Plate 009 — Commanders
REF: BF-PER-009The Fuhrerbunker
Battleship Game - WW2 Naval Strategy: No1 Battleship Game for PC and No3 Aircraft Carrier Game on World Net
Missions and Scenarios:
Pearl Harbor Game
Atlantic Game 1943
Sink Cruisers Game
Midway Game
Iwo Jima Game
US Marines Game
Luftwaffe Game Pacific
Torpedo Game Boats
Bismarck Game Pacific
Destroy RAF Game
Okinawa
Us Navy Submarine Game
Fleet Submarines Game
Kamikaze Game
U Boat Game
Singapore Game
Swordfish Hunt
Patrol Boats
Air Supremacy
Alert
Battleships Game
Java
Defense
Fleet Cruisers Game
Atlantic Island
Coral Sea Game
Iron Sea
Mykonos
Imperial Ocean
Long Convoy
Skagerrak
Target Los Angeles
West Pacific Game
Pacific War Game
Leyte Transport
Emperor Hirohito
Normandy Game
South Pacific Game
Destroy USAF Game
Fuhrerbunker
The Fuhrerbunker ("Leader's bunker") is the name commonly given to the fortification complex of subterranean rooms in Berlin, Germany where Adolf Hitler committed suicide. The complex was in the north-east grounds of the Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellory). 10 m below ground and protected by approximately 3 m of concrete, the thirty rooms were distributed over two levels with exits into the main buildings and an emergency exit into the gardens. The complex was built in two distinct phases, one part in 1936 and the other in 1943. The 1943 development was built by the Hochtief company as part of an extensive program of subterranean construction in Berlin begun in 1940. The accommodation for Hitler was in the newer section.
Hitler moved into the Führerbunker on January 16, 1945. He was joined by his senior staff, Martin Bormann, Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels with all his family. What happened next is uncertain; the accounts of eye-witnesses differ and the popular chronology given by Hugh Trevor-Roper is largely speculative. From the well-known accounts: as the Red Army came closer Hitler's mental state deteriorated; it is reported that after a hysterical meeting on April 22 Hitler was resigned to dying in Berlin and refused to flee. Much of the bunker staff left over April 22-23. On April 23 following a surprise telegram Hitler had Hermann Göring arrested in Berchtesgaden for treason; General Ritter von Greim was appointed his successor. Shells began striking the bunker and surrounding government buildings from April 26. It is said that on the 28thth, after hearing reports that Heinrich Himmler was negotiating with the Allies, Hitler had his representative in the bunker, Hermann Fegelein, executed. Later on the 28th Hitler wrote out his political testament and will and also married Eva Braun. In the early afternoon of April 30, with the Red Army only a mile away, Hitler committed suicide by gunshot; Eva was found dead with him apparently from poison. Both bodies were taken up to the surface and burned. On May 1 Goebbels and his wife Magda poisoned their six children and then committed suicide; their bodies were also burned.
The Reichskanzlei was destroyed by the Soviets in 1945 but the bunker largely survived. Near the Berlin Wall the site was undeveloped until after reunification. During the construction of residential housing and other buildings on the site in 1988-89 the underground structures were largely destroyed. The Reichskanzlei was situated at the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Vossstrasse. Further parts of the Reichskanzlei underground complex were often uncovered during the extensive construction work of the 1990s, but they were ignored, filled in or quickly resealed.
Currently the location of the bunker is not marked. The area is instead occupied by a small Chinese restaurant and mini mall while the emergency exit point for the bunker in what was the Reichskanzlei gardens is now occupied by a car park.
The center of Hitler’s governmental district was situated at the Wilhelmstrasse corner Vossstrasse, some hundred metres south of the Brandenburger Tor. Here was the place of the Foreign Ministry, the Old Reichskanzlei and - with the house number Vossstrasse 1 to 19 - the New Reichskanzlei, that was constructed by Albert Speer.
Already in 1933 Hitler arranged for building of Air Raid Shelters in the Governance Area. The first segment of his later bunker construction has been completed in 1935, in the cellar of the new built great festival room behind the Reichskanzlei. The thickness of the ceiling was 160 cm at first. Lateron it had been strengthened by 1 m.
The complex called ?Vorbunker’ (pre-bunker) was in 1943 enlarged by the ?Hauptbunker’ (main bunker). This noticeably lower lying building was ready for occupancy at the beginning of 1945. The outer walls were about 4 m wide, the partition walls 50 cm, the thickness of the ceiling was also about 4 m. The effective area of about 250 m? was split into 20 rooms. An unpleasant narrowness prevailed.
The main bunker (Hauptbunker) was connected with the Vorbunker over an airlock and stairs. In the Hauptbunker Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun occupied several rooms. Goebbels as well had a workroom and a bedroom here. The remaining rooms were determined for the guards and the medical attendant. Besides there were a small and a large conference room, a wash-, machine-, telephone- and radio-room in that complex.
Beside other persons, the Goebbels family inhabited the Vorbunker during the last weeks of the war. The conditions in this underground walls downgraded increasingly. In addition to the disturbing noise caused by steadily running aeration ventilators, there was a cool moistness in the rooms as Berlin has a very high ground-water level.
The Fuehrerbunker was only one of about 20 air raid shelters of the Reich government in the nearby environment. In addition many cellars of the surrounding buildings were used as auxiliary bunkers.
1947 First try of the Red Army to detonate the bunker. During that explosion the partitions broke down but the rest remained undamaged but was filled with groundwater.
In 1959 the former GDR-government took a second attempt to destroy the bunker but entirely in vain. Finally sand was heaped up upon the bunker.
After 1973 the complex was examined in detail by the Staatssicherheit (safety of the state) of the GDR. But they were not interested in historical research, in fact they followed up rumors according to which people could get from and to West-Berlin through underground passages. They however did not find such channels.
Since 1988 buildings made with precast concrete slabs were built up in that area and during this action also the ceiling of the bunker and the partitions of the Vorbunker have been dynamited piecewise now. Only the bowl - consisting of side walls and base plate - and filled with excavations, remained in the ground. Above the ground absolute nothing of the construction can be seen anymore. Beneath a swing for children and a sandbox, there is a parking lot.
Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva (née Braun), committed suicide with him by ingesting cyanide.That afternoon, in accordance with Hitler's prior instructions, their remains were carried up the stairs through the bunker's emergency exit, doused in petrol and set alight in the Reich Chancellery garden outside the bunker. The Soviet archives record that their burnt remains were recovered and interred in successive locations until 1970 when they were again exhumed, cremated and the ashes scattered.
There have been different accounts citing the cause of his death; one that he died by poison only[8] and another that he died by a self-inflicted gunshot, while biting down on a cyanide capsule.[9] Contemporary historians have rejected these accounts as being either Soviet propaganda or an attempted compromise in order to reconcile the different conclusions. There was also an eye-witness account that recorded the body showing signs of having been shot through the mouth but this has been proven unlikely. There is also controversy regarding the authenticity of skull and jaw fragments which were recovered. Further, the exact location of where Hitler's ashes were scattered also differs, depending on the historical source consulted.