The Wolfs Lair and Tannenberg Sixty Years After

Author(s): Daniel J. Meador

Source: The Sewanee Review , Fall, 2007, Vol. 115, No. 4 (Fall, 2007), pp. 632-641
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40211661

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 THE STATE OF LETTERS

THE WOLFS LAIR AND TANNENBERG

SIXTY YEARS AFTER

DANIEL J. MEADOR

On a cloudless spring day in May 2004 I am motoring north out of W

passing into what was once East Prussia. This expanse of flat land bor
ing the Baltic Sea and dotted with the Masurian Lakes was the eastern
province of Germany before 1945, going back centuries to the time w
Order of Teutonic Knights swept across it from the west. At the end of
War II the northeastern part, including the capitol, Konigsberg (rena
Kaliningrad), was bitten off by the Soviet Union. The rest, through
am traveling, was assigned to Poland. With the Germans now long go
names of all the towns and villages have been confusingly changed in
ish, requiring my Baedeker (1904 edition) to be supplemented by a cu
table showing the name conversions. My destination, as I move north
spot in the deep woods just beyond Rastenburg, now Ketrzyn (pronou
Ken-schen). That spot is the abandoned Wolfs Lair. The wolf who inh
it sixty years ago was Adolf Hitler.
Construction of the Wolfs Lair began secretly in 1940 to create a h
quarters for Hitler from which he could oversee the invasion of the
Union, only thirty miles away. Conquest of the Soviet Union was
Hitlers ultimate objective - to crush Bolshevism and to expand lebens
for the German people. That long-planned invasion commenced o
22, 1941. Two days later Hitler and his entourage of high-ranking mi
officers arrived at his Wolfs Lair headquarters, four hundred miles no
of Berlin. For the next three and a half years he made this his home;
here more than anywhere else and left infrequently.
Code-named Operation Barbarossa, that invasion was, and remain
largest military operation in world history. It involved four million
3,350 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,000 aircraft. Although motori
many respects, in this campaign the Wehrmacht employed 600,000 h
to tow guns, ambulances, and ration wagons. This vast force was orga
into three army groups, all directed personally by Hitler from the Wol
(Wolfsschanze in German).
For years I had read of activities at the Wolfs Lair: visitations by f
dignitaries and leading figures of the Third Reich; Hitler s directives
mining the fate of millions; his tirades; his constant medical problems;
increasing detachment from reality. But I had never encountered a p

© 2007 by Daniel J. Meador

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 THE STATE OF LETTERS 633

description of the place. I had assumed that it, lik

was an assemblage of tents or temporary, hastily co
But that assumption proved to be far off the mark
As I discover on this trip, the Wolfs Lair was a l
self-contained world. It occupied 2.5 square kilome
structures. They consisted of barracks, mess halls
conference rooms, post office, cinema, power statio
kers, hospital, and quarters for military officers, t
and other personnel. It had a telephone system and
necting it with the far-flung military commands. A r
it, with its own station and platform.
The inner core, Zone 1, was where Hitler and his
housed. It was surrounded by two concentric rin
each encircled by barbed wire and other fortifi
quarters for personnel not cleared for Zone 1. Zon
by minefields. Access from the outer world was th
entrances into Zone 3. SS troops guarded the entire
was located three miles away, toward Rastenbur
people, military and civilian, worked and lived in o
Wolfs Lair.
The description of observers that the place was i
sian forest" is still accurate. It is in nowhere, heavil
edge of the Masurian Lakes, an area of low swampy
that a worse site could not have been chosen. An
here in this dirty green, gloomy airless forest enca
swathed in fog, and it has an exceptionally nasty
compete with even the ugliest village pub, and fri
rack huts that are either overheated or freezing."
the stenographers recorded: "How beautiful it is o
resplendent with luscious greenery. The woods bre
quility. The wooden hutments, including ours, hav
bricked in for protection against bomb splinters. W
Its become a second home to us." There was much
that it was freezing cold in winter and sweltering
General Alfred Jodl said it was a cross between a cl
camp. Today it is not a public or state-owned histo
think; but it is privately owned and operated, ope
fee. Most tourists are Poles and Germans, the latt
thousands. It is clearly not on the American touri
rare sight.
We approach it along a blacktop road from Rastenburg (I adhere to the
German name), passing through dense woods and the site of the outer ring
and first gate. For some distance there would have been minefields, then
the second checkpoint. Another mile brings us past a third checkpoint, now

