow is
covered 02 |
London 1944 08: A dead on a barrow is
covered 03 |
London 1944 09: A dead on a barrow is
brought away,
long shot
|
The Nazi
leadership
wanted to send 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: Hello with Hitler salute 01 |
Goebbels
speech 1944 02: Hello with Hitler salute 02
|
Goebbels
speech 1944
03: Goebbels speaking |
Goebbels
speech 1944
04: Public applauding |
Goebbels
speech in a
stadium 1944:
<After
the heavy attacks against the capital of the Reich Berlin I had
declared: "There will come the hour when we will pay this back to
the English." The English press attacked me the following day very
hardly and was mockingly putting the question if the new weapon that I
had announced would have been invented in the propaganda department
instead 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, 40 m large and 75 m long. The German engineers believed that
the 5 m thick concrete ceiling would be impenetrable. In summer 1944
British special forces proved the contrary.
[Fotos: Concrete ruins].
Launching pad bunker in Watten 01, corridor
|
Launching pad
bunker in Watten 02, concrete
ceiling 01 |
Launching pad
bunker in Watten 02, concrete
ceiling
02 |
Launching pad
bunker in Watten 04, ruins and
corridor
|
The incomplete
plant was heavily damaged by bombs and was unusable for the launching
of V weapons. After the attack the inner of the gigantic plant was
changed into a plant for fuel production.
[Foto: High halls of concrete with intermediate floors of wood, 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.
[Foto: Model in two dimensions of a V2 fixed on a wall, the ground is
under water].
Launching
pad bunker in Watten 11, rocket model in two dimensions 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 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 be fighted.
[Fotos: Transport of V2 rockets on railway wagon and on single
carriages].
NS film: Rocket is loaded 01 |
NS
film: Rocket is loaded 02
|
NS
film: A 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.
[Foto:
erected V2 on a carriage ready for launch].
|
NS film: A
rocket is erected on a carriage
|
NS
film: A rocket is set up on a carriage
|
[Stalin's
armament
industry developed parallely the "Stalin organ": with several rockets
staying
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 was
decisive because they had to worry about the moral in the population.
For us this was simply a job which we fulfilled. We knew the
significance but we had no idea of the further effects.>
[Foto: British
bomber squadron].
|
GB bomber
squadron, sight from the cockpit
|
Speaker:
The so called "Dambusters", the 617 squadron of the Royal
Air Force, was put into action always when the British secret service
had
identified military point targets, as also the launching pads of the V
weapons were.
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 Vizernes 01, dome |
The
local
population call the gigantic roof "La coupole" (engl.: "the dome").
[Foto: Dome and construction plan of the dome].
|
Launching
pad bunker Vizernes 02, dome, long
shot
|
In the inner it was
planned that the warheads were installed on the rockets like on an
assembly line.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
Launching
pad bunker 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 Vizernes 04, plan of the
corridor to the launching pad
|
|
There
was planned a
storage capacity of 500 rockets.
[Foto: struck tunnel].
|
Launching
pad bunker 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.
[Fotos: Long tunnels, long tunnels in raw state, filled wagons, tunnel
with wooden casing].
|
Launching
pad bunker 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.
[Foto: The hall which was begun: The core of the hall is of stone
existing yet].
|
Launching
pad bunker 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 Vizernes 08, unfinished
hall 02 |
Bob Knight,
British bomber pilot of the special unit "Dambusters" (translation):
<It was necessary that we disharmed this plant
[Foto: Dome and concrete rubble, exterior view],
|
Launching
pad bunker Vizernes 09, dome, long
shot
|
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.
[Fotos: 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.
[Fotos: Rectangular, deep bomb craters around the dome].
Launching
pad bunker Vizernes 10, bomb crater
01 |
Launching
pad bunker Vizernes 11, bomb crater 02 |
Launching
pad bunker 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 Mimoyecques 01, sight on
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.
[Foto: Concrete ruins]
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 |
To put an end at Hitler's
dream of a so called "England canon" one single "Tallboy" bomb was
enough. It crashed through the 6 m thick concrete ceiling and exploded
in the inner of the mountain.
There were 100 m long transversal shafts which were blasted into the
mountain by forced laborers
[Foto: Plan] |
Launching
pad of bunker Mimoyecques 05, plan |
for whole batteries of a
new kind of "high pressure pumps". These canons "V3", also called
"Fleissiges Lieschen" ("busy Lisette") should launch grenades up to 200
km far. What kind of grenades the England canon should launch with a
speed of one km per second is not clear. Rumors tell about biological
or chemical combat agents. There is no proof for that.
[Foto: Tunnel with casing and in raw state]. |
Launching
pad of bunker Mimoyecques 06, tunnel |
After the successful bomb
attack the plant was unusable, but it was not completely destroyed.
