Wolf's Lair

Thursday, July 16, 2015

It is nice to be able to wake up at a leisurely pace.  As long as we get to breakfast before ten we are home free!  Our plan for today is to take the tour of the site and catch up our blogs (more challenging than we thought because the wifi is remarkably slow!)

We walk next door to the restaurant, show our key and choose a table.  Coffee and tea are available at a small table in the center of the room and we serve ourselves.  The coffee is more like espresso and is good is you add lots of milk and sugar!  The tea, however, is quite lovely.  The waitress brings our set breakfast on two plates each, in addition to the bread basket!  One plate has two hot dogs with a squirt of catsup.  The hot dogs are mild and flavorful and don’t need the catsup.  The other plate has four slices of cheese and several slices of two different kinds of meat, as well as butter and a jam packet which says, “Guten Morgen”.  Mine is cherry.

As you can see, the place isn't as grim
as one might expect.

See the rain chain hanging down from the drain pipe?

The building in which we are staying was the barracks for Hitler's bodyguards!  I wonder how much refurbishing they had to do! 

After breakfast we stop back by reception to see if there is a laundry, which we have to pantomime.  There isn’t;  but we buy a walking map of the site so we can remember what we will be shown.  Then we settle in the lobby, where we can at least get the wifi!  It is really, really slow!  Marilyn is so frustrated!

When the frustration level reaches catastrophic we head to the little shop that sells souvenirs.  We had been told last night that we could check on our guide there.  The girl behind the counter calls her and we arrange to meet in twenty minutes, so we use that time to explore.  There are old German vehicles in which you can tour other parts of the grounds that are not available on foot. 

When we get back to the shop a group is emerging from the forest and we think the leader must be Jadwiga Korowaj. We’re right!  She says that she has a group from South Africa booked next and asks if two o’clock would be all right.  Of course it is and we decide to do a little exploring and see if we can find the shooting range.

The buildings are in pretty good shape considering how hard the Germans tried to destroy the complex before the front passed it in 1944.  The complex is located in an enormous forest and the locals were told that a chemical plant was being constructed.

The name in Polish

The rooms are a bit Spartan, but quite serviceable!

The bathroom is quite nice, with a European shower.

One of the vehicles you can tour in

The money from the extra tours pays for restoration.

The peaceful surroundings belie the awful events that were planned here.  You can even hear the birds singing.

The area covers eight square kilometers and includes eighty “objects” such as bunkers, a sauna, guest quarters, garage and housing.  The bunkers have ceilings eight feet thick!  The entire area was covered in camouflage netting which used Bakelite to simulate foliage.  There were even trees and grass planted on the roofs so that the entire compound would be invisible from the air.

We come back to our rom long enough to have a snack and some water before we meet Jadwiga at two.  She has lived in the area all her life and knows all the stories!  She has photos of herself with some of the descendants of the main players and was even in a Discovery Channel production about Hitler!  And she used to be a dance teacher!

She spends two hours showing us all the structures and even takes us places most people don’t go.  The destruction was the result of explosives placed inside the buildings.  They were constructed so strongly that they couldn’t be damaged from the air, with shock-absorbing spaces between the first and second ceilings and pre-stressed concrete and lots of rebar.  You can still see the places where the electric lines ran and where the netting was attached to the trees.

The encampment was actually constructed in three different stages with the extreme defensive measures being added in the last stage, in 1944.  Many of the buildings are covered in a material that is made of cement and seaweed.  It is was we saw at Auschwitz. Here, it is used for camouflage as well as strength. There is also a lot of red brick which was added simply for appearance sake.

Everywhere there are signs reminding people of the dangers of walking inside the heavily damaged buildings.  

Exposed rebar and metal reinforcements

She shows us a piece of the floor of Hitler’s bunker, which the Poles numbered 13 for fun, with some of the tile still intact.  And she told us the story about the attempted assassination of Hitler by Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, which was the subject of the Tom Cruise movie.  She tells us that the movie was about sixty-percent accurate; there is a German movie which comes closer to the actual story.

When she shows us the tea house, she tells us that Hitler was an insomniac, as well as being claustrophobic and a hypochondriac.  She also noted that he had a preference for children and dogs because they can be molded into whatever you want.

She told us that Hitler’s military name was Mr. Wolf, hence Wolf’s Lair, and his headquarters in the Ukraine was called Werewolf!

The typists worked here.  Hitler didn't trust anyone and required
a transcription of every meeting and briefing that took place.

Large chunks of debris are everywhere.

Raise the roof!

Bormann's bunker was adjacent to Hitler's.
He was Hitler's secretary, which was more like
a personal assistant or right-hand man.

This was a flak shed.

Garages for Hitler's limo and other vehicles.

Photo of Jadwiga with Stauffenber'g's son.

Hitler and Stauffenberg

By four o’clock we are exhausted and starving.  I can’t imagine how Jadwiga is going to manage another tour group at five!  We head straight to the restaurant and pick up a menu inside before settling down at one of the outdoor tables.  Marilyn has schnitzel and French fries and cucumbers with sour cream.  I have “chicken sticks” which turn out to be roasted chicken legs, with fried potatoes (not French fries) and carrot-pineapple salad.  I have two glasses of mead!  I ask our waitress to select a sweet one for me and she brings out a ceramic stemless goblet for me to sample.  It’s lovely!  It’s called Dwojniak Maliniak.  So there!

This marked the location of telephone lines.  The
entire complex was self-contained.

Bat houses are everywhere.

Jadwiga shows us Hitler's bunker.

Electrical box

Floor and wall tiles that Jadwiga found

Bakelite from the camouflage netting

Fireplace from Hitler's annex that adjoined his bunker via
a tunnel.  He was so claustrophobic that he couldn't stay
in the bunker unless necessary.

Holes for wiring and cables

Section of flooring with tiles intact

The concrete seaweed used for camouflage

Memorial to the Polish sappers who cleared 54,000 miles
from the surrounding area.  It took ten years. The cylinder
on the right of the rock is a jumping mine and a land
mine on the ground.

Such a relief to see some of Nature's beauty.  Hollyhocks and apple trees grow around the hotel.

We’d like dessert, but there’s no room!  I was surprised to find that I could get email on my phone, so we decide to see if we get lucky in our room!  By George!  It isn’t any kind of fast, but we’re in for the night so it’s okay that everything takes waaaay longer than we’re used to!  I’m about caught up with the blog and have answered some of my mail!  Marilyn is about to catch up with me, even though Blogger was being particularly difficult for her this morning!

We’ve talked ourselves out of the hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream.  Drat!  I wish I had room but it’s been four or five hours and it still doesn’t sound like a good idea!  Finishing this and going to bed sounds like a great idea!!