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634 THE STATE OF LETTERS

vanished like the others. As we pull up to a paved p

what was Zone 1, we find seven busloads of Germa
Fortunately they are completing their tour, so aft
the place to ourselves. My Polish driver and guide,
times, says he cannot figure out whether the Germ
of what they see.
Bordering the parking lot is a two-story building,
Wolfs Lair that has been reconstructed. It housed
it is a small hotel and restaurant. Here we obtain m
then set out on foot. Immediately I am hit with s
must continually brush them away from my face
during the war that German troops poured oil on t
ing them, but also killing the frogs. Hitler had bee
nightly sounds that frogs had to be imported and t
We move along winding dirt paths, entering wha
sanctum. Sixty years ago we would have had to pass
a heavily guarded checkpoint. No one could enter h
est ranking field marshals, without a special pass f
chief of security. But now we stroll along undeter
tall trees forms an almost complete overhead ca
gloomy - and eerie too. Some of the trees have gro
but venerable trunks and gnarled roots protruding
many were there when Hitler and his military com
are walking. Except for the cacophony of birdcalls
is spookily quiet and devoid of human life now that
gone.
The bunker ruins are the most impressive and su
bunkers were massive concrete structures. Hitler a
cials regularly in residence had his own persona
Hermann Goering, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keite
Jodl, Albert Speer, Martin Bormann. High-rankin
at the Wolfs Lair from time to time, such as Fore
Ribbentrop, Admiral Karl Donitz, SS Reichfuehrer
propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the fam
Erwin Rommel had access to guest bunkers. (Mo
the war were later in the dock at Nuremberg. Dea
out on Ribbentrop, Keitel, and Jodl. Goering recei
cheated the gallows by committing suicide.) Each b
identified that way on the map. They are all in var
German troops attempted to destroy them on Janu
approaching Red Army was only two days away. T
narily difficult, inasmuch as the bunkers were buil
withstanding intense bombardment. Thousands of
used. No bunker was left intact, but parts of mon

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 THE STATE OF LETTERS 635

do remain amidst mountains of concrete rubble. Many

completely demolished. The Wolfs Lair today is a c
untouched since January 1945.
Hitlers bunker (number 13), centrally located in Zon
Nearly 200 feet long and sixty-six feet high, its win
roof were at least twenty-six feet thick. Albert Spee
an ancient Egyptian tomb. At one end was an annex h
the other end was an annex containing Hitler s study
could live and work if he was not in his bunker. The w
but six feet thick. They are now gone, but one massiv
Literature on the Wolfs Lair is unclear about the liv
those who had personal bunkers. Some of it sugges
lived in those tomblike structures. That seems to be w
are accounts, for example, of his all-night monologue
a captive audience. It was lit by a single lightbulb, th
cool and damp, and exhaust fans rattled incessantly.
physician there are frequent references to cold drafts
the bunker and the need for Hitler to move to more
the fall of 1944 he was ill much of the time, when he
minutes a day in the fresh air outside the bunker. H
urged him to get outside of that damp and low-oxyg
evidence my Polish guide says that these bunkers we
event of an air raid and that the individuals actually li
less formidable structures. That may have been true o
ler, but it seems clear that Hitler actually lived in th
nearly twenty-four hours a day for months on end.
Bormanns bunker (number 11) was northwest of
along the path to the southeast, coming to Keitel s b
farther on along the path to Goerings (number 15). N
ture, still semi-intact, described as Goerings teahouse.
Luftwaffe commander entertained in its wood-panele
Goerings bunker and several others are described as
boxes. They had an inner wall and an outer wall. T
between the two was filled with gravel, to act as a sh
walls varied in thickness. All were at least twenty fe
as thick as Hitlers. The guest bunker, in Zone 1 near
contained two rooms and was 148 feet long and 89 fe
The entire Wolfs Lair was heavily camouflaged. Tre
planted on top of each bunker, and plantings were ch
to blend in with the natural foliage. Sea grass was im
bunker walls, which were painted gray-green. Nettin
paths and roads. The result was to conceal the Wolfs
tion. That it was never bombed is proof of the camouf
is doubtful that the United States, Britain, or the So