Today
some of the 60 years old tunnels can be seen. A model of the so
called "millipede" remembers of the perfidious idea of the Nazis.
[Foto: transversal tunnel with pump system] |
Launching
pad of bunker Mimoyecques 07,
pumping system in a transversal tunnel
|
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.
[Fotos: Big Ben;
Churchill walking with entourage]
|
London, Big Ben,
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.
[Foto: Churchill in a car in front of the Buckingham palace].
|
Churchill in a car with 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.
[Foto: Track ending on street of paving stones; beginning of a turnout]
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 01, track
|
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 02, track with forest aisle
|
NS
propaganda film
1944: "Kampfstoffe" ("combat agents"):
NS film "Kampfstoffe" 01 Cover "Kampfstoffe" ("combat agents")
|
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."
[Fotos:
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.
[Foto: 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, the USA
and the Soviet Union had big 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.
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[Foto: Cat gets efflux from the mouth]. |
NS film "Kampfstoffe" ("combat agents") 09, the 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.
[Foto: Dr. Hoffmann opens an oxidized iron door].
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 03, Dr. H. Hoffmann from a distance |
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 04, Dr. H. Hoffmann opens the door |
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.
[Foto: Long hall with big bays, only one floor, grass is growing on the
roof].
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 05, front 01 |
Chemical plant 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.
[Foto: concrete building, about 15 m high].
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 07, heat and power station in bricked work
|
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 08, heat and power station, zoom |
The chemists
had brought
their laboratories to Falkenhagen already.
Dr. Hoffmann, local historian:
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 11, Dr. H. Hoffmann is telling.
"There
was a new process of production: This was the combat agent Sarin. And
this combat agent should be produced here in Falkenhagen in a
world-scale plant.
[Foto: Interior view of the incomplete production hall, the heat and
power station in bricked work in the background].
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 09, sight into the inner 01 |
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 10, sight into the inner 02 |
Sarin has effect
especially against the breathing system. Who is in contact with this
combat agent - and it's enough when for example one droplet is
evaporating in one m3 air - so, one will suffocate within 6
minutes with beating hart. The respiration is put out of commission."
Speaker:
Until this date the chemical weapons had been visible for
the soldiers on both sides. So, the action with gas masks was always
exercised. But Sarin was new. One could not see it, not smell it, not
taste it. The death came without any warning.
[Foto: NS film: Fighting scene; soldiers with gas masks]
It's said that Hitler had forbidden the use of gas because he himself
had almost got blind in the First World War. But the production of
sarin he ordered himself. Had he hesitated to use the new weapon when
it had be available for him? With a monthly production of sarin the
Nazis had been able to depopulate a large city like London.
[Fotos:
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
packing their facilities in Falkenhagen. Nothing should remind of the
project to the winners.
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[Foto: Empty halls with big bays] |
Chemical
plant 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:
A 80 m 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.
[Foto: Corridor half underground in concrete walls]
Chemical plant Falkenhagen 14, entrance to a corridor half underground
|
Chemical plant 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 push in Austria beginning of
May 1945. The sad remnants of the Wehrmacht have capitulated and are
marching into captivity. Fotos 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
|
On 8 May the war
reporters reach the concentration camp CC Ebensee which was 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").
[Fotos: Detainees with ribs heavily standing out; detainees covering
deads, carrying deads away].
Ebensee 04, long shot from above |
Ebensee 05, the camp
|
Ebensee 06, emaciated detainee |
Ebensee 07, emaciated
detainee |
Ebensee 08, detainees making rest on suitcases
|
Ebensee 09, dead bodies are loaded on a trolley
|
Ebensee 10, detainee on a barrow
|
|
Speaker
[situation today
and in 1943]:
Today one time a day there is coming a diesel engine to the
mountain to transport the lime which 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 in to action. But above all in the former tunnel "A" the
former destination can be recognized yet.
[Foto: A red diesel engine is coming into the two laned tunnel and
wagons are connected].
Ebensee11, shunting locomotive coming |
Ebensee12, wagon train in the tunnel |
30 m high are
the halls
in which it was supposed to assemble even intercontinental ballistic
missiles under leadership of SS supreme group leader Hans Kammler.
[Fotos: 30 m high hall with concrete casing]
Ebensee13, hall 01
|
Ebensee14,
hall 02 |
Ebensee15, hall 03 |
So, the latest
model, the 26 m high A9, would even reach the USA. This was the
ambitious plan of the Nazis.
20 exemplars per month should be assembled in Ebensee. [Foto:
wagon train in the tunnel]
The A9 was not tested any more. The inventor Wernher von Braun could go
to the USA after the end of the war without any problem to devote his
rocket research to "new bosses". The precise number of victims of his
work in duty of Hitler is unknown. [Foto: wagon train 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.
