Wolf's Lair - Fears of Air Attack; Reinforcement

Fears of Air Attack; Reinforcement

In her memoir Until the Final Hour, published in English translation in 2003, one of Hitler's secretaries, Traudl Junge (née Humps), writes that in late 1943 or early 1944, Hitler spoke repeatedly of the possibility of a devastating bomber attack on the Wolfsschanze by the Western Allies. She quotes Hitler as saying, "They know exactly where we are, and sometime they’re going to destroy everything here with carefully aimed bombs. I expect them to attack any day."

Junge notes that when Hitler’s entourage returned to the Wolfsschanze from an extended summer stay at the Berghof in July 1944, the previous small bunkers had been replaced by the Organisation Todt with "heavy, colossal structures" of reinforced concrete as defense against the feared air attack. According to Armaments Minister Albert Speer, "some 36,000,000 marks were spent for bunkers in Rastenburg ." Junge describes Hitler’s bunker, the largest, as "a positive fortress" containing "a maze of passages, rooms and halls." Junge writes that, in the period after the July 20 assassination attempt until Hitler finally left the Wolfsschanze for the last time in November 1944:

"... we had air-raid warnings every day ... but there was never more than a single aircraft circling over the forest, and no bombs were dropped. All the same, Hitler took the danger very seriously, and thought all these reconnaissance flights were in preparation for the big raid he was expecting."

No air attack ever came. Whether the Western Allies knew of the Wolfsschanze's location and importance never has been revealed.