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636 THE STATE OF LETTERS

its exact location, although its existence may have bee

But the Germans were prepared. Antiaircraft guns we
tower in Zone 1. In addition three antiaircraft guns w
bunker and two on top of Hitler s bunker.
The railroad line and station were in Zone 2, just
track is gone, but the roadbed remains. Also in Zone 2
for the Luftwaffe, navy, and foreign ministry, as well a
and the SS quarters (now the hotel and restaurant). A
there. (A field hospital was in nearby Rastenburg.)
Of all the important happenings at the Wolfs Lair d
a-half years it served as Hitlers headquarters, the mo
remembered today is the assassination attempt of Jul
housing the conference room where it took place was
ent parking lot. Today only rubble remains. I stand t
recording the event, one that is fraught with far-rea
had it come out otherwise. Although this attempt ha
times, it warrants a brief retelling.
The central figure is Colonel Claus Schenk, Coun
member of a distinguished Swabian family. In the Afr
badly wounded, losing his right hand, two fingers from
eye. (He wore a black patch.) He was one of numerous
officers, most from families of ancient lineage, who
that Hitler was dragging Germany down to ruin and
prevent disaster was to remove him by assassination.
attempts, but all had failed. When in July 1944 Stauff
from Berlin to the Wolfs Lair to report to Hitler on
and his conspirators saw this as their next opportunity
Early on the morning of July 20 Stauffenberg and
in on the plan, flew to the Wolfs Lair. In his briefcas
powerful bomb. After landing they passed through t
but the briefcase was not examined. Stauffenberg, w
to the Wolfs Lair, was known to the guards. After b
Field Marshal Keitel at about noon. Keitel told him that because Mussolini
was scheduled to arrive that afternoon the fuhrer wanted to begin the brief-
ing at 12:30. Stauffenberg asked to step aside to change his shirt. A staff
officer showed him and his adjutant to his private room. There Stauffenberg,
using his three remaining fingers, armed the bomb by crushing an acid vial
with a pair of pliers. The chemical would eat through a thin wire, detonat-
ing the bomb within ten to fifteen minutes. With the briefcase in hand, he
walked with Keitel along the pathway to the conference room (sometimes
referred to as the map room or the briefing room). I have often wondered
what Stauffenberg was thinking on that short walk as the acid ate away at
the bomb detonator and the seconds and minutes ticked by. Outwardly he
was calm and relaxed, demonstrating uncommon self-control. If this were a

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 THE STATE OF LETTERS 637

scene in a movie, one would hear rising background m

ume and tension with every step, perhaps with the so
thumping ever louder.
In the briefing room twenty-three officers stood ar
wooden table. A large map was spread out in front of
nographers were the only ones seated. General Adolf
Hitlers right, was explaining the deteriorating situatio
Keitel took a position on Hitlers left. Stauffenberg m
of Heusinger and slid the briefcase under the table n
support. The bomb was six feet from Hitler. It was 1
remained before the bomb would explode. Stauffenbe
having told Keitel a few minutes earlier that he was ex
phone call. Apparently everyone was so intent on the
ture went unnoticed. An officer standing next to Heu
better look at the map, encountered the briefcase wi
down and moved it around to the other side of the wo
move that was destined to alter the course of history.
Stauffenberg walked to the communications center
the southeast. There he met General Fellgiebel, one o
a key figure in the plot. It would be his job to send
assassination to the other conspirators in Berlin and o
all communications from the Wolfs Lair. Outside the
12:42 the bomb exploded, sending up plumes of smok
room building.
Stauffenberg and his adjutant walked quickly to his
in a now vanished parking area in the middle of Zon
the Wolfs Lair, but not before encountering momen
the checkpoints. Shortly after 1 p.m. they reached th
for Berlin, thinking the plot had succeeded.
The bomb s force had been dissipated because windo
room were open to alleviate the summer heat, but it
havoc. Flames shot up; smoke engulfed the room; glass
flew everywhere. The floor buckled up three feet. F
including the Luftwaffe chief of staff. Several others
But Hitler had miraculously survived, although his c
his ears bleeding, his face blackened with smoke, and
move of the briefcase to the other side of the heavy
saved him. It is surprising that he was able to greet M
in good style when he arrived at the railroad station in
pictures of the two dictators, smiling and standing t
platform, one would never guess that Hitler had bee
explosion only a few hours earlier.
Stauffenberg was arrested and put to death that ni
weeks the conspirators and many suspected of being i