[Foto: 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 the train, Hitler in front of it 01
|
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 04, Mussolini
looking through the window of the train, Hitler in front of it 02 |
In
Eastern Prussia
on 250 hectares there was sheltered the Fuehrer's headquarters and the
operational headquarters of the Wehrmacht. It was protected by three
trap circuits which were heavily guarded. The tracks which were once
the way to the meeting between the allied with the headquarter have
become overgrown today.
[Foto: overgrown tracks] |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 05, the track to
the Wolf's Lair today (2003)
|
The former Wolf's Lair is
an expanse of rubble [Foto: big concrete ruins aside of the tracks].
Before their withdrawal the Germans blasted all buildings. The rest was
working out the Red Army. Hitler's private bunker is a shapeless block.
Yet in 1944 all important buildings in the core of the trap circuit had
been arched over by massive ferro concrete buildings [Foto: 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 also he had almost always been at
the side of Hitler.
[Foto: Mr. Misch coming out from concrete ruins].
The return after 60 years is performing in another way than it was
expected from the former bodyguard of the dictator. He has difficulties
to recognize something in the ruins.
|
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 07, former
bodyguard Rochus Misch in a distance
|
Rochus Misch, Hitler's bodyguard:
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 08, former
bodyguard Rochus Misch is telling, testimony
"My
god, that's huge. They were... The former living barracks, there were
about two perhaps, at most three m high, and now there is such a
colossus there. I am shaken what has been of it because all is in good
remembrance how it had been normally, all here [Foto: blasted concrete
bunker]. This happened in a no time procedure, incredible, but real.
How fast they did this. In some weeks the whole territory has changed
here, within some weeks. There were the flat barracks before. When one
entered there, there were a [not understandable] to the right. There
was the big room where were the briefings, a big table in it, and this
was fairly constrained. That was not big. The huge had been created
only afterwards." [Foto: 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
([Foto: high concrete wall]. The briefings were temporarily in a near
positioned wooden barrack, as it was also on midday of 20 July 1944
[Foto: soil]. Hitler had asked his generals for talks. Some adjutants
and servants also were in the room. On 16 minutes before one the
supreme commander [Hitler] was bending over the big map table [Foto:
Soil with basement]. In this moment there was exploding a bomb, which
was 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.
[Foto: destroyed wooden barrack]
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 09, Fuehrer's
barrack after assassination 01 |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 10, Fuehrer's barrack
after assassination 02 |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 11, Fuehrer's barrack
after assassination 03 |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 12, Fuehrer's barrack
after assassination 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 never were anxious. We never recognized that somebody was anxious.
<There won't happen anything to me>.
[Foto: Hitler
visits 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. The 20 July
was happening, and the next days were performed normally. There was
welcomed Mussolini, 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 even was not known to the
narrowest assistants.
[Foto: huge concrete rubble of the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair)] |
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) 16, concrete
expanse of rubble |
The Owl Mountains,
[Foto: Owl Mountains in a distance] |
Owl Mountains 01, back of the mountain 01 |
an area in former Lower
Silesia. In the backs of the mountain near the Polish little town
Gluszyca there are hidden the really most abnormal legacies of the
Third Reich.
[Foto: Landscape] |
Owl
Mountains 02, back
of the mountain 02 |
A Polish and a German
hobby historian made it their business to investigate the extraordinary
underground plants. Somewhere in the forest of the so called "Heights
of Drunks" there is a mysterious gullet of 48 m going down. It could be
an elevator shaft in raw state, this mean the experts.
[Foto: 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") come here since many years to get new
perceptions.
And not only the gigantic hall with wooden casing is a proof that the
Nazis had planned here something big.
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[Foto: Hall in the
mountain, at least 8 m 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, association "Berliner Unterwelten" ("Berlin
Underground Worlds"):
Owl
Mountains 11,
Juergen Mueller is telling
"All
in all there are 7 underground tunnel systems. 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. There were employed about 40,000 humans here in this area
in the Owl Mountains for forced labour practically.
Here in the tunnels
[Foto: 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 there was bad food. So
you can imagine - well - that there were many deaths here."
Speaker:
When the Soviet conquered Lower Silesia at the end of April
1945 they found the gigantic 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 1000s of detainees were blasted into
the tunnel systems and were buried alive and the tunnel portals were
camouflaged. There is presumed that there are big mass graves in the
tunnel systems yet].
[Foto: 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,
Jacek Duszczak is telling
"Basically
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 pause for breath
and after it the workers would continue their work."
Speaker
Rooms
with concrete casing for the guards and loopholes for the armored
machine gun installations are witnesses of the significance of the
plant. Because since November 1943 under strong secrecy there was built
a new Fuehrer's headquarter. Pseudonym: "Riese" ("Giant").
