Vorbunker

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Schematic diagram of the Vorbunker as it was in April 1945

The Vorbunker (the upper bunker) or "forward bunker" was located behind the large reception hall that was added onto the old Reich Chancellery, in Berlin, Germany. It was meant to be a temporary air-raid shelter for Adolf Hitler, his guards, and servants. The bunker was officially called the "Reich Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter" until 1943, with the construction to expand the complex with the addition of the Führerbunker, located one level below.[1] On 16 January 1945, Hitler moved into the Führerbunker. He was joined by his senior staff, Martin Bormann, and later, Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels who, with his wife Magda and their six children, took residence in the upper Vorbunker. The Goebbels family lived in the Vorbunker until their deaths on 1 May 1945.[2]

Construction

In 1933, Adolf Hitler decided to expand the Reich Chancellery (German: Reichskanzlei), which he considered too small for his needs.[3] On 21 July 1935, Leonhard Gall submitted plans for a large reception hall (that could also be used as a ballroom) to be built onto the old Chancellary. The drawings were unique because of the large cellar that led a further one-and-a-half meters down to a bunker.[3]

The Vorbunker's roof was 1.6 metres thick, which was twice as thick as the bunker underneath the nearby Air Ministry building. The thick walls of the Vorbunker supported the weight of the large reception hall overhead. Construction was completed in 1936.[4]

The Führerbunker was built by the Hochtief company as part of an extensive program of subterranean construction in Berlin.[5] It was finished by 1944 and was connected to the Vorbunker by a stairway set at right angles (they were not spiral). The two bunkers could be closed off from each other by a bulkhead and steel door which had a permanent guard detail.[6] The Führerbunker was located about 8.5 metres beneath the garden of the old Reich Chancellery building at Wilhelmstraße 77, about 120 metres north of the new Reich Chancellery building, which had the address Voßstraße 6. The Führerbunker was located 2.5 meters lower than the Vorbunker and to the west-southwest of it.[7] The accommodations for Hitler were moved to the newer, lower Führerbunker and by February 1945 it had been decorated with high-quality furniture taken from the Chancellery, along with several framed oil paintings.

Events

3D-Model of Führerbunker (left) & Vorbunker (right)
The first air-raid drills for the Berlin central government district, which included the Reich Chancellery,[8] occurred in the autumn of 1937. The protocol for the drills stated, in part:
"To carry out the air raid drills, a precise regulation is required for the three office buildings, Wilhelmstraße 77, Wilhelmstraße 78 and Voßstraße 1...The officials and residents of Wilhelmstraße 78 and Voßstraße 1 can go to the substitute shelters in Wilhelmstraße 78 and Voßstraße 1. The inhabitants of the Reich Chancellor House, Wilhelmstraße 77, will use the shelter under the ballroom."[9]

The only residents of Wilhelmstraße 77 were Adolf Hitler, his bodyguards, adjutants, orderlies and servants. It is unknown if the Vorbunker was used before 16 January 1945, the day that Hitler moved into the lower Führerbunker. Thereafter, the Vorbunker was used by various military officers and also housed men from Hitler's personal bodyguard. In April 1945, as the Battle in Berlin raged on, Joseph Goebbels showed his strong support for Hitler by moving himself and his family into the Vorbunker.[10] One of the rooms they occupied had been recently vacated by Hitler's personal physician, Theodor Morell. Two rooms in the Vorbunker were used for food supply. Another room was the kitchen which had a refrigerator and a wine store. Frau Constanze Manziarly, Hitler's personal cook/dietitian, made meals therein.[11]

On the evening of 1 May 1945, Goebbels arranged for an SS dentist, Helmut Kunz, to kill his six children in the Vorbunker by injecting them with morphine and then, when they were unconscious, crushing an ampule of cyanide in each of their mouths.[12] Although, according to Kunz's later testimony, he gave the children morphine injections but it was Magda Goebbels and SS-Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler's personal doctor, who then administered the cyanide.[13] Shortly afterward, Goebbels and his wife went up the stairs to the ground level and through the Führerbunker's emergency exit to the bombed-out garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they killed themselves. Goebbels' SS adjutant, Günther Schwägermann doused their bodies with petrol, but the remains were only partially burned and not buried.[14]

Post-war events

The ruins of both the old and new Chancellery buildings were levelled by the Soviets between 1945 and 1949 but the bunker complex largely survived, although some areas were partially flooded. In December 1947 the Soviets tried to blow up the bunkers but only the separation walls were damaged. In 1959 the East German government began a series of demolitions as to the Chancellery and also the bunker complex.[15] In 1974, 1.5 metres of water was pumped from inside the bunkers, and the East Germany Stasi conducted a survey of the interior of the Vorbunker; external measurements of the Führerbunker were also taken. Since it was near the Berlin Wall, the site was undeveloped and neglected until after reunification.[16] During the construction of residential housing and other buildings on the site in 1988–89 several underground sections of the bunker complex were uncovered by work crews and were for the most part destroyed (with the Vorbunker’s top and external walls being the first to be torn down).[17]

In 2005, the location of the bunker complex was not marked in any way. The immediate area was occupied by a small Chinese restaurant and shopping mall, while the emergency exit point for the bunker (which had been in the Chancellery garden) was occupied by a parking lot.

On 8 June 2006, on the occasion of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, a small plaque was installed with a schematic diagram of the bunker complex to mark the location. The plaque can be found at the corner of In den Ministergärten and Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße, two small streets about three minutes' walk from Potsdamer Platz. One of Hitler's bodyguards, Rochus Misch, one of the last people living who was in the bunker at the time of Hitler's suicide, was on hand for the ceremony.

Site of the Bunker complex in 2007.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Lehrer 2006, pp. 117, 119.
  2. ↑ Beevor 2002, pp. 278, 380, 381.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lehrer 2006, p. 117.
  4. ↑ Lehrer 2006, pp. 117, 121, 122.
  5. ↑ Lehrer 2006, pp. 121-123.
  6. ↑ Mollo 1988, p. 28.
  7. ↑ Lehrer 2006, p. 123.
  8. ↑ Fischer 2008, pp. 42, 43.
  9. ↑ Lehrer 2006, p. 119.
  10. ↑ Mollo 1988, p. 30.
  11. ↑ Stavropoulos 2009, p. 82.
  12. ↑ Vinogradov 2005, p. 56.
  13. ↑ Beevor 2002, p. 380.
  14. ↑ Beevor 2002, pp. 380, 381.
  15. ↑ Mollo 1988, pp. 48, 49.
  16. ↑ Mollo 1988, pp. 49, 50.
  17. ↑ Mollo 1988, pp. 46, 48, 50-53.

References

  • Beevor, Antony (2002). Berlin – The Downfall 1945. Viking-Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-03041-4. 
  • Fischer, Thomas (2008). Soldiers of the Leibstandarte. J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Inc. ISBN 978-0-921991-91-5. 
  • Lehrer, Steven (2006). The Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker Complex. An Illustrated History of the Seat of the Nazi Regime. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-2393-4. 
  • Mollo, Andrew (1988). "The Berlin Führerbunker: The Thirteenth Hole". In Ramsey, Winston. After the Battle (London: Battle of Britain International) (61). 
  • Stavropoulos, D. (2009). Berlin 1945: The Collapse of the 'Thousand Year' Reich. Squadron-Signal Publications. ISBN 978-0-89747-568-6. 
  • Vinogradov, V. K.; Pogonyi, J.F.; Teptzov, N.V. (2005). Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB. Chaucer Press. ISBN 978-1-904449-13-3. 
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