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638 THE STATE OF LETTERS

executed, nearly 5,000 in all. They included top-rank

highly educated individuals, and representatives of G
lies. It was their view that the attempt on Hitlers lif
if it failed, for the honor of Germany. In that sense
cessful. He is one of the very few Germans from Wor
esteem today. Forty-eight years later, on July 20, 199
here to this spot for the installation of the memorial
As I stand here on the very path along which Stauff
that fateful encounter, I feel an almost palpable conn
Indeed the Wolfs Lair as a whole, at least in my imag
a peculiar way the whole upper echelon of the Third R
vividness is intensified by the photographs in the book
Then and Now - The Wolfs Lair in Pictures. Appea
tree-shaded pathways in front of the bunkers, in a m
shots, chatting and smiling, often with Hitler, is that
ters - field marshals, generals, admirals, ministers, an
were to assemble anywhere, I can imagine it would mo
deserted headquarters, in this deep-shaded gloom in t
moonlit midnight.
In his megalomania Hitler claimed that some ill-def
specifically invoke divine providence) had ordained
save the German nation. His survival of the bomb ex
view. My own interpretation is that he was indeed pre
even divine providence, not to save Germany but to t
Its sins had to be paid for, and those sins were so en
short of total defeat and destruction would suffice.
On November 20, 1944, Hitler left the Wolfs Lair f
that one-time seat of his regime, he had seen the Ge
from the pinnacle of military might in Barbarossa, th
loss of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, to a general retr
ern front. A specter long haunting the German high
of Napoleon s Grand Armee - was turning into grim
on a grander scale. Now the Red Army had become an
advancing inexorably westward, and the Americans an
in from the other side. From then on to the end Hitle
his Berlin bunker, issuing orders increasingly irration
ceased to play any part in the tragic drama of World
German demolition efforts, the Red Army was depriv
capturing intact Hitlers supreme headquarters.
Our tour complete, we leave the Wolfs Lair, driv
through the East Prussian countryside, to find the ob
of German self-destruction - the Tannenberg monum
tures stretch away to distant trees, reminding me of
my birthplace, after it was converted from cotton to

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 THE STATE OF LETTERS 639

large landed estates with huge manor houses datin

century and earlier. But they are all gone, along w
who inhabited them and the multitude of Germans who worked this land.
In its advance through here in 1945, the Red Army destroyed those historic
houses and much history with them. Germans who did not escape to the
West or were not killed were later expelled. This is all Polish now.
We pass through Olsztyn, once Allenstein, a leading town of old East Prus-
sia, badly damaged by Soviet forces. We continue south, now moving over
the ground where German and Russian armies fought in August 1914. In
sixteen miles we reach the village of Tannenberg, from which that battle took
its name. Nearby is the village of Grunwald.
Between the two villages we come upon a massive stone monument com-
memorating the battle in 1410 when the Poles and Lithuanians defeated
the Teutonic Knights. It was erected in the 1960s by the Polish communist
regime, together with a visitors' center and educational building. Polish flags
flap vigorously overhead in the chilly late afternoon wind.
My interest, however, is in the 1914 battle. There, in the opening days
of the First World War, over much of this same ground, a German army of
153,000 under Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg encircled and destroyed
a Russian army of 191,000. The battle lasted four days and sprawled for miles
southeastwardly from where we now are. It made Hindenburg into a living
legend.
To commemorate this spectacular victory, the Germans erected a gigantic
fortresslike memorial. Hindenburg himself dedicated the laying of the cor-
nerstone in 1924 before a crowd of 100,000. Inspired by Stonehenge and
influenced by expressionism, the memorial consisted of a vast open space
enclosed by an octagon-shaped stone wall. The memorial was dominated by
eight stone towers over sixty feet tall, one on each side of the immense octa-
gon. In each, spiral decorative stairways led upward; openings in the walls
provided views of the whole as one ascended. Memorial rotundas in several
of the towers featured stained-glass windows, commemorative plaques, and
statuary. Inside the connecting stone walls were corridors along which were
interred unknown German soldiers in sarcophagi under recumbent military-
clad figures. At his death in 1934 Hindenburg was interred in the memorial
with all the Wagnerian pomp the Hitler government could muster.
Just over ten years later, in January 1945, German troops, in an action like
that at the Wolfs Lair, attempted to dynamite the memorial to prevent its
capture intact by the advancing Red Army. Before doing so, they removed
the bodies of Hindenburg and his wife; they were reinterred in Marburg.
Destroying such a dramatic symbol of one of their nations greatest triumphs
must have been extraordinarily painful. It strikes me as analogous to a sol-
diers committing suicide to prevent being taken by the enemy. Demolition
of this monumental structure was apparently as difficult as demolition of the
bunkers at the Wolfs Lair, and the Germans' effort was incomplete. The