[Fotos: 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 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.
[Foto:
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
Grossrosen.
[Foto: 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
Grossrosen, fence 01 |
[Fotos:
Barbed wire, loudspeaker, barrack, gallows, outer sight of the portal
with the inscription: "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" ("WORK MAKES FREE")].
CC Grossrosen, fence 02 with the main house from the side
|
CC Grossrosen, loudspeaker |
CC Grossrosen 04, fence 03 with main house, front |
CC Grossrosen 05, corridor |
CC Grossrosen 06, portal 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 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.
[Foto: Cruise in the tunnel system with an inflatable boat]
Owl
Mountains 19
and 20, Juergen Mueller und 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
"Riese" ("Giant") have been lost at the end of the war.
|
Owl
Mountains 21,
dripstone ceiling
|
[Foto: 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 there should be installed a huge underground
production plant for the production of "wonder weapons". But 60 years
later it's not easy to separate facts from rumours.
Jacek
Duszczak,
local historian (translation):
Owl
Mountains 24,
Jacek Duszczak is telling
"We
have the information that all detainees have been evacuated at the end
of the war, up to these who should camouflage the facilities. From
these any track is lost, and also from these who were the guard of
this. Of course this is unconfirmed information.
[Foto: 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: Castle "Fuerstenstein" ("Stone of
Prince")
In former times
on castle Fürstenstein ("Stone of Prince") bei Waldenburg
[Polish.: Walbrzych] was residing the prince of Pless.
[Foto: castle]
Waldenburg
castle Fürstenstein 01: Sight of the castle
In 1940 the considerable possession of the Churchill family members was
put under forced administration. Four years later there began
considerable reconstruction works. 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.
By this 35 architects from the "Speer building staff" were working
under most severe secrecy for an underground bunker system with direct
accession to the castle.
[Fotos: Castle, pompous interior view]
Waldenburg castle Fuerstenstein 02, interior view 01, painted ceiling
|
Waldenburg castle Fuerstenstein
03, interior
view 02,
painted wall with doors |
Waldenburg castle Fuerstenstein
04, interior
view 03, hall
|
Waldenburg castle Fuerstenstein
05, interior
view 04,
hall with suite
|
When danger
was coming an
elevator should bring the leader ("Fuehrer") 50 m deep to private rooms
into the hill. 3200 m2
floor space were projected alone for the dictator and his first
entourage.
[Foto: Tunnel, partly in bricked work, partly with casing].
Waldenburg castle Fürstenstein 06, breakthrough to the tunnel |
Waldenburg castle Fürstenstein
07, castle bunker, corridor 01
|
Waldenburg castle Fürstenstein
08, castle bunker, corridor 02
|
Waldenburg castle Fürstenstein
09, castle bunker, hall |
Juergen
Mueller,
association "Berlin Underground Worlds":
"The basic idea was among others that this should be the last leader's
headquarter. So, there were installed underground tunnel systems for
each of the leading personalities of the Third Reich here. 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 itself
Speaker:
At the home front these activities were absolutely
unknown.
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[Foto: street bombed out]. |
Home front Berlin 01: Group of people in bombed street
|
The people's community
hardly saw the leader.
[Foto: bombed street with burnt tramway].
|
Home
front Berlin
02: Burnt tramway
|
Almost every day and
night the humans fled to their bunkers before the bomb attacks.
|
Home
front Berlin
03: Road in ruins |
Because the towns were
systematically razed to the ground.
[Foto: Rubble women] |
Home
front Berlin
04: Women are forming a bucket chain to remove the rubble (rubble women)
|
For the
propaganda camera
head of Nazi district Joseph Goebbels was demonstrating confidence in
the ruins of the Berlin Hedwig's cathedral.
[Foto:
Goebbels with entourage in ruins]
Home
front Berlin
05: Hedwig's cathedral in ruins, interior view |
Home front 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 the rebuilding of the main town of
the Reich were stopped since a long time. The few complete facilities
were converted into war facilities.
[Foto: Crossing in Berlin taken from a house converted into a
fortress]. |
Home front Berlin
07: Road with fortress
|
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".
[Foto: Opening of a shaft cover]
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|
Road tunnel 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.
[Foto: Descent on a ladder with helmet and lamp]
Road tunnel Berlin 02, descent 01 |
Road tunnel Berlin 03, descent 02 |
Dietmar Arnold:
Road tunnel Berlin 04, Dietmar Arnold
in the road tunnel
Dietmar Arnold is telling:
"Yes, we are here almost 9 m 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 90 m long, 14 m large, 4.8 m 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
Limes), and the north-south axis has never been completed. Yes, and
this is the rest of the pompous plans.
[Foto: Tunnel which is staying approx. 20 cm under water]
|
Road tunnel Berlin 05, staying
approx.
20 cm under water
|
Only in 1967 the tunnel
was rediscovered. The ceiling has been refurbished once. This can be
seen here, too. One can calculate that it's cheaper when the facility
is maintained as when it will be filled up."
Speaker:
There were never cars driving through this tunnel. As
it seems there was put in a partition wall during a war.
|
Road tunnel 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 to this.
[Foto: oxidized lamp on the ceiling] |
Road tunnel Berlin 07, old lamp
|
In the last corner of the
tunnel Dietmar Arnold found indications that the tunnel was also used
by the Berlin population as 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 formed the stair steps are.
|
Road tunnel Berlin 08, used stairs
|
So, there really had to
be masses of people coming down the small stair steps into the halls
here. The whole could have been also an air defense door."
[Foto: Stairs, at
the end a big metal frame]
|
Road tunnel Berlin 09, used stair step
|
Speaker:
According to the so called leader's program there were
installed air defense bunkers in all bigger towns for the population
since October 1940.
[Foto: Population walking through ruins aside a bombed street]
They should enforce the keep up will. And despite the looming defeat
most of the Germans in 1944 were in loyalty to their leader (Fuehrer).
[Foto: Posters on ruins of houses:
-- "Unsere Mauern brachen - unsere Herzen nicht" ("Our walls
fall - our hearts not")
-- "Die Kriegsstadt Berlin grüsst den Führer!" ("The war
town Berlin is saluting the leader!"
-- "Führer befiehl - wir folgen!" ("Leader give order - we
will follow!")
-- "Unsere Mauern brachen, aber unsere Herzen nicht." ("Our
walls fall, but our harts not").
Home front Berlin 08, shield: "Unsere Mauern brechen, unsere Herzen
nicht" ("Our walls fall, our harts not") |
Home
front Berlin
09, shield: "Die Kriegsstadt Berlin grüsst den
Führer!" ("War town Berlin saluting the leader!") |
Home
front Berlin
10, shield: "Führer befiehl, wir folgen!" ("Leader give order, we will
follow!")
|
Home
front 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 Dortmund 01, stairs |
Bunker
system Dortmund
02, marching through a corridor with casing
|
Ulrich Reckinger,
State's building authority Dortmund:
"Well, in this section here,
[Foto: Air defense door after the stairs]
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|
Bunker
system Dortmund
03, gas sluice door |
there
is a typical
distinctive feature of air defense facilities: these gas sluice doors.
They always have a leading lock [?]. By this one could produce an over
pressure in the facility and when there was a gas event out of doors
there could be hindered that [not understandable]."
|
Bunker
system Dortmund
04, Ulrich Reckinger staying in the gas sluice door (air protection
door) and telling
|
Speaker:
After the first major offensive of the allies in
Dortmund it came out that the public air defense facilities were
insufficient.
|
Bunker
system Dortmund
05, lying frames |
And by this one began to
build a huge tunnel system under the center of the town. Up to 16 m
under the earth there should be a shelter for 80,000 people from the
bombs. 5 km of the facility have been completed.
[Foto: tunnel with casing with crossing] |
Bunker
system Dortmund
06, tunnel crossing
|
Ulrich Reckinger,
state's building authority Dortmund:
Bunker
system Dortmund
07, Ulrich Reckinger is telling
|
"In this section here
should be an entrance from over-ground [foto: unfinished tunnel with
incline]. They did the works from the base. As one can see the raw
material is still lying there. Here is the original stone which stayed
after the blasts. It's lasting now almost for 60 years like this."
Question
from unknown side:
"And when was this given up here?"
|
Bunker
system Dortmund
08, raw material at the unfinished tunnel
|
Ulrich Reckinger:
Bunker
system 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."
[Foto: Oxidized putty knife, oxidized shovel].
|
Bunker
system 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
detainee of an outpost of
the concentration camp CC Buchenwald.
[Foto: lots of trafficable tunnels with casing, with crossings]
|
Bunker
system Dortmund
11, tunnel crossing
|
It's said that after the
end of the war there were criminals sometimes in the tunnel systems
fleeing from the police underground and used also the empty tunnel
system as storage room for stolen goods. In the 1960s there was
discussed a reutilization for civil air protection and was rejected.
|
Bunker
system Dortmund
12, tunnel with casing
|
| Today
the facility
is empty. |
Bunker
system 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") [Foto: tunnel]. Here we have a beautiful plan
[Foto: plan]
|
Bunker
system Dortmund
14, Ulrich Reckinger with plan 01 |
from the year 1943. There
one can see now how the facility had been expanded when it had been
fully completed.