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640 THE STATE OF LETTERS

Russians finished the job, thus deriving at least some

ing the remains of this monument to their humiliatio
To my surprise, my generally well-informed Polish
about this memorial or where it was located. Since it
as the Tannenberg monument, we make inquiry amo
village, but they are unable to help us. They vaguely r
somewhere in the forest there were some stones, but
the site is. I surmise from what they say that the rui
over the years and that all the remnants have been c
I realize that there is little to see, I nevertheless wan
and get some sense of what was there. It is disappoint
is amnesia about that grandiose architectural creat
remains to let the world know that the battle ever to
Later I learn that the monument was located near t
stein (now called Olsztynek), between Tannenberg an
unknowingly passed by the site. I am also informed la
arch and barely discernible rubble remain.
This loss of memory of 1914 is in stark contrast wit
tion of 1410 that we have just observed. It seems to m
cal events, overlapping territorially, equally deserve
they produced tens of thousands of deaths on these n
Why the difference in historical treatment?
On reflection the explanation - or what I assume to
becomes clear. In post- 1945 Poland there was much a
national pride, with emphasis on historical happening
At the same time the Soviet communists, in control of
postwar decades, were eager to take advantage of any
could be given an anti-Western slant. The Poles' defeat
1410 fit right in with both of those interests. But, as
would have no incentive, to put it mildly, to comme
defeat. And the Poles have little concern with a battle
part and in which each of the combatants had at var
carved up their country. In short, with this territory
many, there is no one around with any desire to rem
is ironic that the Germans themselves took the first s
memory by beginning the destruction of that great m
The day is far gone, the evening shadows lengtheni
toward Warsaw, ninety miles away. In brooding over
this day, it occurs to me that much of Germany's to
tury history is symbolized by the two sites I have vis
catastrophic period, marking its beginning and its en
heightened by both sites being in land lost forever t
of Tannenberg in 1914 - its site unmarked, forgotten
triumphal opening round of a long series of German

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 THE STATE OF LETTERS 641

ties both victorious and disastrous were accompanie

and led three decades later to the nation s doom. At
decades stands the forlorn ruin of the Wolfs La
of unmatched military might and despotic rule, n
served and visited by a quarter-million persons an
trasting tourist interest in these two sites reflects
While Tannenberg ought to be remembered - thos
doomed to repeat it - it is far more important for t
what occurred at the Wolfs Lair not be forgotten.

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

ROBERT LACY

I first read James Jones s From Here to Eternity in the summer of 1954
getting ready to attend college on a football scholarship. Actually it wa
junior college and a half scholarship. I was seventeen at the time, and Jon
novel had been published three years earlier. I don't remember wh
came across it, but it was probably downtown at one of the drugstore pa
back racks I used to haunt in Marshall, Texas, where I grew up. At
hundred-plus pages, the novel must have been a "paperback giant," as t
were termed in those days, and it may have cost me thirty-five cents in
of the usual quarter. It had a drawing of a bugle on its black cover.
I read three big military novels that summer. The other two were Ba
Cry by Leon Uris and The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat. Battle
which dealt with the Marines in World War II, was execrably written a
extremely gung ho. The Cruel Sea concerned the British Navy in the N
Sea, also during World War II, and I found it a bit alien but fairly well writ
I enjoyed all three novels - I was heavily into things military at the time
it was From Here to Eternity that stuck with me. Now there, I told myse
seventeen, was a book.
My near contemporary and fellow Texan Larry McMurtry must
felt much the same way. When he wrote his first novel, Horseman, Pa
(which Hollywood would call Hud), several years later, what was it he had
point-of-view character, the sixteen-year-old Lonnie, reading? It was F
Here to Eternity, of course. This was back in the days when teenage boys
read novels, quaint as that now seems.
The second time I read From Here to Eternity was in the fall of 1964

© 2007 by Robert Lacy

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