|
Bunker
system Dortmund
15, Ulrich Reckinger with plan 02 |
This room [foto: tunnel]
should be built in too floors,
[Foto: plan of the tunnel with wooden intermediate floor]
with a case in wood to keep off the humidity a little bit and to design
the whole a little bit warmer, then parted into corridors and single
cabins,
|
Bunker
system Dortmund
17, plan 01 |
fresh
air and
exhaust air shafts. But this extension never has 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 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 Kaiseroda 01: Film cover "German Loot discovered" |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
02: Film, view of Kaiseroda (or Merkers?) in Thuringia |
[Foto: Portal to the
storage area. Writing:
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"Gemeinschaftslager Merkers
der Wintershall
Aktiengesellschaft Kaiseroda"
("Common storage Merkers of the Wintershall limited company Kaiseroda"]
|
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
03: Film, portal of the storage area Merkers
|
"At
Merkers, Germany,
this salt mine hold one of the strangest secrets of the war. A secret
it was to deal German y a crushing financial blow during the last days
of the conflict. Here GIs uncovered a fabulous hord of jewelry, silver,
currency, bullion, and art treasures. Much of them is accumulated loof
of 5 years of war.
|
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
04: Film, suitcase with valuables |
Practicly every museum in
Europe is represented in these master peaces which enclude Raffaels,
Rembrandts, Van
Dycks, and many others masters works. They are now 1,200 feet below the
ground. It was - the Nazis considered - this a safe hiding place and a
bomb proof shelter."
[Bilder von Schmuck, Besteck, Bilder,
aber kein
Gold, keine Banknoten] |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
05: Film, silver cutlery in a suitcase
|
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
06: Film, robbed pictures (looted art) 01 |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
07: Film, robbed
pictures (looted art) 02 |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
08: Film, robbed
pictures (looted art) 03 |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
09: Film, robbed
pictures (looted art) 04 |
Speaker:
The tunnels of the former potash salt mine of Kaiseroda are going far through wide
areas of South Thuringia. In the course of the decades the miners have
digged 100s of km tunnels in several floors into the salty earth. The
far branched tunnel system is similar to a labyrinth. Who wants to keep
something secret here hardly has to be afraid that it will detected.
[Foto: A driver is driving with an off-road vehicle through the tunnels
of the salt mine passing salt mountains].
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
10: Ride through the salt tunnel labyrinth 01 |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
10: Ride through the salt tunnel labyrinth 02, the driver |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
12: Ride
through the salt tunnel labyrinth 03 |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
13: Ride
through the salt tunnel labyrinth 04, long tunnel
|
|
After the end of the GDR
the salt business is hardly running yet,
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[Foto: ab big,
yellow shovel excavator with an excavator shovel full of 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 yet something here. The history of the
sensational hiding was reconstructed without any doubt.
|
Salt mine Kaiseroda
14,
shovel excavator loaded with salt
|
Hartmut
Ruck, mine driver from K+S
Merkers:
Salt mine Kaiseroda 15 and
16, Hartmut Ruck is telling 01 and 02
"In the months February
and March of the year 1945 this track which we are passing now
[Foto:
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 on Berlin - according to the documents - the president of the
Reichsbank of that time, Funk, came to Hitler and wanted the evacuation
practically to a safe place. The choice fell to the mine Kaiseroda 2,3,
so today Merkers. And here the reserves were stored with transports of
the Reich's railway until beginning of March.
|
Salt mine Kaiseroda 17,
salt
runway in salt mine
|
Big parts of the staff of
the mine of that time consisted of foreign workers. At least three
quarters of the staff for security related things were Germans yet, so
in the abstract it can be admitted that it was known beneath the
foreign workers and prisoners of war who were working here, and by this
the American could - after the occupation of Merkers on 4 April -
find out rapidly where the gold chamber is."
[Foto: Further salt mines in the off-road vehicle, at the end old,
oxidized wagons] |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
18, 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.
[Foto: Gold bars are taken out of transport bags]
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
19, film, money bunch 01 |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
20, film,
money bunch 02 |
The part of
stolen
cultural goods was not high in this case.
In the mines of Southern Germany and in Austria were found later many
robbed pieces of art robbed by the Nazis. Some precious pieces are said
to be lost until today. [Foto: bank notes in packages]
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
21, film, money bag of the Reichsbank |
Salt
mine Kaiseroda
22, film, 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.
[Foto: 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 did not defense the town any more and capitulated before
the superiority.
[Foto: A German soldier sitting quiet in a tank].
Deep in the Killesberg
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[Foto: 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 testimony of the last fight. From this
command post
[Foto: 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.
[Foto: Writings on the wall: "Befehlsraum
Verbindungsführer" ("order room connection leader"), "Kommandostab
Lotsendienst
Nachrichtendienst" ("staff of command - pilot service - intelligence
service"), red arrow]
Stuttgart-Killesberg 05, corridor 03 |
Stuttgart-Killesberg 06, corridor 04 |
Stuttgart-Killesberg 07, corridor 05 with guideposts |
The halls
give the impression to be untouched as if there had ended the war only
yesterday.
[Foto: tunnel with concrete casing, text on the wall: "In diesem
Raum muss Ruhe und Ordnung herrschen" ("In this room there 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 safe was opened by force.
[Fotos: 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 safe |
Stuttgart-Killesberg 11, oxidized shield "Lotsenfunkstelle. Eintritt
verboten" ("Pilot mobile station. Entry forbidden") |
The rests of a gas mask
lying on the floor.
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[Foto: 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?
[Foto: 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 bunker system
completed
Speaker:
For a long time the allies feared that Hitler had entrenched himself
with his last contingent on the Obersalzberg where the Nazi leadership
was maintaining a hermetic sealed refuge since the 1930s.
[The peasants families on
the Obersalzberg were step by step expropriated and deported partly
against massive
resistance].
[Air
fotos and idyllic fotos of the region of the Obersalzberg]
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof01,
air foto of approx. 1940
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 02, houses 01 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 03, pit |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 04, houses 02 |
Also during
the wars the dictator with his entourage had come to Berchtesgaden
again and again, and when the leader (Fuehrer) lingered here in the
heights he was guarded by hundreds of his security forces and by the SS.
[Foto: Hitler with entourage in the buildings of the 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
|
|
Descent to the
underground worlds of the Nazi hill.
[Foto: 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
Obersalzberg a shaft is leading 30 m down into the hill. What precisely
is down there nobody knows. The wooden stairs already collapsed decades
ago.
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
10, roping down a shaft 01, preparation |
[Foto: The people
are roping down through 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 safed
electric roping down elevator. On the base of the shaft the experts
presume the entrance to a half complete bunker facility of the SS.
[Foto: Roping down into the shaft].
Obersalzberg-Berghof 13, looking down the shaft
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|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 14, sight up the shaft with the remnants of the
wooden stairs
|
The men find
350 meter unfinished tunnel corridors. First caverns had been cased
with bricks already, the cable shafts partly concreted. The drift is
ending 60 m deep in the rock.
[Fotos 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 the Obersalzberg. Since his youth
he is researching his history and asked many witnesses. Beierl knows
that the inner of the brown hill looks like a rabbit burrow. Almost 6
km long is the tunnel and bunker system. And even bigger facilities
seemed having been in project.
There was worked feverishly in a three shift system until shortly
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 one hindered the other. And who was chickening
out of Sunday work so the site manager was threatening him with the
safety service.
Florian Beierl,
Obersalzberg expert:
"This is basically the last part of the Obersalzberg bunker
systems which
is not yet documented and not yet measured. It's an SS bunker which
was 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.
[Foto: Measuring works, plan with 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.
[Foto: Plan, electronically in a laptop]
Obersalzberg-Berghof
20, plan 02 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof
21, plan 03 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 19, plan 01 |
|
When one
sees the last documents of the Obersalzberg administration concerning
the tunnel systems, and considering the testimonies with 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 possible
relatively big ammunition deposits for the defense of this allegedly
Alps fortification."
[Foto: 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 10 m. Should
the SS employed to defend the leader (Fuehrer) also underground?
Florian Beierl,
Obersalzberg expert:
Obersalzberg-Berghof 22, Florian Beierl is telling:
"All in all there were
3,000 workers busy with the tunnel works at the Obersalzberg. When one
looks at this part [foto: laptop with plan], so one finds - eh -
increments from raw state, this means fragile rock which is dominating
here, up to the half complete final increment like it's here to see
around us with the drainage bricks.
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[Foto: vault with brick casing]
With the same
number of workers one had to work on here four to five months yet so
the tunnel system had been usable 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 the Obersalzberg.
[Foto: Hitler and Bormann on the terrace of the Obersalzberg].
Also for his big family Bormann let construct a wide bunkers which can
be entered only with a special permission today.
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 24, Hitler with Bormann on the terrace
|
[Foto: Bormann's
children]
Obersalzberg-Berghof 25, the Bormann children 01 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 26, the Bormann children 02 |
In that
times 77
steps were leading directly from the Bormann house into the underworld.
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[Foto: stairs] |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 28, the stairs to the Bormann bunker with 77 steps
|
Over an
almost 60
meters long corridor one reached the private rooms. As for safety
against hostile intruders there were installed bunkered machine
gun stands also here.
[Foto: vaulted portal, painted in white] |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 29, the 60 m long corridor to the bunker rooms of
Bormann
|
Florian Beierl,
Obersalzberg expert:
"The whole bunker complex of the Obersalzberg was autarchik,
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 the 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.
[Fotos:
vaulted corridor labyrinth, painted in white]
29.1.
Bunker at Obersalzberg: The Bormann family
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
30, Florian Beierl in the bunker rooms of Bormann, the room has light
brown colour at the low level, and the switchers are in children's
height
|
Now in this
area was
sheltered the Bormann family. There were three different chambers - one
can say - for the children: Bunk beds were installed here. The
chambers were air conditioned. The interesting is that for example here
was consciously elected a warm colour,
[Foto: Room, in the low part painted in beige, in the upper part
painted in white]
so this existence underground - eh - should not be in a too wasteful
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 at other places.
[Foto: 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 hanging pictures here. One can see the nails yet.
[Can be that there were hanging also other things like a jumping jack
and so on].
And the Bormann family was here in this bunker area for weeks, of
course not only down here. They were in the house and here. But the air
situation, let's say, the danger at the Obersalzberg by hostile bombers
increased extremely at the end of '43. So, the Bormann family has
really arranged itself here."
[Fotos: 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 safe was taken out by the Americans at the
end of the war.The frame can be recognized yet.
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[Foto: White wall with grey rectangle and a brick basement before].
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
33, Bormann's
bunker, safe's place |
There was an intelligence
center with the latest facilities to get the latest radio messages and
news from the fronts.
[Foto: 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, radio
station, detail |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 36, Bormann's bunker, radio
station detail
02 |
29.2.
Bunker at Obersalzberg:
Bunker for Eva Braun
|
Also for Hitler himself
and for his lover Eva Braun there was a underground town managed by the
secretary [Bormann]. The total entourage of the dictator should be
brought under the Berghof and be safe from air raids.
[Foto: meeting of Hitler and Eva Brown and others upright]
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|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
37, meeting between Hitler and Eva Braun
|
29.3.
Bunker at Obersalzberg: Preparation for Hitler's last fight
In the beginning
of April 1945 the stocks were brought into the bunker. Also the allied
secret services believed that the dictator would be on the 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.
[Foto: 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; fotos 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 the Obersalzberg.
[Foto:
Omar Bradley comes 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.
[Fotos: 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 keeping
watch
|
Also the
mysterious bunker facility are a part of the sightseeing program of the
soldiers. Curiously a GI of the US army is entering the leader's bunker
for the camera.
[Foto: Soldier in a vaulted corridor]
Obersalzberg-Berghof 50, US film, Ami bunker sightseeing 01 |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 51, US film, Ami bunker sightseeing 02 |
On 1800 m2
Hitler and his last entourage had been able to endure here for weeks.
[Fotos: 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,
Obersalzberg expert:
Obersalzberg-Berghof 54, bunker entrance, Florian Beierl is telling:
|
"On the Obersalzberg one
counted on the coming of Hitler 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 had been possible - considering the
logistics - to steer and to lead the heap of rubble which remained at
that time."
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof
55, bunker room in ruins
|
When
on 1 May 1945 the radio announced Hitler's death above all security
agents were plundering the staying remnants of their boss. Later it
were the local civilians of Berchtesgaden who could serve themselves of
the heaps of stocks with the permission of the Americans.
[Foto: As 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, they were confiscated by the Americans.
[Coloured fotos: 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 Obersalzberg:
Eva
Braun's rooms
Also in Eva Braun's
sleeping room there had been unauthorized people and making wild
parties at the end of the war.
[Foto: Room with furniture in pieces, GI]
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|
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.
[Foto: Room with floor lamp on the floor, books on the floor, GI,
champagne bottle and champagne glass on a chest of drawers, the GI is
"testing" the double bed, wardrobe and porcelain are not shown].
Obersalzberg-Berghof 60, US film, the Ami soldier is examining a
champagne bottle |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 61, US film, bathroom of Eva Braun |
Obersalzberg-Berghof 62, US film, the Ami soldier is testing Eva's bed
|
By special request of the
leader's lover there was installed an own bathroom with a bath tub.
[Foto: GI entering the bath room, bath tub is not shown].
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|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 63, US film, the bath room of Eva Brown in the
leader's bunker (Fuehrerbunker)
|
Today there cannot be
seen much any more.
[Foto: Vault, painted in white, beautiful tiles in the lower part]
|
Obersalzberg-Berghof 64, bath room of Eva Braun, tiled wall
|
The rooms are like swept.
But despite of this again and again criminal treasure hunters are
breaking into the facility to search the mysterious labyrinth.
Right aside Eva Braun's cavern was the one of the leader (Fuehrer).
It's said to be arranged spartanic. The furniture was removed by the
Americans. The rest was falling into the tourists hands. Even the tiles
of the bathroom [of Eva Braun's bathroom] were taken as doubtable
souvenirs.
[Foto: 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
|
